And The Beat Goes On

Pss. 55:6 “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.”

And The Beat Goes On

In between all the angst of the chemo days, a lot of cruddy things happen in what seems like the beat of a drum. One thing, two thing rat a tat tat, and the beat goes on. This might be the proof I needed to show you that NEGATIVITY breeds NEGATIVITY! All of the instances below began at the beginning of the acceptance of Herceptin, it's when everything was negative to me.

In the midst of our illnesses (my hubby's and mine), our three-year-old fridge decides to make an extremely loud clanking noise in the middle of the night. Loud and irritating, (fridge not hubby) my husband decides to be jarred awake and go bang on the side of the rowdy fridge. The clanking stopped, but the momentum had the cookie jar on top of the fridge, toppling over, the lid came crashing down on the floor shattering into a million pieces, and at three o’clock in the morning, clear eyes are not to be had! Clean up. * sigh *

Then our twenty-year-old clothes dryer decides to play the fridge game and begins its own riotous annoying noise. Not at three a.m. and still heating and drying, its all good, just a pain in the EAR!

His twenty-one-year-old truck decides it’s going to do some booming and banging and as we were heading home from the doctors one day the clanking was obviously the muffler, that had fallen off, dragging behind us. We pulled into a safe place (there are no safe sides of the road here), and hubby pulls the muffler off and places it in the back of the truck. We don’t litter. More sighs are in the works with maybe a few eye-rolls. Next...

Hubby looks all over for his thirteen-year-old phone. I hear something heavy and noisy clanking (this post title should be clanking) in the washer that he had just loaded and started up. I tell him the noise doesn’t sound right from a new washer, but as a man (all men) who don’t listen, goes on with his day, until its time to get clothes out of the washer and what drops to the floor? His phone! The old phone went through the entire wash, rinse and spin cycle. He fruitlessly tries to save it, to no avail. He panics. Our phones are everything to us out here in the middle of nowhere with no landline. Besides being a shop-o-holic, the man is addicted to technology (like the rest of the world)!!!!!

I finish up the clothes, drying and folding and putting away as he runs off to the store to buy a new phone. Payment will just be added to our bill so no out of empty-pocket cash necessary. My anxiety rears its head because it just seems like everything is hitting us and hitting us hard. The fridge, the dryer, the truck, chemo crud, and a clinging cold/allergy session, and now, the phone.

Two hours later he returns with what they had to offer. A deal. UH OH! I hope he didn’t… he did. He fell for what they had to offer: a Smartphone and a FREE tablet with all the fixins and trimmings. A case, a keyboard, and they even tossed in some GPS thing for the car. Swindled. A week later he was returning, the phone shield (not free) and protective phone cover, keyboard to the tablet and the case (also not free). For what they were charging him HUNDREDS of dollars for, he purchased on Amazon for under fifty bucks!

I happen to despise the smartphone and everything that it stands for. I’ll hold my ground with my stupid phone as long as I can, but wouldn’t you know it, ironically, maybe less than two weeks later since his purchase, my phone stops working. Keys don’t function, the battery barely holds a charge, and the only key that worked in the end, was a way to get my contacts before my dumb-phone went dark, never to open its eyes again. 

I cried! I wanted my stupid phone! My only active contacts on the phone were my texts to my son, a text to hubby when he was on break at work, and two calls on the weekend to my mother. That’s it! Now the phone has gone into the ether. What will this poor woman do??

Hubby snapped into action, he ordered me a phone online and it would take two days to arrive. Thank God my son has a FB messenger app that when I write to him from Facebook, it goes right to his phone. Two days not talking to him, my lifeline, would tear me to pieces. Facebook finally came in handy! The only problem? With our phone service (I have no idea what it all entails, and I don’t care to know. Technology is a blank to me, a total blank!) the only phone they force on you is, you guessed it, the Smartphone! They offer NOTHING but smartphones! 

So my phone conveniently goes up in a puff of smoke when his phone was accidentally fried. Now I'm forced to get a new phone. It’s a conspiracy. It seems everything can and is going wrong like a train derailment skidding into a stop position but no sign of slowing any time soon.
But wait all of this began happening when my perky positive self took a turn for the worse. I’m an optimist, positive sharer of love, and giver of smiles and joy, but when I knew I was going for chemo in the vein, my world toppled! TOPPLED! I lost hope, I lost laughter and joy and optimism. Optimism is what God wanted me to have but hope was veiled, I couldn’t find positivity and every single day it is a struggle to see the Light shine, and lack of sun and warmth is no help.

Also on the familial level, I feel like a forgotten soul. Do you know how hard it is to love online Spiritual Family, that actually embraces me daily, more than any other family I'm connected to? Don’t get me wrong, I love the families God has surrounded me with but it is hard to see people as caring with an every-three-month email or visit (if that) saying I’m praying for you, hope things are okay. I’ve shut down. If you want to know how I am ask ME, I’ll be glad to tell you, if you don’t ask, I won’t, it’s that easy.

I’ve written a blog for well over ten years. My family could sure learn a lot about me if they read the pain in my words but no, they’ll wait until I pass and say, “How come I didn’t know about this?” Well, you did but you didn’t care enough to read the very heart and soul of the one you claimed to have loved.

Now to turn this around into a positive! I HAVE to see positive beauty in life, the life I WANT to live and not give up on. I have a husband, a son, and a Spiritual Family that cares for me, touches me, and gives me strength every single day to go on and be the me they know me to be! I am HER!!! It’s just hard digging her out of the trenches the sandy soil has encompassed me with.

The truck still runs, the chemo might get better, we did get new phones (that’s a whole different story) and my hardy Salvias are trying to peek their heads out and show me that life IS worth sticking around for. Until I got wind of a Blizzard Warning for the end of the week. HA HA HA HA! 

I’m looking up! I need to continue writing because that is the emotional healing that I NEED. Where you all follow along, read, and support me, my family here doesn’t know much at all and is full of questions. That pretty much sets me back because my path is NOT the path they’d choose, nor would any of you for that matter, but you RESPECT my chosen path! I love you for that. 

When I say I don’t look forward to living. The family gasps! You guys reading this understand me and know that this is just a phase and offer prayer, support and strength as I wiggle my way through this setback. You lift me up and make me WANT to live! Give me a REASON to live! And just as I typed this I peeked at Facebook before posting this and here’s what greeted me. “Our thoughts and feelings have an electromagnetic reality. Manifest wisely.” 

I think my Spiritual Family actually gets this, I thank you and love you for knowing and understanding me! Manifest positivity and it powers through! Manifest negativity and everything can and will go wrong. 

Mark 1:10  "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:”

Loose Strings

Job 38:31 “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?”

Loose Strings

I need to tie up some loose strings from yesterday’s post.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that the day I came home from the doctors I went to sit on the back steps. I wanted to shed a few happy tears and just sit in a quiet moment of prayerful gratitude. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and right there beside me was my Toady Frog. Yeah, I named him Toady Frog! He was there once again and every day I go out the front or back door, he seems to be near. He’s my new friend. I am actually in the habit now of opening the door and saying, “Where’s my Toady Frog?” If he’s not there he usually is by the next time the door opens.

I also wanted to mention all the stress I was under a month ago. My son seeking a job was really stressing us both, and I as his mother wanted him to succeed in his search, he as a fighter of all things young adult wants to move forward in life and for six months, nothing was panning out. Finally, he got a job he REALLY wanted. The first job at the food store was a food chopper at a salad bar, minimum hours and slave drivers behind the wheel. When the hotel called him, the job he REALLY wanted, he jumped at the offer of more money and more hours! He was happy, and so was I, until he asked for a week off.

Just so you know and I imagine the majority of you do, when your child (young man) makes a decision, it is his own and nothing can stop him. He wanted to take a bus trip out of the state and he had not really planned it out but he was determined. I let it all work out on its own (he eventually changed his mind) and it took my stress away immediately.

Then there was my husband’s tooth pain. I’m sure all of you can relate to a throbbing pain that keeps you up at night popping ibuprofen for what seems every hour on the hour, right? I’ve been there done that, myself.

In doing all of my research these past six months and my new love for coconut oil, I found that the coconut oil was used for tooth pain. Now I didn’t expect hubby to believe me because let's be honest, who would think coconut oil for tooth pain, right? Well, he researched it himself and sure enough, he read that it worked, too.

That night hubby was whooshing coconut oil in his mouth for five minutes. He said the thought of holding coconut oil in your mouth and whooshing it around sounded gross at first but didn’t taste all that bad. Now let me add here, he was ready to take off of work the next day because he was in so much pain and such as it was, it was a Sunday evening. The next day he arose and went into work. When we talked later in the day I asked how his tooth was, his words, “Not bad." He had only taken two ibuprofen because he ‘thought’ the pain would surface but the entire day he went, with no pain! He had made a dentist appointment that day but there was a two-week wait.

Night after night he did the coconut oil and now he swears by the stuff. By the end of the week, he was eating his sweets. The tooth no longer hurt! He went to the dentist when the two weeks were up, and he told his dentist about the oil. The dentist said that the person who had just left told him the same thing about the coconut oil! So here is Joni’s sage advice this day, toothache pain can be resolved with coconut oil. I have the organic coconut oil so I don’t know how well other brands work.

My doctor visit was mounting stress for me too. I knew I needed the visit but sure wasn’t looking forward to setting myself up for a letdown. But as you read yesterday, that problem was resolved too. Everything turned out okay! Waiting for the test results are not stressful because good or bad results, it will be the knowledge I need to move forward in my treatment.

Yesterday came and I woke feeling empowered. I felt like the woman I had been for the last month was gone and the Joni I knew myself to be was back in control. I was ready to face the world and my day after my shower of course.

It was my normal morning cleansing of myself but what happened when I went to dry my hair, I was not expecting. Electric shock! Yes, you read that correctly. I was nonchalantly plugging in my straightening iron and it happened, sparks flew, tingling ran up my fingers and in a micro second the utensil went flying out of my hands, fingers blackened and singed, yet I was alive. Tearful but alive! Grateful but alive! Shaken but ALIVE!

I began to cry and I called my husband in. He was sitting at his computer and came in and asked what happened. All I could do was hold up my blackened fingers and weep. He reached and quickly unplugged the instrument and threw it in the trash. There was an obvious short in the frayed wires. No fire or anything just a nice shock to my system. I jokingly told my husband, “If that doesn’t cure cancer, nothing will!” 

My strings unraveled and I let loose the ties that bound my soul. I’m good, all is well and Joni is almost back to her old self! Look out world! 

Matt. 18: 18 “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Lost

Job 21: 3 Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on.
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Lost
 All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp
***

I feel like I am a rock
sticking out of the sand.
A tired misplaced object
in a foreign land.

I feel like I'm a cactus
on the wetlands shore.
Lost amid the foliage,
of things gone on before.

I feel I am an empty limb
no digits to complete.
No hand to touch, the arm to reach,
Two legs without my feet.

I feel I am dark matter
In the blazing sun-dripped sky.
A bird flung high into a cloud,
No wings for me to fly.

I feel as though I'm a snow- white dove,
Flocked amid the geese.
I see them fly north and south,
Whereas I just seek peace.

Make me feel like I'm a song,
a rhythm to your beat.
Hold me in your wandering thoughts.
Where truth and love can meet.
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp