The Story Continues

John 7: 16-17 "Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

The Story Continues

The story continues. As you know I've been having side effects from Herceptin; pretty major ones too, and I was fearing to go to the doctor. Earlier in the month I had my issues, Hubby had his unending cold/pneumonia, the road crew had their issues with digging up the roads after the flood and my house had its problems with the toilet leaking water all over the floor, in the basement and also the roof needing a major renovation, not having been done in twenty years or so. Then there was the sale of the property and the takeover by the new landlord. Whew, what a month of May, and it isn't even over yet.

The month May blew in with winter still hot on its heels. Yes, winter, meaning 35 degrees at night, meaning heater clicking on during the day, meaning cold in this drafty old house. I don't even know what issue to tackle first. How about small to big? 

The flood. Washed out roads all over Nebraska and we being way on the outskirts of town saw our road dwindle and wash away. The graders who tried to grade the road saw there was nothing to grade so a new plan was in place and that was to the pave the old dirt road after I don't know how many years. I know it's been a wish of mine for some time. That was at the end of March and beginning of April but storms and cold kept them from work. A month later in the middle of May, we're now seeing signs of the paved road and people can almost go back to normal. Almost...still a five-mile detour routes and we wait.

The house sale. Sitting at my desk my husband turned to me from his desk announcing, "Well it looks like it's been sold." I knew he was referring to this, I think it was 124 acres of land, out here for sale with our houses on it. I didn't know whether to be happy or relieved that someone might finally come and take care of the place. 

Let me refresh your memory. There's my neighbor, who has a nice house but seeing she is hoarder, that niceness gets swallowed up by what we might deem as trash. Then there is the trailer she once rented but kept for her, at one time four dogs, which all have passed except for one. But pallets and empty blowing flower pots, cars and trucks ruin that of ever becoming anything but a trash heap. Hopefully, someone saves the dog.

The landlord came and introduced himself a week later and he seemed like a nice enough man with his wife in tow. I'll just call them Jed & Josie. Good Christian folks too. I don't know, there is something about Christians that exude a living God and well by no mention of religion but casually mentioned they attended church on Sunday, I felt they were good people. He said he'd like to have our dilapidated roof looked at right away before it ever becomes a problem. I like him already!

Year after year each time an internet guy went on the roof he informed us to inform the owner of the bad roof, but nothing was ever done. The old landlord would come around and plow the grass after it got waist high, and trim trees, but year after year the grass and trees came back in full force.

Not this year, this year would be a different year! It would be the year of floods, rain, cold, and nothing but my Salvia flowers survived. That's how cold it got, everything froze under there. May 19th finds us rising to 40 degrees with 38 windchills and our small space heater coming in handy. Mind you it was in the eighties all week.

And wouldn't you know it, this was the week that the toilet would leak, through the roof, to the basement and an ensuing mess followed. This landlord was not concerned with a patch job on the toilet, like the previous landlord had been for years, no, he wanted to rip up the floor, have the toilet fixed and new tile laid! He wasted no time!

Now the roof. What should have taken one day to redo, they were met with numerous patch jobs from the previous owner, and had a four-day job on their hands! They were going to come Wednesday but changed it to Thursday. Thursday at six am. they arrived. By afternoon it was quite obvious the job would not be done in a day and by Sunday after much death of plants and destruction of what little garden I had, was now gone.

And to top it off, the owner on Saturday decided to rip down thirty-year-old trees that were breaking up concrete in his huge shed. The trees needed to come down. But on the day of the roofers? My anxiety hit an all-time high and an attack ensued. I was being picky, wasn't I? I had tolerated the barbaric treatment of my garden for three days but this day hubby had to work. 

I was good the other days sleeping through much of the chaos but Saturday, the neighbor who was now roofer, allowed his kids over and the screaming kids and hollering men mixed with hammering, banging, and heavy machinery moving trees, yanking trees out by the roots, and 100lb. me in a wheelchair. The pain was at an all-time high, everything happening blindly overhead and the curtains weres drawn tightly closed so as not to see the animosity surrounding me. Hubby came home around two pm. to make sure I was okay and I wasn't. Full-blown anxiety attack!

I won't share the ugliness of it all but by Sunday I was feeling somewhat better, but guess what, by the end of Sunday it started to rain and they were ALMOST finished. Really just a matter of cleaning their mess which they would tie down and come for on Monday. Monday came...and they didn't.

The owner came Monday, in the rain and had his Bobcat move a lot of the material tied down, and a bucket to the roofers' other piece of equipment. One trailer still smashing my plants and garden ornaments stayed (about twenty-foot long) and another sits out in the middle of the lawn smashing the saturated grass.

Chin up, Joni! Two doctor appointments today and one tomorrow, you NEED your strength for the unfinished paved but muddy roads. The Lord has tossed me a cyclone and I'm making a small tornado out of the situation. I have no choice. I'm sick, the events are upon me and I have to move on. We still have two more days to get through and the weatherman says about two-and-a-half inches of rain before all is said and done, on a state that has already declared flood disaster. Lord be with me NOW!

Prov. 4:10-11 "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

25-26 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established."

Salvia

Not Good

Pss. 63:3 “Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.”

When people ask me how I’m doing, like everyone else I say fine. They’re happy with that and offer me to ‘keep it up’! I’m not lying I just don’t want to get into the gist of what I feel is a failure. My husband, son, and mother-in-law don’t see it as a failure but I do. I feel like I’ve let myself an everyone else down. I come down pretty hard on myself.

I’m lying to myself more than anything. I want to be fine and believe I’m going to be fine but getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ is a whole different matter. I accepted the easier of the chemo routes meaning not the kind where they slice, dice, and radiate you, then place what they call a ‘port’ under my skin to fester. The port is the loading dock for the poison they’d administer. No, I took lethal injection instead.

It has been nothing but lethal since the first ninety-minute injection where the side effects were tearing me up from the inside. They lied and told me it would get better; the chills and hard pain should subside with each dose and after the third dose I see no change in side effects except them getting worse. Had Allison been more concerned with the patient than the kickbacks from the Femara she kept trying to push, maybe she would have known about the swelling.

The last visit I had was two weeks ago and Allison, whom I think is the doctor’s assistant came in and saw me instead of the Dr. himself. I guess he was too busy and bears the weight of the patient load. For some reason when they ask you how you’re doing, and you tell them, they spin your words. 

“I’m not good. I’m in a lot of pain from side effects,” I say.

“Oh, they get better with time. Some women don’t even know they’re getting chemo. So, why don’t you want Femara?” There it is, the sale of drugs.

“Well, I know I don’t like the side effects, but I’ll push on. Not with Femara though, something milder the doctor offered.” 

The argument. “Chemo has saved millions of lives, you know?”

“I’m not getting into this conversation, it upsets me.” She knows this, I’ve seen her before. She pressed on until I was in tears and she was (unapologetically) apologizing. She knew what she was doing. They push the fear and scare tactic buttons until you’re a hot mess. Needless to say, she didn’t check my heart, my swelling, or my pulse, all that are normal things to check for in a visit. She was too busy trying to sell her drug.

I was going to give this weeks Herceptin a try, so off I went for my thirty-minute poison pump, where they pump the ‘juice’ into my veins. Afterward, at home, I ate and thought all was right with the world, I was feeling good, then the pain came like a freight train barreling down the tracks. I’ll never eat again, is what I said over and over in tears, wrapped in a blanket, and now in bed at five in the afternoon. This was the norm when coming home from the chemo trips.

A couple more days followed suit and it hit me, that since my first treatment what was once a vital woman was now a shell, a crippled woman trying to make it through each day. I was waking sad, sore and depressed. I couldn’t do my exercises that for seven months I’d been doing. I was just wheeling through the house, using my walker too, but the cane… it became a hindrance and I haven’t used it in nine weeks, almost twelve weeks.

Now when people ask how I’m doing I say, “Not good.” I just can’t lie. When I said I was doing okay, I was! I was walking, exercising, cold or not I got out of the house, intermingled with human beings, I was good. WAS being the operative word. Say your not and poof, everyone disappears. They’ll be back when the word is ‘good’ again. Not good is negative (I know) and brings them down. I don’t blame them.

My mother-in-law emailed me last week and asked if she could come out for a visit, bring me some flowers (for the outside) and I said YES!! Need anything? FRESH RIPE tomatoes! Lol So I was getting a visitor besides my son! Wouldn’t you know, we had so much rain the roads are a muddy mess. It was warm that day and she wore shorts and I told her, this week you’ll be bringing the coats back out! We are all in amazement of this crazy weather. Surprising tornadoes in the city of Lincoln, rain, high winds, cold, chill, floods again, if not, washed out roads! Just a mess, just not a frozen solid ground mess.

Then last week the pain hit me hard. I was having adverse reactions and needed to call the doctors office and let them know. I wrote about the ‘normal side effects a few weeks ago, like sleep problems, nausea, muscle pain, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, tiredness and more, so many more. But there were also the bad side effects. I remembered the swelling but needed to look and see what else I had.

Serious Reactions:
bone pain,
increased coughing,
swelling of the hands/ankles/feet, MY ONE FOOT IS SWELLED LIKE A BALLOON
sudden unexplained weight gain,
unusual tiredness, I FEEL SLEEPING TWELVE AND FIFTEEN HOURS IS NOT NORMAL
severe headache,
tingling or numbness, MY LEFT-HAND GOES NUMB/ NECK TINGLY
mental/mood changes,  I THOUGHT IT WAS NORMAL MENOPAUSE CRUD
fast or pounding heartbeat, and  YES
easy bruising or bleeding.           YES (WHERE’D THAT COME FROM)

I  called and told the nurse Navigator I was experiencing adverse reactions. She said to rest and put my foot up and see if that helps. It did for a couple of nights but that was it. Only my left foot is swelled. And… and… “I’ll take care of the scrip for ya. Ok, bye.” This malpractice is in their court, not mine!

I’m giving up on Herceptin and to me feels like I failed. But wait I didn’t, the DRUGS did!

I know I didn’t, and everyone will tell me so. I go this week for what the docs office thinks is a Herceptin trip and to their surprise, they’re getting me and all my adverse reactions, FINALLY, but no more Herceptin, on to a new plan, Doc! I hope I make it that far, until Wednesday!

There’s more going on that I need to tell you, I’ll call extenuating circumstances! 

TO BE CONTINUED….

Pss. 119: 78 “Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts.”

Pss. 119:17 “Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.”

God Bless!

The Story Continues: Hospital Stay ~ Flowers Arrive

Pss. 96:6 "Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary."

The Story Continues...The Hospital Stay

The aftermath wasn’t so bad, in the beginning. I woke after the operation back in my room and my husband and son looking over me with pale faces. I could see the worry and stress dripping from their eyes. His mother was in the waiting room as I had requested because I just wanted my first loves to be what I saw when I woke.

Today I’m going to write a bit about my hospital stay. The second or third day (remember, I lost all sense of time) flowers started coming in. My son had told my niece about me being in the hospital and she being the sweetheart that she is, put a post on her/my (blood)family FB page. My two long-lost brothers sent flowers and balloons, my mother and sister sent flowers as well as two of my nieces. I do remember having to wait to tell my mother what happened to me because she kept ringing my phone incessant with worry, causing me undue stress in the process. Finally, my son had to call and tell her I was in the hospital. I only used my phone for hubby and son. I couldn’t move anyway so the phone was just a comfort artifact for a couple days. This post may seem choppy but I'm trying to get it all out there.

My husbands' mom gave me flowers in a beautiful deer coffee mug and the cutest softest dog ever! My niece posted a link to the gift shop at the hospital. My sister sent up from the gift shop a precious stuffed dog. And I received two angels too! And balloons, I received balloons attached to stuff, just what, I have no idea. I now have two stuffed dogs that I named Riley and Sassy! 

My husband, well he brought me a ton of stuff, a cross necklace, a single cross that in the center crystal stone when looked at in the sun, the serenity prayer is written! No kidding, it’s pretty awesome! A coffee mug that says ‘Good morning, Punkin’ with a small pumpkin in the cup. Halloween was nearing (I had no idea) and ‘punkin’ was one of his pet names for me. Over the ten days he had to bring tons of stuff from home and the store, so no I can’t list it all, but this man really came through for me, his broken woman and the confused man that he had become. He also brought the beautiful prayer quilt that my mother-in-law’s church had made for me and prayed over every stitch as it was being made. 

My son, he brought to me White Roses, in a vase. Not real ones he said because they die. He also gave me a Squirrel and a bluebird since I couldn’t sit and look at my birds and squirrels at the feeder at home. He also gave me a plaque, a wooden wall hanging that had two ‘wings’ (angel wings?) and the words ‘Believe you can’! He arranged everything so nicely at the window for me, and my husband draped the quilt over the back of the sofa.  All of the nurses (and docs) commented on the beauty of ‘love’ that I was receiving! 

My room was being filled with treasures and I was essentially just lying there staring at them, immobile, in pain and every shred of vanity and dignity tossed out the window. By the second or third day, I was getting more comfortable in the place. I’m not sure if it took that long for the drugs to wear off but the days seemed endless.

The bright room was a nice size all for myself and the usual monitoring machines. There was a studio style sofa in front of the window whose cushions unfolded into a bed for a family member if needing or wanting to stay. Steven stayed all ten days. He’d go home, take a shower, grab a bite to eat and bring essentials back to the hospital for me. He missed too many days of work for me and the poor fella was run as ragged as a war-torn handkerchief. His mind to me, looked like a jigsaw puzzle scattered on the floor as he tried finding all the pieces to go in the proper place as we went along on this journey. It was tough on all three of us. This wasn’t just a journey for Joni to learn and GROW.

For the next ten days, I was miss popular as were my bowel movements and my birthday! Those were the questions asked daily, the birthday one was asked with every nurse visiting the room. I was also known as little miss toxic. If a nurse helped me with the bedpan they had to gown up and double glove. If they handled my oral chemo pills they had to wear gloves. Funny how I was not told of the toxicity of these pills they handed me. I handled them like they were aspirin. My room was labeled outside with the skeleton and crossbones, listing me as a toxic commodity? 

With each nurse and or doctor that entered the room, I made them leave with a smile. In only ten days I had built relationships with the nurses, x-ray people, the radiation men and women, doctors, even the women who mopped the floor and emptied garbage pails. Not one person left my room without a smile on their face. 

The doctor who did my surgery, whom if you remember, held my heel for an hour before getting my leg to straighten out, it turned out he was from Colorado and would be returning home at the end of the week. He told me that he would be leaving Nebraska a different man than the one who came. He visited me daily and on the last day, handing him a rose, I told him to, “Always smile!” He stopped by before leaving for Colo. bidding me goodbye. He didn’t have to stop by but I’m assuming as a changed man, he wanted to. 

After bantering back and forth with the oncologist about the toxic port kind of chemo (who was the colleague onc. I missed at the office), we finally saw eye to eye when my tests, x-rays and my response to the oral poison was in my favor. Everything with the oral chemo was working. Tumor was shrinking, lymph nodes physically smaller than before. I was eating normal, bowels normal, skin normal, all in all I was a model patient. He had no argument seeing I surely didn’t look or act like a Stage 4 cancer patient! 

Talk of putting me in a nursing home/rehab came up at the end of my 'welcome' and I didn’t want to go but the insurance was not going to allow me much longer in the hospital. I don’t know why I couldn’t rehab in the hospital but then I guess the journey would have been pointless. When Portia came in and told me (as I’m eating my delicious lunch meal) that they found me a spot in the nursing home/rehab and I’d be transferred at three o’clock that day. My face drained of all blood. I suddenly wasn’t hungry. More tears puddled the sheets and filled the wastebasket with kleenex. Change. That week I think I could’ve built an ark to float away on all of those tears I shed. I closed my eyes and silently prayed. Portia was sitting right in front of me and my husband to my left. She gets a call, “Oh. Uh huh, Uh huh,” She looks at me and says, the room won’t be ready until tomorrow. Talk about prayers being answered! I kicked once again into the ‘accepting whatever God turns my way’ woman. 

With each doctor, nurse, Physical therapist, palliative nurse, or janitor that came through the door that day they received a carnation, daisy, or a rose to brighten their day and as a token of remembrance of me. While they expressed how sad they were to see me go, they smiled and thanked me for my kind gesture. Only one grumpy nurse (she was young too) turned down my gesture with “I have no place for a flower.” I knew she needed prayer the most.

Nurses have so much to contend with on a daily basis, that I wanted them to know that there is one person that appreciates all that they did for me. While my three vases thinned out of flowers, I sat in reflection of the ten days I was there. The room emptied for a few moments and I was alone in silent tears. I gazed out the window, a monarch butterfly passed by, all the way up on the third floor. Must’ve seen my flowers in the window. Thank you, Jesus, I whispered. At that moment a feather, a white feather, floated by. I knew I was being watched closely and guided by everything spiritual and Godsent! The only birds I had seen during my visit were two pigeons off on a roof two or three streets over.

I came into the hospital a pure nutrition-filled body enhanced by vitamins and a strict healthy protocol and I left a drug addict, having been on Morphine, using oxy something, Percocet, oral chemo drugs, a bone-strengthening drug shot into me once a month, and a lost healthy diet. Gone. A year and a half of health ~~~ lost to this. And we wonder why the nation has an opioid crisis? The doctors made it this way, not the people!

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

The story continues…

Poetry Sunday ~ Lil Green Patch

 Ex. 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

***

Lil Green Patch

Where flowers in a field did prance

the moonglow perches ready to dance,

coyotes howl, the elk they call

on the crux of the rising fall.

Spilling over are leaves on the lawn

silently I await the dawn.

Darkness lingers as frost gives rise

I wipe the stardust from the skies.

Little hearts all take a bow;

shooting stars kiss me somehow.

They reach across the open plain

sprinkle down like falling rain.

Drizzled in an earthly show

something grander is here, I know.

Within my mind, I speak to them 

give a little of all that I am.

An earthly angel they see in flight

to bear to them a heavenly Light.

The heavens open in a fury

to Him I tend to give all glory.

Awakened now from this dream

everything is, as it would seem.

From the pages I dispatch,

the joy I found in a lil green patch.

From Oct. 2010 © Joni Zipp

May Fever and a Blessed Day

Job 3:6 “As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.”

Did you miss me? I didn’t think so. 

Well, last week I caught May fever and wrote posts for five days in a row cornering me into an ‘I need a break’ phase. The weather has been a pleasant 60ish to 70ish, not the unbearable 80ish I, and my body, so detest. We’ve had plenty of rain that is keeping the roads nice and muddy and the grass long and lanky one day after a mowing. 

The farming season has begun with the trucks barreling down the road, tillers tilling the fields, and the ever sneezy atmosphere of the fertilizer sprays. Did I mention the tree pollen and my neighbors' twelve-inch grass blowing in the wind? Please don’t say, “Do the neighborly thing and mow it for her,” she has a working riding mower and only mows the property that she lives in not the property (trailer) she rents and keeps as a dog house. Ahh, the life in the country that I would not trade for the world!

Today marks our one-year wedding anniversary and yes, we made it a whole year, coupled with the thirteen years that we dated. We might go out to lunch and then take in an afternoon movie. No, I will not be seeing a Marvel movie, hopefully. Somewhere I matured and am so not into superheroes. (minus my Christian Bale Batman excitement). They just wear too thin in the CGI category and no real plot to the story with hot nobodies turned into superwomen somehow. I roll my eyes half the time frustrating the man beside me who grew up a comic book fan and has to see every Marvel movie ever made!

I won’t be doing my much-loved gardening this year since I don’t have a tiller, can’t do the garden work because of my back problems, so I’m just going to let what flowers come up, appear and tend to them upon arrival.

Today is Friday the Thirteenth and while many think this is a bad luck day, I see it as a GOOD numbered day since this is the day we wed one year ago, and it is our thirteenth year of being together. I don’t believe in luck but if there is such a thing, thirteen would be my lucky number! 

Minus the 35 MPH sustained winds, all in all, it was a good day. We went to lunch at the China Buffet and had a delicious very filling meal where we came home afterward to sit and feel bloated. This little woman fills up after two plates and dessert. We stopped at a nursery on the way home and bought some Salvia for my garden. They are hardy perennials that I know will return year after year.

We wobbled home and began watching a movie called Failure to Launch, a clean, funny, romantic comedy that had me in stitches! It starred Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker. I LOVE Matthew and have only heard of Jessica; never really seen her in anything before.  Instead of spending $40 that it would take to go to a theater we saved our money and bought plants instead.

By serendipity, the weeks end happened. I say serendipity because hubby was going to ask for the two days off but when he received his schedule, his boss already had him off for two days, today and tomorrow too. See? Friday the 13th is a GOOD day! We made it an entire year! Woohoo! Okay, after spending thirteen years together I thought that was funny. 

I’ve got great friends who all gave me well wishes and it turned out to be a blessed day. Now onto another movie… You’ve Got Mail! And a full moon tonight…… *twilight zone music plays*

God Bless!

Job 41:17 “They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Spiritual Cleansing

John 7:38 (NIV) "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Spiritual Growth

Now has come the season

Where my soul tends to grow.

Like living waters inside me

My spiritual growth will flow.

The buds begin to surface,

The flower not yet seen

Until the sun has nurtured

From sleep what they can glean.

The trees will slowly waken

Arise from seasonal cold;

The buds will peak in numbers

Bringing forth the springtime gold.

My soul will drink in measure

The still waters from within.

My spirit churning back to life

The new season I now begin.

Take from me the darkness,

As my slumber is called to rise

Fill me with living water

For to shed my winter cries.

Behold, a new me emerges,

As a bud turns into a flower.

Washed over by the hand of God

I’m renewed by a spiritual shower.

Pss. 51: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Talk-o Tuesday

First let me say that my Moody Monday turned into a Marvelous Monday! I worked out in the garden, planted flowers and had a wonderful time relishing the beauty that the color brought to the house.

Mom called and said, “I”m gonna bring Joni over a few flowers I had left over.” Okay, I was sitting at the window waiting her arrival. And there she was, yellows and orange, red and white. Marigolds, Petunias, and three Day lilies. With the proper spacing and arrangement, it filled the whole garden in front of my house!

Talk about gleeful? If anyone knows Joni, they know that she is a flower child. Not one from the sixties, one who was deprived of a garden in the ‘city life’ but always one with containers flourishing with beauty! As you can tell I’m still a wee bit excited and can’t wait to go check on my beautiful flowers and watch them grow. THANKS MOM!!!!

As I was working out in the garden I was thinking of what a nice thing it would be to have one of those MP3 players so I could listen to an audio book. (nice segue, eh?) Can you imaging just digging, planting, watering, pruning, mowing and tending all that stuff and listening to a great story the whole time? I can imagine how less back breaking the tasks might seem and how much more a person could get done.

Although I’m more of a “listen to nature” kinda gal, an audio book would be easy to carry around, volume set to high to get out all that bird chirping and mowing and I bet you could finish a book with one days chores.

New book reviews are popping up at Audio Book Heaven. So before I pop in a book, I might even check out this blog to see if there are any listed that I might be interested in reading. He gives good honest reviews. If he likes a book, or don’t like a book, he lets you know the pros and cons of the story and you can decide for yourself.

Sure you can go to the library and read the jacket cover, but I’m telling you, his reviews give you more than any cover. :) Okay enough talk, go click and enjoy your visit with the man behind, Audio Book Heaven!