Home At Last...My Story Continues

Rev. 19:1 “ And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:”

Home at last...

Driving home for the first time in twenty days felt strange as I had not really been in the outside air except for the three-minute drive from nursing home to the hospital across the road. I opened the window and let the cool breeze kiss my face as the sun hugged me, welcoming me. Yes, there was sun instead of clouds on this day of my release from rehab.

I was a little nervous heading home because I had no idea what uncertainty was going to meet me at the door. All I knew was that it was home, and I was finally going there, a safe haven in which to rest. What felt like months in the hospital being shuffled from hospital to nursing home, to radiation on my leg, to the primary doctor and back to the hospital, it was all coming to a nerve-wracking end because I’d have to trust my husband on a different level more than anything right now.

My husband had been put through the wringer, thrown in the dryer and left there to wrinkle. In other words, this man was frazzled beyond recognition. I could see him in there but his mind, it looked as if it had been thrown in the frying pan and left to sizzle. No one noticed this, not his mother, his sister, no one but me and my son because we had to deal with him daily.  He was forgetful, distant at times, and extremely self-centered. He was trying to regain control of the world he lost,  something that looked normal but he knew, that time was a ways off in the months that lie ahead.

In the twenty days I was in the hospital he had locked his keys in the car at least three times, he had forgotten what I asked for from home almost daily and he had slept on the hard hospital sofa for ten days, not wanting to leave me alone in the hospital but was made to leave me in a nursing home and that laid guilt on him. I’m not telling you this so you can laugh and make fun, I’m sharing this because here was a dedicated-to-his-wife man, who had very recently put his dog to rest, now made to deal with his wife, not being the beautiful dependable homemaker that he fell in love with. He was wearing thin on many levels and it hurt me to watch.

Now he was driving me home where my care would be solely left up to him. Sure, a home healthcare nurse would come by twice a week, but as you know, there are seven days in a week. I  believe any man would be anxious in this situation where twenty days ago he didn’t know if his wife was going to live or die, it looked that grim from their perspectives. Sure his mom would offer to make a meal or two, but he needed more, more that none of us could give.

Now sitting in front of the house drew tears from my eyes like water from a well. I was no longer looking out a window hoping and praying, I was home, prayers answered. The tears flowed effortlessly before I even tried getting out of the car. Hubby was removing the wheelchair from the trunk, my son came from inside offering to help and I just wanted to sit there in the car and drink the reality of it all in. “Why not unload the car and let me sit here a few minutes?”

They complied and began carrying in vases and stuffed animals, blankets and clothes, boxes and bows. I was home. The shabby little rental house isn’t all that much to look at, but it has been my home for ten years, one where I made it a flower-rimmed home that even the owner of the property had mentioned how well tended this place was. Amazing what love can turn into beauty in the midst of ugly. I was home.

I called out to Riley, the dog who wandered onto the property two years ago as a stray and never left. Riley, who was nowhere to be seen, nor had been for some days the guys said. I called out and told her to come home, I’m here. She would come eventually, she always does. The guys said that when they put food out for her, it disappeared, but they never really caught a glimpse of her. 

I had to swing my pained legs out the door. I would need to get back into the car on Friday and all the days of doctor visits, so this has to go well! I pivoted to the wheelchair, gently sat, and after taking a deep inhale was pushed forward up my RAMP, that my bro-in-law built with no questions asked (or funds for that matter!)

Once safely in the front door, my eyes opened to a cascade of tears, I just sat and bawled my eyes out, crying, “I’m home! I’m home!” There was joy and fear, anxiety and pain but there was also my Lord waiting to carry any burden I brought home with me. 

I’ll continue this story in the coming weeks as I continue healing but today being New Year's Eve, you need to know how far I’ve come and am at on this day, two short months since I was released from what I deemed ‘the hellholes’!

My cancer markers have gone down drastically, leaving the doctors scratching their heads in amazement. The markers began in September at 2775, dropped in October to 1500, then to 875 in November! What do they mean? Cancer no longer likes living in my body- for now, I move on.

When I was released from rehab on October 5th, I was on a strict no weight-bearing regimen! I could not put any weight on my left leg and minimal on my right! 
Today, I still use the wheelchair but I walk with a walker (in the house and at physical therapy) and have just started practicing with a cane! 

My doctors, plural, have admitted that it was not just the oral-chemo that has had this miraculous change in my healing. Whatever I was doing (alternatively) was obviously in play here and working on healing me! 

The radiation I received for ten days was to my femur where they said cancer had spread, radiation zapped it away. More astonishing to the doc’s was the rare way my body was handling everything. No vomiting, eating regularly, no diarrhea, no pink peeling skin, no mouth sores, no fevers, etc. I was what the nurse said, “Our poster child for what stage 4 cancer healing SHOULD look like!" Words like awesome, amazing, fascinating were frequently heard with each office visit or from anyone I came in contact with really.

This weekend for the first time in three months, I reclaimed my home! Taking my time and being ever so cautious, I dusted and vacuumed, washed, dried, folded and put away two loads of laundry. I’m releasing my husband of those duties and hopefully, he can find healing also. 

What do I say is my source of healing? My God! Simply put, my AMAZING GOD! Prayer and the support of my friends and family. I never allowed my faith to wane, my trust in the Lord grew stronger. Through each pain, every sorrowful step that brought tears to my eyes, I cried out louder to my God, Thank you, Jesus! 

Now, what do I see for the NEW YEAR? My faith growing even stronger, my sharing of this miraculous healing with any and all, and I see the colors of the rainbow flourishing in my garden this spring. I see me walking around the house talking to my animals and giving my Riley plenty of belly rubs! Yes, she appeared when she sensed I was home. (It didn’t take too long)

I’m home… home at last! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, my Spiritual Family! I could’ve never made it without your continued prayers and support!

Pss. 30:2 “O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.”

The Story Continues...Miracles To ME!

Isaiah 26:9 (NIV) “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

Miracles to ME

The staff that I had surrounding me during my hospital stay was quite amazing. My office oncologist paid me a quick visit when I first got to my room after the femur surgery. I would then be turned over to his colleague oncologist who works at the hospital, Dr. Biscuit. (I will not use real names!) 

Besides Dr. Slim, the surgeon who did my leg, one of my miracles was my oncologist who showed up at the right time in my journey. Remember the ER doctor gave me an oncologists name? It was Dr. Biscuit, I did not see him for my initial consultation. Dr. Bradley was the office oncologist who put me on oral chemo. Dr. Biscuit was all about IV chemo being the ONLY healer and I only met him AFTER I was in the hospital and already a patient with a protocol with Dr. Bradley. 

Dr. Biscuit and I never saw eye-to-eye in the beginning. His philosophy was one thing (slaughter/drugs/chemo), mine was the other (natural)! And you know who was whom, and you probably get a picture of who won. Dr. Biscuit is the one who WRONGLY put me on a stool softener, a steroid, something for indigestion, just a bunch of unnecessary drugs! After a bad night of stomach upset, (I won’t go into the gruesome details) I had a talk with the nurse about the DRUGS I was taking, she then put me in touch with Dr. Biscuit to straighten this pill mess out! 

I DID NOT need a stool softener! I drank tea in the morning, a NATURAL stool softener. He also had me drinking Ensure, another form of laxative! I told him NO, along with my pain meds, I wanted my vitamins A, B12, C, D3, and my oral chemo, that was it! It got changed very quickly I might add. Too many people just accept that the doctor knows what is best. A doctor DOES NOT know your body OR how it will respond. My body KNEW something was wrong with all the drugs and it let me know, too!

Then came Dr. Leeb, he was a radiologist. After a lengthy discussion with Dr. Biscuit, my husband, son and myself, Dr. Leeb would be the administrator of the radiation. NOT TO MY BREAST, to the spreading pain/cancer in my shoulder, and hopefully put a halt to what was spreading in my hip, the one that had surgery. The other hip, so he says, is too far gone, but we’ll start. Okay, all in agreement! Five days of dragging me across the bed to the gurney (in pain) to the x-ray table, then drag me to the radiation slab, then back to the gurney and back to my bed/room. This was hell in itself, but I endured. I’d also endure ten more days of radiation on my leg, from the nursing home.

My room number was 3203 by the way - my birthday - 3 23. Another top question was, ‘what is your pain level?’ On meds it was a four-five, on the dragging me all around days, the pain was at a 7-9. MY BOWELS ARE FINE!  Yeah, I was tired of that one but… little did I know, a reaction to the oral chemo I was taking, was vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, and skin changes. Peeling ugly pink skin. NONE of which I had, and that PUZZLED the doctors. I was in the rare 30 percentile of ‘not affected’. Good to know two weeks into the DRUG intake.

After the doctor and I were on the same page, we got along better. He came in one day with his how are you doing, any changes banter, then he said something, yes, to ME a miracle was taking place. His exact words were, “After reviewing the x-rays and bloodwork, and upon physical inspection, it seems that the oral chemo is working. Whatever we’re doing is working.” My lymph nodes were shrinking, my tumor was shrinking, my x-rays were showing physical signs of my leg healing also. All was good. Little did they know that not for one moment was I attributing the Chemo drugs to being the reason I was healing. 

You see, all of that was happening BEFORE I started the Oral Chemo, but the OC I believe sped up the healing, along with my vitamins! I may be onto something. We had a discussion about my protocol and he had mentioned that the people in Europe reacted the same way to the Oral Chemo as my body was reacting. In America, 70% of people were having adverse reactions and THAT is why they were not recommended. I told him it all had to do with my diet and nutrition! His comment? “Are you going for a Nobel Prize here? A conference of doctors have already surmised it was the diet but we hit a dead end.” HA! I’m onto something friends! Believe it or not, I was having a positive effect on him also. His final words to me on his last visit was ‘Godspeed’! 

Another incident I had was with a wound care nurse. She was sent to change the dressing on my breast. As I had told you all in previous posts, that my breast leaked and therefore after bathing it with saltwater, I placed a non-stick gauze over it to protect my garments. Since entering the hospital I had not changed the gauze and I knew I was in the best place for it to be seen and taken care of. I told her it was ugly before she proceeded to take off the gauze. She said, “Oh my.” I was taken aback and asked, “Is it that bad?” She replied, “Not at all, it looks GOOD. What were you doing for it? I know you were taking excellent care of it, that’s for sure.” A deep sigh of relief washed over me. I told her about the saltwater bathings. She agreed that it looked well taken care of and that she had seen much worse case scenarios with breast cancer patients, so yes, to keep doing what I was doing. We’ll take the best care of it we can here, she said, and they did take the best care THEY could. 

Then there was the Palliative nurse, Jan. She was the nurse sent to be on my side and didn’t allow the doctors to bully me, but remember she works FOR the hospital. She was a semi-tall sweet woman with short bobbed blonde hair. Her voice was very soothing and relaxing and I felt comfortable telling her anything. She visited me daily, allowed me to cry on her shoulder, offered options to heal, and didn’t allow doctor Biscuit full reign of the floor.

One day I was sitting in the recliner (as opposed to being bedridden) and Jan upon seeing me, smiled, she was pleased with my progress since seeing me the day before lying in the bed. She said to me, “I have a little something for you,” she put out her hand and offered me a small book and went on to say, “This randomly fell onto my desk yesterday out of the blue as I was going through stuff on my shelf. I looked at it and thought 'who would benefit from this, Joni' that’s who.” It was a book of daily prayers and affirmations. I smiled, I cried and offered her a hug. Such a dismal reason to be in the hospital but God saw to it that Light was brought to my door on a daily basis! I tried to offer the book back before I left the hospital, thinking it was on loan but she said, “Oh no, you keep it, that book was meant for you when it fell on my desk!”

Then there was the visit from a clown. Yes you read it right, my mother-in-law and I were just sitting there chatting and my husband had gone home to shower and in the room walks a clown. “Would you like a visit from me and my friend?” She was holding a stuffed monkey. I had tears in my eyes and exclaimed, “YES! I need a visit to cheer me up, no offense, mom.” Daisybug the clown went on for twenty-five minutes of corny one-liner jokes to make my day. God really does know me and knew what I needed to cheer me up!

The list goes on and on of the miracles that happened those twenty days I was away, and this list is just some of the ten days I was in the hospital! I had wonderful physical therapists who visited daily and would leave me with exercises to do myself and I would leave them with laughter and smiles. That is what made me so strong in ten days to be released. I had attentive nurses and one day an intern stood for an hour detangling my long hair that had gotten itself knotted in just a couple of days.  I was being transformed from immobile to mobile, from bedpan to commode mode, from weary and teary to beautiful laughter and smiling. It was now time to be released. A single flower from my vases was handed to nurses, doctors, interns, physical therapists, home health aides, cafeteria workers who brought me food, and even the cleaning ladies! Anyone who helped me in any way, I gave to them a smile and a gratitude flower. My work here was now complete.

Psalm 95:1-2 "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms."

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…

I Had A Bad Day...

Job 7:14 “Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:”

I had a bad day

When a nightmare wakes me throughout the night, this title should really be, I had a bad night. The other day I woke early in the morning not my usual chipper self. I woke in tears and tears defined the greater part of my day. I guess I'm allowed a bad day/night on occasion. Glad they're not frequent.

We usually wake and go shopping, but this day I woke grumpy with two inches of snow on the ground and heavy stuff still falling from the sky. This winter has been a temperature roller coaster ride as well as the ups and downs of emotions. Normally I have my emotions in check but here lately everything is triggering a reaction in me.

My nightmare began with a doctor visit located in a hospital room not much different than the room I was in last year when I received my diagnosis before being forced into test after detrimental test. 

In my nightmare the nurse squeaked into the room, tearing off linens on the bed across from me. She was running off in the mouth. I asked her what she was doing and she quickly spits out, “We’re prepping you for surgery. That breast is nasty looking and the doctor needs to remove it, or you’re gonna die, gonna die, gonna die.” The sound was echoing over and over.

“Wait, I’m not going to have surgery. I have a choice!” My voice didn’t echo like hers, it sounded more like a soft whisper.  

“But if you’re gonna die, gonna die, gonna die,” my husbands says with the echo now in his voice. His face was really close to mine as the echo made his face look like the wicked House of Mirrors.

“I am NOT having surgery,” I screamed that one pretty loud but still no one could hear me. It was like my lips were moving but everything went on, movements in the room heads nodding in disagreement as if I wasn’t there. I was seriously expecting Pennywise from the King book ‘It’ to just pop out and start cackling but instead…

“But you’re gonna die, gonna die, gonna die! It looks nasty, nasty, nasty,” the nurse cackled with an eerie looking grin.

You get the gist of the nightmare. Fear, laughing, taunting all in line before I forced the blankets off of me and battled the cold reality of the morning. Tears still streaming down my face, when my husband said something to me, I snapped at him. That is so unlike me! I said, “I just had a terrible nightmare, please don’t do this to me today!”

He shrugged and mimicked me until I looked at him with wet eyes and started bawling my eyes out. He realized it really had to be a bad dream for me to wake in tears.

He went on with his routine to start his day; I could see his mind wandering. He ventured outside to start his truck and brush away the snow on there from the windblown covering that blanketed his truck; only a total whiteout hindered any chance of venturing off to the store at this time. I was adamant about not going with him and carrying this negative crud through the store. My son was at work and heading home in the whiteout at this very time, so that added to my stress of the early morning.

When my son arrived home, he could see I had been crying, “What’s the matter?” 

“A nightmare! I had a bad nightmare!” I know I was snappy in my reply.

“It was just a bad dream,” he says downplaying my pain. He was just returning from an eight-hour overnight shift, drove through whiteout conditions and here I was snapping at him. 

There it was, the truth of the matter, everyone is so used to seeing me as the pillar of strength that when I’m in a serious bit of stressful turmoil they don’t recognize it; they downplay my pain and shrug it off. She’ll get over it, they figure to themselves. I couldn’t get over this, not quickly anyway.

I carried throughout the day a heavy chip on my shoulder and an old time movie projector in my mind, the nightmare kept playing over and over like a broken record, “you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die.” There was just no shaking the feeling or the nightmare. This gives night terrors new meaning.

I tried venturing onto Facebook, bad idea. I felt like everyone was laughing at me, taunting me, mocking me, and disagreeing with everything I’ve worked so hard for. They were not doing any such thing, but the nightmare had my paranoia levels up and shaking this was not going to just go away with a few passing smiles for the day.

Super Bowl Sunday was then spent napping and anticipating my long-awaited arrival on Monday, our new mattress! My back has been a problem for years now and I knew it was the fifteen-year-old mattress but I also knew we couldn’t afford a new one, but with the expectancy of an income tax check, I made the suggestion to my husband of a new mattress. We thought of the costs of a chiropractor for me and the mattress was much cheaper by far. With enough supplements for two more months, I was anxiously looking forward to a comfortable nights rest on a new mattress!

I didn’t put myself through the anxiety of a football game and my husband was kind enough to sit through a Disney movie with me instead of the year’s ending of the football show. Neither one of us watched football this year as it has become its own little world. No longer an enjoyable sport-like football game, it’s now added fluff and frufru make it a waste of MY precious time. He did catch the second half (he’s a man, whatcha expect) *wink-wink* and he enjoyed watching someone else win the Super Bowl this year. 

With the Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl it just reaffirms my hope that the underdog DOES WIN on occasion! It signifies that the underdog has a chance against the powers that be, the winners of society, the boasters, and braggarts, we little folk DO win! 

James 1:12 (NIV) “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Monday, the mattress came…

Pss.3:5 “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.”

Gateway to Health: Spring Cleaning Your Diet

1 Tim. 3:5 “(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”

Spring Cleaning Your Diet

I know it’s a little early being January and all, but it is never too early to clean up your health. I know with January first everybody made resolutions to lose weight but do they realize you don’t just stop eating and wait for the pounds to melt off? You need to clean your system out if you want a healthy weight loss that will actually work and last.

By cleaning up, I mean detoxification! You need to meticulously clean out the toxins in your body that have your liver, bladder and other essential organs not responding because of your unhealthy eating.

Tamara St John, who NATURALLY successfully healed her cancer has a great website for the Big C patients and the non-C patients. Allow me to say that not all cancers are the same and thus are not holistically healed the same. We all have to do what works for us!

But if you want to lose weight, it is advisable to do a detox. first. This will help you clean out the mechanisms that keep you going day in and day out. A probiotic will assist you in cleaning out and keep the house kept up. Because once you clean out your system, you don’t want to clog it right back up with toxins and junk.

If you don’t want to go the diet route then it is possible to just clean up your ingested food. You see, you might think that buying ground beef in bulk saves money, or buying really pink ground beef is safe to eat but know your grocer. A lot of times they spray freshness additives (toxic to your cleaned out system) to make the meat stay fresher on the shelf longer.

Some people feel they NEED meat but I can guarantee, it isn’t a NEED it’s a want, I totally get carnivorous amongst us. All I’m saying is buy the least toxic food available to you to keep your system clean and functioning properly. I found some really good recipe sites for you to try out. No, I haven’t made any myself YET, but I am surely going to try. If you absolutely NEED meat, add some. This is a lifelong journey of health for me, not a do and fail option.

Food Revolution 

Wisebread 

Also, find alternatives for your sugar cravings. I use 100% organic maple syrup in my oatmeal and it is delicious instead of stevia or processed sugar. There are so many other ways to a healthy diet. I buy a big organic sweet potato, chop it up put it in a lidded casserole dish. I ‘paint’ the sides and bottom with organic coconut oil first so nothing sticks. I sprinkle, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and a hefty dash of cinnamon, drizzle the maple syrup on top, toss in some FRESH pineapple chunks, cut up an apple also and throw that on top, toss it in the oven (350 degrees) for forty-five minutes! It is better (to me) and just as filling as any meat dish you can throw in your face!

There is a healthy alternative cheese also. It’s not as good as cheddar or processed cheese but I love the creamy grilled cheese sandwich my coconut cheese makes! A diet does not need to be restrictive; it just needs to be tweaked with better for you ingredients.

I know how people are addicted to chocolate too. For some reason, they don’t want to try the healthier raw cacao powder to make their brownies or cookies, but this way they could eat without the guilt of the chocolate being bad for them! I don’t like chocolate but I am tempted to try the raw cacao in a smoothie! 

There are healthy eggs out there, healthy chicken, healthy sausage, and even, yes Benning, a better for you healthy BACON! It isn’t a matter of going on a diet, it is a matter of changing your unhealthy eating to HEALTHY alternatives. I know, I know, no one likes change; not many like healthy either.

If we all became aware of what unhealthy food goes down the tube, we’d surely not be an overweight nation. Fast food restaurants would lose business, restaurants would change the way they cook and offer healthier foods to the patrons.  Papa Johns is testing an organic and gluten-free menu and we’re definitely going to see a rise in awareness of what we’re doing to our bodies. I don’t know how long Papa John’s will stand to the pressure of going organic if the founder was made to quit after comments about the money grubbing NFL and their protest ‘people’.

The crazy world we live in is really weird in not wanting people healthy and opposing anything the people do to better their health! Take the FDA, for example, wanting to ban herbs that they call DRUGS because these freakish people don’t know what they’re doing. I think they all WANT us to die, not thriving and healthy, they want us sick and on drugs! REAL drugs like opioids and oxycontin.

Sadly, you say you don’t want to change. I guess you like going to the doctor and handing them your money month after month? You like the pills they offer yet won’t call yourself a drug addict because they’re legal drugs prescribed by a doctor who has had eight hours of training in nutrition? There are a few doctors out there willing to hear you and listen to your plan of healing and will work WITH you to see you to good health. They are out there but if you come from a small state, don’t count on it, they are out for themselves. Do some research and make your health a priority! How can a manicure/pedicure, getting your hair done, buying ‘stuff’ set precedence over your health? It makes no sense to me. How will you enjoy all the stuff if you’re hospitalized or worse, dead?

Do some spring-cleaning for your health! Not just as a passing fad, not as something you’re thinking about, not just a do and fail trip; make your HEALTH your lifelong journey to survival! Illness shouldn’t be about sickness and the endgame; the surfacing of a disease is about HEALTH and a new way to LIVE!

The Tests - Be Strong

2 Corinthians 1:3-4  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

The Tests

As the nurse wheeled me over to the other side of the hospital to await the trials of the day, tears flowed as people passed. Tissues placed throughout the hospital were grabbed along the way. Faces flew by in a collage then a whirling kaleidoscope fashion. 

I had papers to fill out, my husband handled questions to be answered mostly because words got caught up in my throat and wouldn’t come out. The nice lady took one look at me with tears rimming her eyes before sending me on my way with the comforting words, “I’ve been right where you are today, be strong,” These words were going to be the most frequent words heard for the next year to come. 

Mammogram first – I have to say I think I landed in an Angelic domain of hospital workers because every single person who cared for me had a glowing beauty about them. The first one being, Shantay (I think that’s spelled right) I won’t put too many names out here but that was the most beautiful name and the bubbly blonde connected to that name filled me with laughter on one of my darkest days. 

You would have never known that I was just told I have cancer or that I was about to experience a squishing-squashing ceremony of the boob. I told her, “If I can’t laugh, I’ve got nothing to hold onto.” She agreed and we continued with our out of the ordinary sense of humor. 

For example, the door she wheeled me through had big taped up cracks and I told her, “You did that didn’t you? You just wheeled someone into the glass and cracked it!” She replied, “I’m a dangerous driver.” Chuckle. 

I was handed a smock? Dressing to cover ‘my girls’ but as she noted I would be needing to change again and again and that I should just leave it on. As we were wheeling to the next session of ‘boob academy’, she noted, “Are your girls in?” 
“Well no, I just wanna flash everyone I pass! After this experience, I think I’ve earned that right.” More giggles and laughter. My tears were drying, my nose tender from all the rubbing; my head was pounding from no food, no water and the whirling of the room and tests. She had to part but didn’t leave without the comforting words ‘stay strong’ tear-rimmed eyes, and a gentle touch of the hand, “I wish I could go with you.” Bonding words if I ever heard. 

Onto the c-t scan – The nurse who came to wheel me into the c-t room was another angelic beauty. With piercing blue eyes and wavy black hair, she introduced herself and handed me off to ‘the table’ where a Mr. Clean looking man stood awaiting me to get on the bed. Haha, not a funny thought there, is it?

The Zooey Deschanel look-alike saw that I was already dressed for the occasion (the left-over smock from the squishy room), and asked if my ‘girls’ were in and well… in Joni fashion, I said, “No, I’m in a flashing mood today.” Mr. Clean chuckled and said, “Well I need to take pictures.” He thought about what he said and said “No, not like that, hahaha” He went on to poke me with an IV which would be used for a fluid to run through my veins and, his words, ‘make me feel like I wet myself’. As if I didn’t feel that way already before we met. 

I was sent through a Stargate portal and as I looked at a blinking light, right beneath it said, ‘Do Not Stare at the blinking light.’ Too late, I’m in a fog, I’m flashing people and I don’t even care at this point. “Be strong,” Mr. Clean said as I finished up with the portal and I was slowly taken away and wheeled over to the next leg of the journey, the pre-op!

The doctor who would perform ‘the surgery’ they called it (it was really just a 16 gage needle being stuck into my ‘girl’), looked a little like Kevin James. He was a jovial dark-haired man with soft hands and very capable of the duty set before him. He comforted my husband and I and we were told how routine this procedure has become. 

I had never experienced such a wonderful group of teammates. Sure being in this profession you need a spot on personality and caring compassionate ways but they handled me as if I was the Queen of England and treated me with kid gloves in every aspect of this journey. My longest waiting time was in the pre-op stage because as you can imagine, this process is apparently routine and the doc was working on someone else as I waited. 

His soft voice talked me through every step and while I was laying in an uncomfortable position (due to my arthritic pain) I lay still as David Crowder music played in the background gently lulling me to a safe comfort zone as my breast was being poked. BillyBob (male anesthesiologist) had asked what kind of music I like and no hesitation went into proclaiming my Christianity. David Crowder and Kari Jobi I said, and the young lady at the sonogram machine smiled, BillyBob said it was a nice upbeat sound.

BillyBob had asked if a young lady could come in and observe the process since she is in training. I said, “Sure, the more the merrier!” My sense of humor was kicking into overdrive. This is when we waited for ‘the surgeon’.

As I lay a foot from the sonogram screen with my left arm over my head, I gazed at the huge lump with sadness. I just stared and then said something… “Is this like the sonogram they give to look at babies?” The doctor in all seriousness said, “Yes, that’s exactly it!” I said in a deadpan rye way, “Is that my baby?” I could see his face turn blistering red as to hold back an outburst of laughter. “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked. He calmly offered, “We should know by Tuesday.”

He went on to clean me up, gave me the pat on the back and I finally hear, “Good job! You did great! I have some really good samples here and now onto the hardest part, the wait.” 

All of their faces screamed ‘poor girl’ but I wouldn’t allow the down faces to carry me or them through the rest of the day, I went on to say, “I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten all day, no water and I’ve been up since 3 a.m.”
The doctor said, “You deserve to go and eat something.”

I giggled, “Chili from Wendy’s?”

He offered, “You earned two!”

“Tell my husband?” a little chuckle came out and a tear passed my cheek.

The observing girl offered, “You should get a Frostee, too!” I laughed. “Yeah, you both need to tell my husband that!

They both wheeled me back to the pre-op station/cubby hole and announced that I did really well to my husband. “And?” I said. “And she earned two chili’s from Wendy’s.” And the observer piped in “And a Frostee.” Hubby laughed and shook his head. This has to be hard on him too, I thought.

Thirty minutes later after a jello, water, IV removal, and BP checked as well as my temperature, (and a long awaited pee!) Then we were sent on our way into the blustery cold and blowing snow filled day. Wendy’s (drive-thru), home, then reality to deal with all that happened on this much eventful, test and tear filled day. In that order.