My Story Continues: The Nursing Home

Pss. 136:1 "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."

The day came where it was time for me to be transported to the Nursing Home/Rehab center, I cried for more than one reason, I was losing all the familiarity I had for ten days, the closeness of the nurses and physical therapists was something I hadn’t expected. I think that was the reason they changed nurses every single day. The rotation of nurses didn’t allow for intimacy to grow between patient and nurses/physical therapist etcetera.

The Tuesday morning came when I’d await the arrival of my ride to the nursing home. No gurney was necessary because I was now semi-mobile in a wheelchair and I was commode mode so setting me loose was what my insurance called for. My husband and son were not allotted the time to look around at rehab places because conveniently a room had opened up for one woman, at St. John’s, I would be the one woman that the insurance insisted I take. 

Sadness, anxiety, and fear had all crept into my being as I was loaded on the van lift and taken to the nursing home/rehab across from the hospital I had called home for ten days. Gone were the days of very regular delicious meals that arrived between six and seven a.m., twelve and one p.m., and the dinner at five to six. Water refreshed and medication, always on time. The hospital was now a thing of yesterday.

My husband and I were escorted to the entry hall of the Home. A nice carpeted room with overstuffed chairs lining the walls, a fake fireplace was the central focal point and it looked cozy enough at a glance. We were met by a small older-than-me woman with tight curly blonde hair and a nurses uniform hugging her petite body.

“Welcome, Joni, let me get your vitals and we’ll wheel you down to your room.” 

I sat silently gazing off into space wondering just where it was I was being left. The vitals were fine and off we went, down a crowded hallway with patients lined up against one wall and equipment lined on the other wall. The patients looked helpless, hopeless and immobile, looking at me as if I was an alien that landed smack dab in their territory. 

I’ve been in nursing homes before so I knew kind of what to expect, but I honestly thought that there was a rehab wing that separates the long-term patients from us short-term patients that were just here for rehab. This was not the case. You’re not in Baltimore anymore, Joni. Back home my grandmother was placed in a similar facility but the long term/ short term patients were not together. The nurse I’ll call Bird because to me she resembled Big Bird but much smaller, she was the one who was in charge of the nurses on staff, her office was where we came in the door at and she met us there. 

I was wheeled down the hall as Bird explained that they were building a new wing to the home and for now the patients were being doubled up in rooms until construction is completed. Lucky me. Room number twelve is where we paused and she announced it as my room. Outside the door had a name and the picture of the tenant and below her was my name with no picture, just the note on the wall CHEMO PATIENT! Chemo protocols necessary. Gait belt needed.

I was wheeled into a tightly packed room of the current tenant. The room was about twelve by twenty-four, and I was wheeled back to the window where my bed was set and a side table all in about six feet of space. A commode was sitting against the wall where there was a bureau with a television on it. The home did not reek of the normal nursing home odors, for now anyway, so that was a plus.

My husband looked at me with pain in his eyes. He was horrified of the place where he had to leave me, where we had no options. This is the place where Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also known as PTSD would set in. There were two metal chairs in the corner and I thought, at least I can have two visitors. I was already traumatized by the whole broken femur and surgery, now this. The story continues.

My husband went to work in getting my flowers from his truck to place in the window for me and to bring me my blanket that the church ladies made for me, he wanted it to feel as nice as the hospital environment but knew full well, this was not the environment neither of us envisioned. The comforter that currently covered the bed looked old and wrinkled and the sheets had a clean but well-worn look also, but I wasn’t here for sheets and blankets, let’s move on. 

“Will you be dining in the cafeteria this evening with the others?” Bird lady asked.

“No, not tonight, thank you.”

She went on, “Dinner is served at six in the cafeteria, and if you eat ‘in-room’, you have to wait until the others are back in their rooms. About seven your meal should arrive.” She was looking at her clipboard, “I’ll let you get acquainted and come back.”

Eyes filled with brimming tears I whispered, “Thank you.” My date with hell was beginning.

My son entered the room. He was finagling his time between work, moving into his new place, and visiting me often at the hospital. Husband and son were both trying to get back to a routine of working and visiting me after work. My husbands only problem was that he needed to be home before dark since he cannot see at night to drive. My son would stay until seven maybe, if he could, then it was me, all alone in what felt like an asylum. 

My husband ran off to the store and came back with a new quilt for the bed. He was not leaving me in that mess. Both husband and son went to work to make the place comfortable for me as evening was drawing near. My commode was set next to my bed on the left in a tight space with the curtain of the other tenant pressed against it. On the right of my bed sat a nightstand and the wheeled tray? That barely fit in front of the nightstand. 

I was still basically immobile, I could not bend my leg and the pain was still evident with each move. I did wonder how well I would be taken care of here. The tears...puddled the floor only to be dried by the sheet hanging down off of my bed. 

The night was closing in and the goodbyes were the hardest thing any of us have ever been through in our lives together. I would be alone. Alone in the dark, only sounds of the echoing hallways would be heard and all that the hallways held in them. I would be strong for my two guys. I would be out of here in no time. Right? I have to be.

the story continues...

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” Psalm 57:7 (ESV)

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…

The Story Continued ~ ER 3

Job 27:3 “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;”

You might not see ER visits as answered prayer but this second ER visit is where I got a referral to an Oncologist after this sympathetic ER doctor heard my story of being turned away from my first two oncologists.

I had told my husband and son of MY wishes and I wanted their blunt honesty in THEIR wishes. Both wanted me to live and try the chemo route, maybe my way wasn't working anymore. No, this was not my wish, but I gave into half their wish, I made an appointment to go see the oncologist doctor. I respect their wishes because I too, don’t want to die. My alternative protocol had been working all along but the stress of a dying dog was too overwhelming and my body reacted; mind, body, and soul, internally and externally.

For eight months I watched as my 14-year-old dog slowly dwindled. Right around Christmas of 2017, she showed signs of her arthritis winning the battle of her bones. She was not making it up the steps too well and a month or two passed as we carried her up the stairs on a daily basis. We knew what was inevitable but no one wanted to face or admit what was happening. Everything I had tried was simply a pacifier and got her to August where the heartbreak became an inevitable reality. We had to let her go to release her from the constant pain we knew she was enduring. 

Eight months of stress. I had done the research and knew wholeheartedly that stress was an enormous factor in the onset and the spreading of this dreaded disease but I was so hellbent on my protocol, I didn’t see the failure for what it was. I was still feeling great, walking, riding my bike, eating right and taking my vitamins but slowly the walking became strenuous. Month after month walking worsened and I blamed everything except what the culprit was, STRESS was beating me over the head with a lead pipe, stress was winning the battle.

How do I know that stress was the culprit? As soon as we put our beloved Sassy to sleep, strangely things started to happen to me in great succession. I told you I’d straighten out the timeline in the editing phase of this story, but yeah, the ball started rolling and still to this day has not stopped. It has lost momentum but that’s a good thing, it means I’m gaining balance over the situation again.

Rolling along, I called the oncologists number and the secretary told me that the (prescribed) doctor was only available at the hospital, she could hook me up with (no name) the first oncologist that dumped me, I told her no way and she offered yet another colleague of the first oncologist. The appointment was made and now everything snowballed. 

The first appointment went as expected. My husband and I sat listening as we were told that chemo was the only way to go if I wanted any quality of life. I stood firm in my stance with my protocol but admitted stress had won out and I needed help. He almost laughed at my protocol and what I’d been doing for a year and a half, but the first blood test showed, I had done something right. He admitted that I had done a good job in taking care of myself. But now it was his turn if I’d allow.

I asked him about the Oral Chemo I had seen and read about, he said the product was still in trial phases and I asked why I was seeing commercials on TV for stage 4 ER+ PR+? Hmm...he left the room and came back and offered an Oral Chemo real quick as well as monitoring blood tests and a listening ear. He was hearing me for the first time, someone in the medical field was listening and hearing me. He also wanted me to see an orthopedic surgeon to see about the pain in my hip. But first he put me right in touch with Physical Therapy for my lymphedema in my arm and that also led to a Home Health nurse coming to check up on me.

I didn’t get to see the Orthopod (as nurses called them) before my third visit to the ER via ambulance. Once again, I was in pain, called 911, the ambulance came and I was scooted onto the gurney and taken to the hospital. As I was leaving, the Home Health nurse was coming to my door wondering what was going on. I let my husband and son handle her as for the third time, I was being escorted to the emergency room. The Volunteer Emergency Unit now called me by name. I joked on the ride so as not to let worry consume me. They always agreed that laughter was the best medicine.

X-rays once again, this one of my hip. This is the one that told the story of my disease basically eating away at my hip bone and causing them to be brittle. I was told my right leg was the one in most severe trouble and to guard it. I was put on morphine and sent home. My Oncologist and Orthopod both knew of the visit to the ER and reached out to me for a visit with each of them respectively. Both had dire prognosis’, use a walker at all times and look into buying a wheelchair. 

I let my left leg do all the work for my right leg. I was in a lot of pain when I walked so we ordered a wheelchair and it was on its way. Fear had now slithered into the place where stress has dwelled. My life was failing and I needed help that only my great God could give! I think prayer is the only thing to save me now. 

Jonah 2:7 "When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple."

All Glory to God

1 Cor. 10:31 “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the Glory of God.”

All Glory to God

Have you ever had one of those days where you woke to a crisp cold morning and felt like just staying nestled under the covers a while longer in the warmth of your bed? Yeah, I think we all have those kinds of days, and more times than not we have to force ourselves into the cold because of work, school, whatever, we wake and go. 

My job these days is giving Glory to God. That’s not a job, you might say but if you knew the pain I was in this past couple of weeks, you’d admit, it’s one chore that you wouldn’t look forward to for sure. I wake and am like a stick pretzel, very stiff from a long night of sleep. I’m prompted to wake, I force myself out of bed and begin my day, all for the Glory of God.

I cannot abandon the job He’s set aside just for me. I’m sure He has others doing jobs for Him but we are unique in our own way. I use my talent to glorify Him in any way I can whether poetry or a post guided by Him. It’s a unique job, but one I never in any way felt capable of doing. But when people say they get it! That the message spoke to THEM, it is at that time I feel my work is for a solid purpose.

I imagine all of the significant people (and some who seem non-significant) all felt the same exact way. Here they were living life, loving God and God stopped them short of continuing and asked them to do something major for Him. How much are we unlike the very people in the Bible?

I believe we’re all like at least one person in the Bible and that is the reason why the book resonates with us, we see ourselves in Esther, Sara, Ruth, Job, Paul or Peter. The list of people in the bible is very long. Is there someone in the Bible you connect with and after reading stand there thinking, 'that is me’? What has God called you, in this generation to do for others?

I was strolling along in life feeling like Mary Magdalene, the repentant prostitute who sat at Jesus’ feet, who sat below Him as He was hung on the cross, then at other times I connect with Job on many levels of feeling worthy and loved, but then discouraged only to find the love of God again and that I fit into His plan after all. 

How many of you sitting there reading this don’t feel worthy enough to put yourself in the shoes of a person in the Bible? So many of us don’t feel worthy to kiss the ground Jesus walked on; we feel like the onlooker watching as Jesus carried the cross or the person sitting at home going on with their daily chores as such a commotion as the hanging of an innocent man went on ‘up the road’.

Me, when I’m feeling unworthy and down I try with everything I have to connect with just one person in the Bible. This is the only way I can find a connection to this world and not as an alien on my home planet. 

The other night we watched the children’s movie Inside Out. I relate to that movie on many levels although it was targeted to be a children’s movie. Who did I relate to? Joy, sadness, fear, anger, or disgust? Every character was a portion of the main character’s personality. Riley’s family had moved her away from her familiarity into a big city of unknown. She feared, she was angry and mad and we had to witness all the worlds in her personality shatter and fall apart. In the end, we learned that we can’t have joy without the pain of sadness.

In the simplest form, that is what the Holy Bible is all about, finding joy through the pain; finding the light at the end of the tunnel. While I often feel alone and alienated in this world, I can at any moment pick up the Bible and relate to one (if not many) people in the bible. I wake in the morning and God is my first ‘go to being’ so I can begin my day. It is the only time I don’t feel so alone.

As I look out at the broken world and pieces of the puzzle are scattered on the floor I try extremely hard to find a fitting puzzle piece. Where do I fit in? How can I accomplish all that God has set out before me? How do I make a picture out of nothingness?

For three, almost four weeks now, I have woke in the morning and grabbed my cane to walk. I’ve led you down my path where I unknowingly fell off protocol and struggled to get back up again. Something happened this week. On the seventh of March, my mother-in-law wrote me an email and asked how I was doing. Did she really want to know or was she just being like everyone else and asking because she didn’t know how to approach me?

I had to wait two days to respond because at the time the email came in I was bitter and angry and not willing to lash out at her, I had to stop and think. On the ninth, I wrote her a letter and told her the truth. I explained going off protocol and eating wheat bread had nearly destroyed me and how my severe pain had returned.

A week passed before I received a response. My sister-in-law was visiting her from Arizona with her two kids and my m-i-l was busy with catering to them I imagine and more than likely didn’t turn her computer on one time. It was during that week that satan knocked on my door with his lovely doubt and fear message. 

“She doesn’t care about you, she’s too busy to be bothered with you. People have lives unlike yourself. No one cares about your pain!”

Yessiree, for an entire pain-filled, cane-embracing week, he was walking around my house like he owned it. I had weakened.

Sister-in-law went home on the sixteenth and poof like a magical leprechaun spun his little hand and poked his head in (I’m kidding here) my m-i-l sent me an email on the seventeenth. She said she was glad that I was so honest with my pain because now she knew where to target her prayers for me. I honestly was thinking ‘yeah right’ as satan was still here wandering around the cold gloomy days. I didn’t write back as I was still harboring resentment of her week of no response.

Sunday morning came, I reached for my cane to get out of bed. I woke, I walked but didn’t feel the need for it. Again, I was thinking, yeah right, I’ll need it in a bit, after my shower I bet. Guess what? It is Wednesday and I haven’t used my cane this week. Oh, I grab it because I’m not totally surrendering as I should be, but today, I feel like satan has packed his bags and is now huffing and puffing because once again he realized THERE IS POWER IN PRAYER!

Moral of the story? We might all feel like Thomas, doubting the power of God, second-guessing our purpose because of the pain we’re in but rest assured my friend, God has YOU in His hands even when satan thinks he is gaining ground. Our God is BIGGER and more powerful, and PRAYER HEALS! Through the pain, I give ALL GLORY TO GOD! On a dusty traveled road, I see Light at the end of the tunnel! I feel joy in the midst of my sorrow. 

Matt. 5:16 KJV “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

You're Not Alone

Proverbs 11:2  “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

You're Not Alone

Today I am humbled. My Biblical email was once again aimed right at me. What do I gain from these emails? Insight, insight to the realization I’m not alone. 

I often think about the women who have gone before me on this journey of what I deem The Pink Parade. The journey of a patient who decided to trust in the chemo route. For years they were poked and prodded, sliced and diced, radiated and drugged, only to succumb to the battle in the end.

Then I think of the women who went the same route and survived, they are the leaders of the Pink Parade. Then there are the women who made it halfway through the chemo route and said no way, there has to be something besides the vomiting and sickness and weakness in their knees. 

In the back of my mind are the women who went full throttle into the Natural route. These women are struggling daily too but no one hears the murmurs. No one connects to the pain that they endure on a frequent basis. They’re out there alone, sometimes with no connections, friends, or family to help them along. It is to them I wish my voice to be heard. You’re not alone!

James 1:2-3 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

After the couple of weeks I’ve had, of feeling so alone and isolated in a world overflowing with people, the Word steps right into my heart and soul in the strangest and most mystical of ways. It gives me the clarity that I am not alone and never will be as long as I hold His Word snuggled close to my heart. There is a purpose to all of this and quite ironically, it is finding joy in my suffering.

I am humbled when I think of all of the women out there struggling, fighting, winning or losing, defeating or claiming victory, they’re out there, just moving on! 

Only through my suffering can I convey a message of hope. Only through this journey of my choice can I find the patience needed to get me through just one more day of living, writing, telling my story. Some days I cry out to God and say, “Please no more. I just can’t!” He lets me know quite frankly that, “YES YOU CAN!” When He puts it like that, I tend to sit up and listen to Him. He wants me to write. He’s given me a talent and if gone unused then I have wasted my life and His time but trust me, none of us are a waste of His time. 

James 1:22 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

I’ve put a hold on scanning mounds of websites that hold information on this Natural Path I’m walking down. I found part of my struggle with this illness was due to too much information, then contradictory information that shrouded me in uncertainty. It then went on to cloud my judgment with a dose of paranoia. That had to stop. 

While I want to reach out and help all of the people I can, I need more time for healing myself right now. My research is now leading me to discover if my supplementation, my arsenal, has run its course and do I need to bring about a change in course. It’s a slow learning curve but heck, I have time to jump back in and research to save myself.

There are certain vitamins/herbs in my regimen that won’t be changed and mainly Vitamin C, D3, magnesium, selenium, quercetin, curcumin, turmeric, and of course my B12’s. I may add some vitamins A., B17, E, and K but research is still ongoing for those. I love learning but I love healing even more and with every passing day, my patience is tried and tested but I just keep moving on, day after day.

With these few passing weeks of a setback, I realized that it is not much unlike a derailed train, it takes time to get back on track, and no swift kick in the butt or change of cars is going to make it a speedy transition. Time, patience, humility, and determination will see that the train gets back on track.

While we live in a NEW generation of toxic exposure, some may feel that glyphosate, Round-up, GMO’s are not going to have an impact on their lives. My how wrong they are in that assumption. If your children or grandchildren were born in the seventies and eighties, I can guarantee 100% those toxic exposures are impacting their lives, their children’s lives, and YOUR life. We live in a generation now where we have a great percentage of our population addicted to drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has impacted your life! Drugs are toxic, plain and simple. Autism, ADHD, MS, autoimmune disorders are all at an all-time high. All of these diseases are impacts of the toxic generation.

Taken from the site Autoimmune causes: 
BOTTOM LINE:
Researchers don’t know exactly what causes autoimmune diseases. Diet, infections, and exposure to chemicals might be involved. 

Read that and listen loud and clear, the 21st century and we STILL don’t know the causes but they expect us to be led like cows to slaughter and just accept what it is, a way of life. *I* will not accept my disease as a way of life! That is what’s happened over the years, people have had their heads buried in the sand, or now their iPhones and no longer look up to see the reality of death that is consuming the world and their very own families.

I AM NOT ALONE! YOU are not alone! There are thousands of people like myself who have lifted their eyes and see the world for what it is, a toxic wasteland, just as it is in the movie Wall-E. I can’t just turn a blind eye to the brunt of the truth before me. My grandchildren, my nieces and nephews and their children are all going to be living in this wasteland and we’ve done nothing to stop the invasion of garbage except just leave everyone alone, mind your own business and just live! Accept it as 'it is what it is'.

The way I see it [life], we all got a raw deal! It’s what we do with that raw deal, like change it into a banquet of blessings for the future generations or stick your head back in the sand. Life will go on for generations to come. Some will get to see the New Earth some will be too busy trying to get their heads out of the sand. 

Isa. 66:22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.”

Rev. 21:1 “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”

This mornings dawning of a new day! 

GOD BLESS ONE AND ALL!

The Struggle Is Real

2 Cor. 5:17 KJV “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

The Struggle is Real

I know a lot of people who think that because you’ve accepted Christ that life will be full of luxurious bubble bath days and happiness. Some know and understand the truth, some are learning, some want what they want and want it NOW! 

Just like the above scripture, there is a simplified version from the AMP explained for us, you know someone else did all of the work and all you have to do is read it to understand the bible better.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (AMP) “Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].” 

I’m not normally offended when I read scripture but that verse in my morning email struck a nerve with me. I’ll assume that AMP is an amplified bible, (total assumption) and maybe people like having someone else decipher and dissect every scriptural word of the bible for them so they don’t have to do the work for themselves. I totally understand what 2 Tim. 2:15 is saying and don’t need fifty versions of the bible to tell me. Don’t we all wish life was so simple for us, let’s have others dissect our life for us, tell us right from wrong so we don’t make any mistakes? I have cancer, here ya go, take it away from me. Make my job in doing all of the hard work in healing simple for me, please! I can read and learn the protocols in healing but no one is going to do the work for me, but ME!

We think that being a Christian that there will be no struggles, no hard days, that all our days will be filled with knowing, understanding and doing the right thing. I’m here to tell you, nothing in life is simple, not reading the Bible, not being a Christian and certainly not going a Natural path to healing when conventional treatment is out there to make an illness easier for us.

I’m also here to tell you that the struggle is real! Life is hard, being a Christian is hard work, reading the bible is a (fun for me) chore! Nothing in life ever comes easy. If you’ve had an easy life, raising kids or pets, if being an adult has been a walk in the park for you, well then praise be to God, you’re one in a zillion! Yes, I said zillion because no one has an easy road to walk in life! 

Being a Christian doesn’t make the road easy, and it’s not always paved; sometimes there’s gravel on the road and we walk along in our bare feet. Our journey as a Christian is as tough as the non-christian we just have a friend walking along with us at all times. Now some people allow Jesus to walk way up ahead so He can prepare us for what we’re about to go through. Sometimes people allow Jesus to sit on the side of the road to watch us stumble and fall. Others don’t believe there is a Jesus and only allows a god to be sunshine on their bubbly well-lit path. 

See what I’m saying? The struggle is real for each and every one of us, in reading, believing and walking. I myself, and I like to think many others, has the Spirit of the Lord WITHIN us. This way we don’t have to look outside to see where He’s at, at any given moment. If we feel weak, we know He’s our strength to hold us up. If we feel disillusioned, He restores our sight so we see. If we have trouble understanding the Word, He fills us with the knowledge to understand every intricate word.

2 Tim. 2:15 King James Bible “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

There are literally thousands of interpretations, languages, renditions of the bible but in all honesty, there is only ONE Word! With the Word, we have internal and external struggles but all struggles none-the-less. Our internal struggles wrestle with the new life we’ve been given in Christ. We wonder when He’s just going to simplify everything for us, after all, we’ve allowed him on our path, right? Wrong! He’s not there to SIMPLIFY your life! He’s there to fill your life with meaning, purpose and most of all, strength. The task is that you yourself have to do the work but you're never alone!

Ezek. 37:1 “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,”

Our external struggles come when we wrestle with the flesh, the mind on other things not of God. Free-will demands we choose from good and evil, there is no in between. We struggle with understanding the Word and is probably the reason we seek out a simplified version of the bible so we’re sure that we are understanding correctly. 

Ezek. 36:27 “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

Can everyone and anyone understand the bible completely with so many renditions out there? With thousands of years passing the story around, do you believe it is possible that some words got lost along the way? I believe God to be the One and Only word and He places on your heart the understanding so no simplification is necessary. What is the purpose of discernment if we have the Word simplified in many variations? Shouldn’t we FEEL the Word in us and no reason for simplicity?

I could be totally wrong, (as often I am) but I believe over dissection of His Word loses the luster of the meaning SPIRIT-FILLED, for ME. The struggle becomes a battle of differences in opinions and again, lost is the Spirit that was intended in having the Word documented by so many people.

Some people want me to blame God for this disease I carry while others want to blame evil, darkness, and negativity while I myself blame no one except my life choices! The lusts of my free will ran rampant and I lost the battle. No, wait, I haven’t lost the battle, the struggle is still on, day after agonizing day, night after aching night, the struggle is REAL! 

Pss.119:50 KJV “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.”

I don’t want the Word simplified and I don’t want this journey made easy for me, it is what it is, upon me and the path I chose. Good or bad, right or wrong, simple or hard, this journey each of us is on is never easy and can never be simplified. The path can only be embraced for what it is, a completion of our journey home. Remember, He never walks in front, beside, or behind, He always remains within!  You are spirit-filled from the moment of rebirth in His name! 

All praise and Glory to God

Pss. 119:92-93 KJV “Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction. I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.”

Simplified - “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life” (Psalm 119:93)

Gateway to Health: Conclusion

Rev. 8:13 "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!"

Gateway to Health: Conclusion

Value Yourself!

I am concluding my Gateway to Health Series. I’ve shown you all I can about changing your diet, and the essential exercise necessary (simply walking 20-30 minutes a day or more) to keep blood flowing through your lymph nodes. I’ve told you of my successes and my failures, my ups and downs, and everything in between; now its time to let you fly. 

I realized that I might not have shown you one thing and that is to value yourself. I think people are so caught up in the fast pace of society, trying the fish joint, or the new burger palace or eating at that restaurant because of tradition and not many will give pause to waiting, valuing themselves enough to change their order for a healthier solution. People don’t think themselves worthy enough to save or are worth eating healthy to save themselves from numerous doctors visits to stay alive.

Statistically, only twenty percent of the people are willing to change their diet to save themselves from imminent death. Life is too short they say, you only live once they murmur, ‘hey, we all gotta die from something’. I get it, I know what you’re saying. Me, I’ve had the wake-up call of a lifetime. I’ve been given the opportunity to live instead of dying a slow, long drawn out, painful, drug-induced death. I’m one of the twenty percentiles that value living more than dying.

I have a Spider plant that I’ve had for about twelve years. It was always drooping no matter what I did. I watered, fed, and fertilized it but it continuously drooped. With the Christmas season came a rearranging of plants. I sat my Spider Plant in a window where it gets to see the sunrise every morning. Within two months, this looks like a whole new plant, reaching for the sky, turning towards the sun, and reproducing by having babies! 

I did something right and never moved the plant back to its previous spot. I let my plant flourish and grow. It listened to me when I said you need to have a change or you’re going to die. I know a lot of folks don’t believe plants know anything but let me tell you, weird Joni has witnessed this living breathing plant extend its life with CHANGE! That is my very reason for writing to you, so maybe you’ll change to live.

I could’ve left the plant where it was and just let it limp through life with wilted leaves but I knew a drastic change was in order for me to see this plant live up to its potential. That is all I want for my human friends who can actually change on their own, live up to your full potential, is that too much to ask? Apparently, it is. I can offer sunshine but most of the time I think your shades are drawn. I can offer you something new but too often you cling to the old. Old habits are hard to break, or so they say.

1 Thess. 5:24 “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

1 Thess. 5 is almost the same thing (as in so many scripture verses) that cries out to you, a guide for you, and an aid in hard times and struggles but do you adhere? If you are not going to listen to the Holy Bible who am I to think you’d change your diet because of a few words I pen? I cry out to you to change, not to shame you or judge you, I do it because I want you to live and not be imprisoned by the drugs that will usher you to your death.

To get through the Gateway to Health there is no other entry than to walk through it, taking the first step towards change. Even the smallest of steps will have you feeling the value of life. If you’re not willing to change then go to your doctor, ask him what drug will make the slow process of death easier on you because it seems that is all anyone wants is an easy route to get from point A to point B. 

A year into my changed protocol, I struggle daily with pains, ups, and downs and don’t feel much unlike Elijah in many ways. I understand the trial I must endure and it is not the easy route in life; I cry out.

1 Kgs. 19:4 “But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”

When I cry out to Him, God assures me of another path, one where I live and I’m shown the value of my life, my journey and the end reward. Am I wrong in wanting the same for my fellow man?

1 Kgs. 19:5-8 And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

My journey is far from over. I will move forward with the strength of an army of angels plowing forward bringing peace and goodwill to man. I cannot devalue my life, my soul is too precious whether good or bad instances flare up, I roll right along facing what I must. My wish for you is that when you look in the mirror you see the value in yourself before giving in completely to the darkness that leads you in the wrong direction; strolling down the darkened path where the gateway of health is closed to you.

When God extends his hand, do you turn away? When He gives you a second chance, do you toss it in the garbage pail outside the fast food restaurant? When God speaks, do you listen or are your earplugs in and you only hear what you want to hear, when you want to hear it? I’ve had every opportunity that you’ve had, to listen to everyone else, go the easy route, to be thrown on the table to be sliced, diced and medicated or go the tough route of listening to the whispers of something greater out there in the void of the cosmos. I chose the harder route but, to me, the better route.

I’m now making a choice to conclude my Gateway to Health series and allowing you to decide for yourself whether you’re worth living or dying. Do you value your life or are you content with your health, weight, prognosis, or diagnosis? If you said no, then do something about it, change is within your grasp. Take a chance, that’s all. Either fall or walk, stumble or crawl, whatever you decide you’re WORTH it to stay alive!

May the Grace of the Lord be upon you all! 

Angel always…Godspeed my friends…

Still Small Voice

1 Kgs. 19:12 “And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

Still small voice

Listen, can you hear Him, His still small voice is speaking to you, can you feel him? Maybe you hear an inner voice, maybe He’s revealed in dreams or visions. One way or another God is reaching out to you, can you give Him a moment of your time?

I need to heed my own advice. Yesterday was a pretty bad day, like a pimple everything in me burst; not physically, emotionally. When Lent begins and you alter your routine that you were so set on, you’d be surprised how quickly the Lord responds. 

I’ve said that I’m on a strict protocol but sometimes I don’t feel it is strict enough, I’m not fighting off the common cold mind you. I’ve given up so much that the task of continuing can be quite daunting and overwhelming. This week has been one of those weeks of build-up that came to a head and popped.

For starters, the weather. While everyone is out there laughing at me when I say how cold it is, they are not the ones hindered or put out by the unending cold. They're also not fighting a deathly disease. Let me remind you that last winter we had nary a speck of snow, we had one cold spell that was completely over in two weeks and on this day last year we were hitting record warmth and trees were already showing signs of budding.

Granted I know it is ‘winter’ from December 21-March 21 but for a couple of years, the winters have been mild and bearable. This one is strangely different. I say strangely because with a very dry summer we normally would have a dry winter, but this year when droughts were rampant across the country, after the wildfires in the west, something happened up there in the jet stream that changed weather across the states. 

Since December 21st, we’ve had snow or ice on the ground not allowing me my daily walks. The temperatures have been below normal meaning I’ve seen more minus zero wind chills than days above zero, or even above the freezing temp of 32. With the cold comes clouds, more clouds than sun. With ice, clouds and cold it has swept me into hibernation and that is not an allowed protocol of a vicious disease that lets me know who’s boss on any given day.

With the viciousness of the attack of this illness, I get very down, another part of the protocol that is not allowed. I know from the outside world you can’t see it, so of course, you’re going to laugh and not think of how your simple words might cut me like a knife. I do understand that life is going on for everyone else while mine has come to a complete standstill and turned around for me 360 degrees.

Yesterday I cried, a deep cry where my eyes puffed up, my nose clogged beyond decompression, my head ached and my whole body shivered and shook wanting to curl into a ball and be left alone. I told my husband I didn’t know what was happening or why I was crying like this. I just feel like I’m getting worse, not better, I’m not strong but am becoming weakened. I feel like Jesus went to pray and came back and here I am sleeping. He wanted me awake and I couldn’t do that one simple thing for Him, stay awake!

My husband told me that I used to cry like this a lot in the beginning and that I’ve been doing great. I sure don’t feel like I’ve been doing great but he assured me I was. Even with his assurance and compassion, I felt like sleeping, never to wake up again. I prayed.

Yesterday, tucked in among the frigid gloomy days was a sixty-degree day. The winds were horrendous, kind of ruining the beauty but after my cry, my dog needed to do some business and my hubby was in the shed working on a project. I rose and went to the back door, letting the dog outside, I looked around; the winds subsided. For a brief moment, I felt the sun, I drank in the warmth of my swollen face and felt a peace wash over me. God was letting me know, in His still small voice that I was going to be okay. 

Yesterday I craved everything that I haven’t had for a year. Yes, I know I can crash but I craved like never before. While shopping, I wanted donuts, I wanted pizza, I wanted everything but knew I could have nothing. I grieved beyond consolation, when I got home I crashed into a fit of tears that hurt every part of my being and there was this day, possibly the Son shining just for me, letting me know that I need to see how far I’ve come.

Luke 4:2 “Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.”

I was reminded that when Jesus fasted, for forty days He was tempted by the devil, He didn’t cave but instead said, “Satan, get thee behind me.” I’m letting you know quite bluntly, I’m not Jesus and sometimes am not that strong.  

Luke 4:8 “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

I caved and ate a small frozen pizza. Not just any frozen pizza, I added black olives, onion, jalapeno peppers, ham, and some turkey bacon; the pizza was a feast I haven’t seen for a year! I had two slices of bread with butter, a pickle and some green olives on the side. I ate the entire meal! I was full and it felt good to be full. Granted I’ve been eating well for a year, and yes I’ve had a day or two out of the year where I went off protocol but this winter is the real test. It is making me feel total insecurity, anxiousness, doubt, and fear all coming to a head and exploding.

I need to let you all know that the struggle is real. Appreciate every whimsical chance you get to be with the ones you love. Eat like tomorrow you might not have another piece of food enter your mouth and pray, pray your illness can be fought and won and don’t ever give up. Listen for that still small voice in your head, but most of all, HEAR what it is saying.

This week we’re back to the brisk cold, the clouds swallowing the sun whole, and me kicking myself in the butt for breaking! I need to get back into my exercise routine that winter curtailed even if it is on a bike that sits inside four walls. I need to be lifted up instead of feeling down, even if that means I need to stay away from everyone and their great food filled lives, I need to listen to that still small voice telling me to wake up, I’m not alone! I need to feel Jesus, tapping me on the shoulder telling me He is right here beside me, that He made it, He put satan in his place and we can go on from today with our heads held high. We embrace… I’m not alone. 

God is good, all of the time. All of the time, God is good!

Jas. 1:2-5 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

All praise and Glory to God!

Go To The Mattresses

Ex. 14:14 KJV “The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”

Go to the Mattresses

Ex.14:14 ESV “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Have you ever heard the term, ‘go to the mattresses’? I remember first hearing it in the movie You’ve Got Mail and thought it was kinda funny that Joe Fox the competitor was telling his competition to ‘go to the mattresses’ with her competitor, not knowing it was him of course. (I love that movie!) But he was using the phrase he’d remembered from the Godfather movie, it means to prepare for battle.

I used the phrase a couple of months ago quite literally when I was discussing the necessity of a new mattress. I was willing to ‘go to battle’ to get a new mattress to save my aching back. Our fifteen-year-old mattress had it’s final days years ago but affordability made it quite impossible getting a new one, bad back or not. Illness after illness it seems was always nipping at our feet inhaling any extra funds needed to get a stupid mattress.

Then not long before Christmas my dog showed signs of failing and for sure I didn’t think she’d make it through Christmas, but I went to the mattresses for her and looked up home remedies to help her with her obvious arthritis in her hindquarters. The unending bitter cold and snowfalls were not helping my Sassy as I know myself, the cold can sometimes agitate arthritis. Fish oil! Who would’ve thought fish oil would help a dog’s arthritis? It does tremendously, so much so, if I miss a day, she’s back to the inability to climb the stairs. 

I know you’re going to say, get her to a vet but I’m sure each and every one of you know how expensive they can be and well, in my battle with this disease and every other thing going wrong, funds are just not in the cards of ours. I know it might sound like I’m picking our life over our dog, but I do what I can do. In three days time the fish oil began working its magic. I had fish oil on hand because it is one of my many supplements, I gave it up for her, to save her! It is WORKING! 

My situation always has me wondering what people are thinking. ‘If her God is so great why does she suffer so much?’ Let me put it quite bluntly to you, God is fighting a bigger battle than I ever give myself credit for. You get your hair done, right? Your nails done, too? Well, I look at my life and struggles as God grooming me for my eternity with Him. He’s going to the mattresses for me and quite frankly, I’m sitting in peace, in silence, amazed at His ability to take on anything thrown at me. And just so you know, I've never had my hair or nails done. I do them myself, always have and always will. 

We finally decided to get a new mattress. I couldn’t believe it! On January twenty-fifth, the anniversary of my diagnosis, my husband set out determined to change the negative overtone of the date and hang something new in the balancing scheme of things, we went mattress shopping. It was a surprise to me, I had just said I wanted a Wendy’s chili, and he said he needed a pair of work pants (like the mattress, his old ones had served their time) but we went a different route and he announced, ‘want to look at mattresses’ and I squealed in agreement, ‘yes, yes, yes! 

You might be wondering why I wanted a Wendy’s chili since I’ve been so strict with my protocol. That’s just it, for a year I have been strict with my protocol. The twenty-fifth was a day one-year-ago I had my last fast-food purchase with a chili (my fave). I needed a good memory of chili and not the grim one that held it captive for a year. The twenty-fifth of January will be a new memory for me! We purchased a therapeutic necessity, work pants a part of his uniform, and a wonderful bowl of Wendy’s chili! The day was a great day and no longer does the grim reminder of a dastardly diagnosis hold the days' memory in its hand.

So while going to the mattresses holds different meaning all around, I prepared for battle, my Lord by my side, and claim a VICTORY! After one night's PEACE on the new mattress, my back felt different! I can’t wait to see what a month, a year, a couple years do to my back. Just as putting all of my faith in God, the mattress was well worth the price! God goes to battle and *I*, rest in PEACE! 

All praise and glory to Him! 

Pss. 97: 10 “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.”

Gateway to Health: Food

Isa. 3:11 "Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him."

Gateway to Health: FOOD!

Can’t means you won’t!

Feed a cold starve a fever. 
Google definition:
“The belief is that eating food may help the body generate warmth during a “cold” and that avoiding food may help it cool down when overheated. But recent medical science says the old saw is wrong. It should be “feed a cold, feed a fever.”  Science-based facts listed here.

A natural way to healing the common cold and flu!

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” ~ Hippocrates

With illness running rampant and the flu in forty-six states leaving people bedridden, you’d think more and more people would be changing their toxic diets into healthy ones to ward off the virus’. Granted when a floating virus is in the air and you breathe in, it is pretty hard to ward off that illness once inside your body.

It’s apparent that not only was my immune system compromised and allowed this Big C to make its stand in my body, but the nation is under attack of the viral community. Doctors offices are filling up in record number as everyone checks in for antibiotics to fend off this illness that has them homebound and bedridden. Flu shots that don’t work are continuously offered, antibiotics handed out like a  candy vending machine, and people so seriously sick, some die.

All of 2017 I aimed people in the ‘changing their diet’ direction to ward off sickness, but did anyone listen to me? Nope, they all succumbed to the holiday indulgences of sugars, food, and people where the virus’ thrive, hence an abundance of people are now sick. So to me, it is apparent, you don’t value your immune system no more than I did, and thus life as we know it becomes altered and all you can do is lay in bed sick and complain.

In my healing process, I have had many traumatic memories flooding back to me that need releasing as I move on. They are all part of the healing process and the only way I actively work to release them is to write about them. One (non-traumatic) memory surfaced yesterday as I was discussing the rarity of my situation and the active change that I’ve embraced. Someone had said, they can’t change, they’ve tried but can’t. 

The memory of a nun in fourth grade pulling me aside saying, “Joni, when you say you CAN’T do it, it means you WON’T!”

Can’t means you Won’t has stuck with me since fourth grade and I’m wondering if when I was diagnosed if that wasn’t front and center in my mind. Can’t change my nasty diet/illness means I won’t. I turned can’t into WILL change! I WILL do everything in my power to take on change. Every time the thought came into my mind, ‘I can’t do that’, I remembered can’t means won’t, and I changed, quite drastically I might add all because of the nun and her statement in fourth grade? Well, thank you, Sister Margaret Mary! 

Oh how I wished I had a branding iron and could burn into to your skin those words, Can’t means Won’t, and every time you think you can’t do something, the mark is there to remind you that you CAN do it!

Maybe it would help if you watched the movie, ‘Yes Man’, with Jim Carey. He goes through life saying no to everything until an old friend sees him and asks if he is still at the same dead-end job he was in thirty years ago. His friend goes on to tell him how HE has changed his life by saying YES to everything. He takes him [Carey] to a convention that changed his life forever.

Then there’s the movie, ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, where the character is the real-life version of a fictional character who is destined to be killed off. He has to change his destiny. That movie resonated with me as a writer.

What does any of this have to do with your health? It has everything to do with saving your life and changing your diet to ward off these viral infections with a stronger immune system. What you eat has everything to do with your damaged immune system. You damaged the poor thing, you’ve let your body down and you WON’T change to save your own life. That is the sad fact of the matter.

I want to help by encouraging you to change. While I’m out here feeling GREAT with a disease that’s killing millions of people you all are in bed throwing Kleenex (or more) at the computer screen telling me to shut up already. I can’t/won't shut up, I want you to live as much as I myself wants to live.

Remember this, doctors stay in business with you sick. If people started getting healthy they’d have no business, they might be forced to learn new things about the health of a patient. I’m going to aim you to Vitamin C. Not a processed pill you pop from your over inflated pharmacy, a 5000 mg powder purchased from a reputable source online. Solaray (non-acidic is my choice) but the acidic will work better for the non-cancer patient.

If your doctor warns you off of vitamin C, think about that, our immune systems can be fixed with vitamin C, why would a doctor tell you NO? I can tell you that once your immune system starts fighting for itself, the less and less medication you will need. A probiotic will get your organs functioning properly because let's face it, if you’re popping pills, are overweight, are fighting sicknesses too many times in a year, you’re damaging your organs along with your immune system. Get them all (organs and immune system) on the same page, BUT, and this is MAJOR, if you WON’T change your diet, none of these supplements will work for you. It was nice knowing you. My heart and love to you.

People think all I eat is grass and they’d be wrong. Since I’m creative with my writing, I am also creative with my cooking. Non-toxic foods taste BETTER than the processed carbohydrates you shovel in, or the GMO meat you fill your bellies with, or even the lovely sugars you kill yourself with.

Take for example two eggs (for me) add more for more mouths to feed. I use the brown farm-raised chicken's eggs. I add an abundance of nutrition to just two scrambled eggs. Different days, different variations so as not to get bored.

2 eggs, scrambled
2 slices of onion finely chopped
slices of red pepper
garlic
I have a bag of organic spinach (I use for salads too) and I take a handful and like wringing out a rag wring the spinach and shred it in my eggs when eggs are almost done and veggies are soft and tender.
Flaxseed tossed in (ample amount, optional)
Green pepper
Mushrooms
Pepper (to your liking)
Cayenne pepper (to your liking)

I just add ingredients to my liking (veggies) until the eggs are merely a speck among the clouds. It’s a delicious dish with (organic) carrot/orange juice by Knudsen, or pomegranate/cranberry, they have very nice selections or the V8 Berry Bliss juice on occasions. They too have a nice variety but read the labels to see if sugar is ADDED and the carbs!

To put it quite simply my salads I make a feast out of by adding more and more colors and variations. My spaghetti is of the gluten-free variety noodles and sometimes I add chicken sausage (along with my peppers and onions and mushrooms). Be creative! When creativity comes alive when you’re cooking, the vegetables are rarely tasted but ingested and fed to your system in abundance! I also use Bertolli Organic tomato and basil spaghetti sauce. I prefer the glass jars over plastics for obvious reasons.

Change is not that hard when the taste is good. I drink purified water or organic juices. Even something as simple as organic oatmeal I make filling and full of fruit! I add raisins, banana or strawberry (or any berry) cinnamon, and use Organic 100% Pure Maple Syrup (to your liking), and I drizzle coconut milk over it (to my liking) along with two slices of toast with Almond Butter. Voila! A meal! And if I get hungry for a snack later, I go right for grapes or chunks of pineapple or baked apple and pineapple with cinnamon and maple syrup! No wonder I’ve lost so much weight. Everything I eat, my body utilizes! 

So when you say you can’t change because (fill in excuse here) you really won’t change because (fill in the blank.) Think about it, change is in your grasp and you won’t do it. It only takes one small step to lead to leaps and bounds but you won’t take that first step out of FEAR of Change, face it. 

God bless you all on your living journey!

Poetry Sunday ~ On a Monday ~ Tear Catcher

Job 16:20 “My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.”

Tear Catcher

I feel the doubts like shouts

lingering in my soul.

not from within but without

are ones that play a role.

I cannot find a protocol

that keeps this ill at bay

I cannot bear all the words

that people never say.

Taunted with their falsity

the fake façade they feel

their glazed over face says one thing

while the mind will whisper what’s real.

Tissues fill the trashcan

with tears that I’d cast down

tripping on my own thoughts

as a smile turns to a frown.

Dear God as you walk with me

along the storm-filled path

allow in me a peace unknown

Release this inner wrath.

Pss. 6:6 “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.”

The Doctor Did His Job

Psalm 73:25-26 KJV “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

The Doctor Did His Job

He set out to break the barrier of positivism and hope down, and he somewhat succeeded. Let me just say that if he thought for one minute anything I was taking was toxic to my system he wouldn’t have hesitated in pointing out that hey, they’re toxic. In my research on cancer cures, turmeric, Vitamin C, garlic, ginger, ginseng and a host of other things are NOT toxic. Even mixed together in a cocktail all at one time these supplements WOULD NOT be toxic. Although I’ve found sufficient evidence to PROVE chemotherapy IS toxic.

The doctor did his job of instilling DOUBT and FEAR with words like, death, dying, my ability to see my grandchildren one day, and I’m sure many who have gone the chemo route are more than happy to have the chance to see their grandchildren. He also used the fear tactic, that if I was his underage child, he would get a COURT ORDER to MAKE me get the chemo, “But, you’re not underage so you have to decide,” he said in his strong Bulgarian accent.

God keeps telling me, “I can give you LIFE”, “I can fill you to the brim with Hope”, “I HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL if only you have the FAITH of a mustard seed.” His words are most definitely more comforting than what the doctor offered. Now I ask you, who am I to listen to? 

I remember talking to my GP last week and telling her that if I don’t BELIEVE that chemo is going to help me and my mind won’t ALLOW it to help, can it really help me? Isn’t the mind, body, and soul an empowering tool of ours? She looked at me and said, “There is some truth to that!” She went on to tell me that all I AM doing to change, my diet, my supplements, my exercise would only add to the beneficial treatment of chemo. Funny thing is, the onc. doctor said “Meh, you won’t need them with chemo. Chemo will save you alone.” As if chemotherapy was the Superman of cancer and not the kryptonite to Superman. You see how one can be broken down by a doctor who thinks like that? He’s right, I’m wrong, God’s wrong, and any and all supplements are wrong. Even though these supplements have been PROVEN but are still in the ‘clinical’ stages that I’m not eligible for. 

I’m watching another series on cancer The Truth About Cancer series. Did you know that in Switzerland, over twenty years ago a cure was found? You didn’t know that did you? A micronutrient synergy in the form of vitamin c, quercetin and green tea (that’s not the entire protocol) was saving lives but when brought to the medical board they were laughed at and scoffed at because the pharmaceutical companies had no stake in this flighty ‘micronutrient saving grace’. These were doctors of the Dr. Rath Institute in California, who brought this exciting fact-based plan to light and they were shot down. 

Doctor Matthias Rath 
and 
Dr. Alexandra Niedzwiecki 

These two are no fly by night doctors in the Cancer Research arena. These are the very faces that HAVE the cure! Why does the government not want this knowledge in the hands of patients? Why does the government stand by the chemotherapy route? Have you ever considered that we’re no different than the Jews so many years ago being led into gas chambers, all a part of a mass exodus to be rid of us? Why is God's Herbal Medicinal Healing, HEALING shunned when pharmaceuticals are PUSHED even on our small children with the likes of that new illness ADHD? Kids, OUR KIDS are being drugged too, not HEALED!

Are you getting the picture here? Well, I sure am and even if the PET scan comes back and says its spreading to my brain, I’m going to fight tooth and nail to not go the chemo route. It has only been a month of this protocol I’m on and I’d like more time! The docs can try to break me but my God is the only one who can destroy me completely! Since I have lived with this tumor growing in my body for possibly well over five-ten years, then what is the hurry in getting hit by kryptonite? I mean chemo.?

What scares me so? The Port. It's this small wire and a plastic button placed under your skin that would feed chemotherapy (radioactive therapy) directly to your bloodstream. The port stays in you for years until you are cancer free and then you have a choice to have it removed or not. Let me tell you a quick story. My aunt had cancer, was in remission, had the port removed, cancer came back more aggressively and she died. My uncle, had lung cancer, was in remission, had the port removed, cancer came back, port returned with chemo, and he died. A long slow, painful, deteriorating death. My aunt was 130 lbs when she died, (previously a 250 lb or more woman), my uncle a burly 180 lbs. died underweight also. My dad had throat cancer, he was in remission five years and he chose NOT to remove the port. He eventually died of COPD after being in the hospital for a month. 

So you see, losing THREE family members in the same year also has me wanting to fight AGAINST chemo treatment. They didn’t fight, they basically followed the leader and lost the battle! I will NOT follow the leader! I will follow Christ and what He wants me to do!

So maybe the doctor didn’t win in the end. He placed doubt and fear deeply in our visit and I’ve carried it, now I need to be rid of it, NOW! Prayers are always my saving grace. Praise be to God.

Well, I just found out that the PET scan is going to cost us over $1,000 dollars that we don’t have. GREAT! Whatever is in that fund up there will be used to pay for it. I’ve got enough supplements for I believe 30-60 days. Whoa…just… falls silent …..