OPTIMISM: A New Day

Pss. 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Optimism: A New Day

For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been walking around in a veiled fog. My brain couldn’t wrap itself around the simplest of things. I knew without the Oral Chemo I would start to fail. I don’t know why the nurse assumed, two weeks ago, I would jump right into the chemo Herceptin, she knows me and has been working with me for seven months but she went ahead and stopped all further shipments of my meds and didn’t, it sounds to me, get the doctors okay. He wanted me back on what I had left here at home, pronto! And as soon as I started taking it again, my body, muscles, and brain all connected, finally.

I was angry and bitter at just about anyone I came in contact with. I put up a good front (or not) but I muddled through each and every day. If you’ve been reading my blog over the years, you know I am an optimist at heart. I take everything to the Lord and listen ONLY to Him. Not my husband, son, doctors or family can tell me anything, I listen to God and wait for what He has to say ALL of the time.

This instance was no different as I told you last week. I prayed, I heard, and I listened. I also told you I didn’t like the answer I got and for that, I became bitter and disgruntled and in all honesty, ready to pick out my urn! Just an FYI: I want the cover of Dark Side of the Moon on it. Inscription will say: "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

Pss. 34:6 "This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles."

God wants me to go the Herceptin route and for the life of me, I cannot conceive why. Why would He do this to me? Why can’t I just be healed like everyone imagines how healing is done? You don’t have to answer that I already know the answer. GOD DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! 

With all of the healthy eating and supplementation, my body was being prepared to handle what the damaging poison would do to my system. It’s a fact that chemo destroys, it’s a fact that we have the power within ourselves to heal so we need to step up and take action to see healing through. I worked hard to build up my immunity and it may just be time to see if it is strong enough for the poison while the poison attacks the C cells. A science project in motion, if you will.

My body was ready for the Oral Chemo. After sifting through the lies that the doctor told, I had no idea the Oral Chemo was a short term route. I was led to believe ‘that I would see ANOTHER Christmas’. Well, if I don’t go the Herceptin route, I might not see another Christmas!

I have said over and over and over again, this illness is not like a cold. You eat some soup, take some vitamin c and you’re all better. There is no clear indication that just changing your diet to an organic plant-based and taking supplements is the secret to healing the Big C! I’ve NEVER EVER said that or misled anyone to believe that. I made it perfectly clear that there is an entire chasm of healing tools and chemo is NOT the only way to go either! And also, cancer is NOT the death sentence that doctors would like you to believe it is, it’s an enemy of your system, but it is YOUR system, your body, your healing, no one else can heal you but God and you!

The women I see healing alternatively have money, the choice of fine doctors at their fingertips, chiropractors, have been to the clinic in Mexico, have access to the UV saunas, have within their reach the ability to afford all the crazy organic Plant Based food, and many live in states where Medicinal Cannabis is legal. They have family supporting them and maybe they’ve never had a life of trauma. Yes, I know, we’ve all had hard lives but again TRAUMA is different than losing a dog when you were a kid or being whooped because you were bad. TRAUMA is stress that needs tender loving care to get through and it doesn’t happen in a meditation session, or on a psychologists sofa, or with drugs! There are elements to healing this disease that the poor impoverished person has a much deeper struggle to contend with.

So with that, yesterday I woke with an answer. Optimism! I’ve had a gung-ho attitude through all of this but in recent weeks my pep pooped out! Today, my poop got pepped! Ewww. Wait. Today my perk got prepped! Yeah, that sounds better. God said to me if I go into chemo thinking it’s going to destroy and kill me, by all means, it will. If I go in with the optimism that this is just another supplement (albeit a poisonous one) needed in my healing then we’ll find success, then so be it! We’ll find healing! 

God is not a God of fear tactics and scare traits. He wants me to see this as a love potion to add to all of my other healthy eating, exercising, and supplementation. This is just an odd leg of the journey that I did not want to accept. You heard me right, I didn’t like what God wanted me to do! After asking for forgiveness in my doubting Him and asking Him to hold my hand and lead the way, He shouted, OPTIMISM! We’ll walk with optimism so I can see a new day every day and see many more Christmas’! 

I don’t have to do what the doctor says, I’m in the passenger seat of this vehicle and God is my Almighty Driver! The doctors fear tactics have me on this Herceptin for years, ten to twenty. Look, people, I’m not a prisoner doing ten to twenty years for something I didn’t do. I am going to show the world that this disease can be licked, all wounds healed and scars tended to. Years down the line, the scars will be minimal with caressing, rubbing, touching, acknowledging and coming face to face with what brought them to me. 

My mantra will continue - I am HEALED, I am Healthy and I am WELL! 

All praise and Glory to my God! 

Pss. 34:1 "I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

The Bombardment: Doubt and Fear

Baltimore, Maryland - Fort McHenry

The Star Spangled Banner was written out there

Pss. 57:6 “They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.”

This week and last week I’ve been hit with a bombardment of emotions. I’d wake in the morning to tears, look out the window and all I saw was a dense fog, so deep there was no seeing a light, a blade of dead grass or even a winterized tree, just deep snow packed lawn, fields and a mist.

It all began as a flurry of uncertainty the minute I accepted chemo as a way to heal this crud. If you all have been with me throughout this ordeal you’ll know I’m dead set against chemo (no pun intended) as this being any form of healing. I see chemo as a death sentence and I can’t get past this unnerving grating feeling deep inside me.

At the beginning of this trial, the only family member I told was my niece. She was the only one I trusted to care. My hubby told his family also. I had expected care and compassion to crawl out of the woodwork but say the words ‘alternative’ to a conservative nation, you’re going to be met with a bombardment of questions and doubts and a sort of wall to be built that you’re not allowed over. All negativity I tried to avoid came creeping in, in unexpected ways! 

Here I am two years into this affliction and I’ve grown and have learned so much! My diet was never bad, I’ve been 125 -135 pounds since I was in my twenties. I didn’t keep that weight because I pigged out on all the wrong foods with no exercise. No, I pretty much cared for my health until about five years ago when living in a carnivorous world finally caught up to me. All the meat and potatoes could not be excreted quick enough with exercise, that’s for sure! But two years ago, with this diagnosis, I dove into research on natural treatments and possible cures for one of the deadliest diseases that in over one-hundred years has found no CURE! 

I found that a plant-based diet and supplementation could be the secret to healing and in two years, I’ve witnessed the success of MANY women going this route. No surgery, no chemo, no drugs, just the fruits of the earth to replenish their damaged body. I tried that route and was succeeding until last year when my world came crashing down. I realized I needed more than the food and supplements to get through this and it was the only reason I tried Oral Chemo.

What I was not expecting is finding a doctor I liked (finally) and being met with lies and fear tactics. The first doozy came in the way of telling me I should focus on the tumor/lesion on my brain. “OOPS, I must’ve been reading the wrong file, sorry.” There was no tumor, that was just a fear tactic to get me to jump into chemotherapy! Then there were the months he told me my markers were going down when in FACT they were rising! 

Assuming once again I’d jump into chemo, “Stop taking your meds, they’re not working!” 

I stopped taking my meds, I didn’t jump into chemo, then the disease started gnawing at my bones! I could FEEL it, chomping and weakening me. Doc says, “Now start taking your meds again until we get in here and get the poison in your veins to fight the battle.” 

All of the hard work I did at building up my strength in physical therapy was dwindling. I at one time was the champ of the place, meeting and exceeding my goals but just yesterday I came home and could hardly bend my knee. I climbed into bed and wrapped ice packs at different parts of my leg.

Last week I hit rock bottom. Feeling isolated and alone. Everyone seemingly has abandoned me except for my husband, son, my Physical Therapists and my loving Spiritual Online family. They are my anchors in getting me through this. Whether it’s through faith, religion, or just a positive presence, these people are the ones I’ll credit with any healing that takes place!  

I’ll be the first to admit, in all honesty, I even felt like God bailed on me. I’m just dangling on the end of this thread and it’s about to snap but luckily I’m grotesquely underweight that even a thread can hold me. Doubt and fear knocked on my door and like a fool, I let it walk right on in. 

I fear the chemo won’t work. I doubt that it is the cure all I seek. The doctor tells me of a lady who has been on Herceptin for TWENTY YEARS, and she’s still alive. And I’m supposed to find hope in that? I don’t! I will not be on this poison for one year let alone ten or twenty. That’s ridiculous! I’m concerned that the chemo, as I’ve read in all of my research, will destroy my immune system. For two years I have worked to build up my immune system! As I watch friends get sick month after month with a cold, flu, and any other illness, I’ve been the picture of health except for this one debilitating illness. I actually care about living and work my tail off to secure my strong immunity, now is chemo going to come in and destroy all I worked to build up? Am I going to lose MORE weight? How much can this tiny frail body take?

Again, feeling abandoned, I prayed. In the wee hours of the morning, for hours, I prayed. I woke to this message:

Prov. 13:12 (ESV) “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

That is exactly what happened with all the talk about chemo. It brought in negativity that I didn’t know how to deal with. I’ve shunned negativity for so long when it beats me over the head, I think it’s personal and wants to fight. I think that’s the city girl in me, always ready to battle. Chemo knocked all my hope out the door. 

So what is my desire? To live! I don’t want to live until I’m ninety, but a good seventy-five - eighty would be nice. There’s my hope, right there! 

The realization of HAVING to go the chemo route is this. My diet and exercise can only save so much of me. I live within one-hundred yards of a substation, an element that cannot be removed from this healing equation. Move? Not an option, it’s Nebraska, substations are a part of life. Money would help too, then I could move. Then there are crop dusters, dropping poison on the crops to save the crop from bugs while damaging humans in the process. Such is life, I’m surrounded by fields and fields of crop dusters. I also have dealt with black mold for the ten years here. Then there is the chronic illness I’ve had all of my life and that is psoriasis. Sure supplementation has put it to sleep over the years but I do deal with flare-ups on occasion. 

I’ve been back on my plant-based diet for about three weeks now. I will continue exercising as long as my broken body and weakened limbs allow. I'll continue to meditate and pray. I’ll waltz down the organic route, the non-chemical use of body lotions and sprays, shampoos and soaps. I’ll pursue doing my part of the healing, God will do His part in protecting me, and my family will continue doing what they do, live in a toxic world right along with me.

I will wake every day and see hope in the hopeless. I will pound through these doubts and fears. Next week will come and instead of tears, I will hold hope instead of kleenex. A smile in place of a frown. Joy instead of sorrow.  I heard yesterday someone say that the simplest form of bravery is choosing to wake and take a step. How true is that?

May God bless you all in the steps that you choose to take.

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.”

One More Thing: The Trio

Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV) “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.”

I wanted to share just one more thing before you all move along with your summer activities and get too busy to check up on lil old me. I feel like my most recent posts have been me 'grumbling' about my pain when really I wanted to share with you the reality of my day to day life in the best way possible.

Phil. 2:14-16 (KJV) Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

The KJVersion of Phil. 2 doesn't say, 'grumblings or arguing' but grumblings is what I feel I've been doing and maybe that shouldn't be so. How can I shine a light of Christ from my soul if all you read is the grumblings of my back pain? There is a light in here and the only reason I share my murmurings are so that you do not get the picture that self-healing is all hunky-dory. It's hard work AND it is pain-filled! THAT is the reality of the situation that I took upon myself and in the end, I will blame no one for my decision but me and by then there will be no purpose in the blame game.

You know the reason for my choice in this route and that is point blank, I don't believe in drugs. I am a RECOVERED drug addict (another self-healing route at a very young age) and the thought of drugs and the process of the tiny pill that is destroying a population to this day scares me to bits! I believe and always have, that God created healing tools here on earth. When He created us, He placed all around us the true nature of healing whether it is physical, mental, or psychological; the earth holds an abundance of healing tools without the necessary means of a laboratory of synthetic drugs to 'miraculously' HEAL you. It just doesn't work that way, in my mind, anyway.

I know what my tumor looked and felt like when I was first diagnosed. After reading and researching I found information that a biopsy (the test that I was FORCED to undergo along with a mammogram and CT scan) were all links to the spreading of this disease. I did not have any idea of this because I ASSUMED that the doctors actually knew what they were doing and that THEY were right; I wrongly trusted them. 

Over the year I watched as the tumor changed shape and color and things were happening that were enough to scare the pants off of me but I held fast to the belief that 'GOD'S GOT THIS' and I settled into accepting things were going to take time. Not MY time but with HIS time. I knew that the biopsy was the damaging test that set all of this in motion. MANY of the women who I've met online in a BC support group have ALL said the same thing, except their outcome, was slightly worse than mine and for that, I'm truly grateful mine wasn't worse.

A lot of these women are not even in their thirties yet. Some are pregnant or have just given birth but all are adamant in treating this illness on their own, of course, against their doctor's wishes. They don't want to be slaughtered cows either and through the same avenues as me, diet and supplements, we are all in this self-healing together! And HEALING is what we are!

Through my grumblings you might not pick up on parts of my healing that I need to share with you, nor do you understand the method of my healing that is taking place but rest assured, I am healing! I don't boast of my hours of prayer and meditation. I don't tell you about the foods I ingest or my long year and a half journey of finding my place in this new world I have in front of me.

The trio: cancer, psoriasis, and arthritis. I've had psoriasis for about forty years (on and off), arthritis I'd say about six years since diagnosis of my lower lumbar joint arthritis, then there is cancer, the cells have been in there all of my life, awakened about eight or nine years ago and only felt and seen in 2015, diagnosed a little over a year ago on diagnosis day 1-25-17. 

The signs:
Cancer:  I saw no signs of cancer except for the lump I felt in 2015. The year my aunt, uncle and, dad died and the year I got married. What a year, huh? That is the very reason I didn't tell my husband of my lump. I had to wait for medical insurance to go through because don't believe what they tell you when they say FREE CANCER SCREENING- mammograms in the month of October. Maybe in YOUR state but this backwoods stuck in the 1800's state of mine, there were no free mammograms, and yes, I looked! I waited for my insurance to go through and I started the doctor visits and the swift cancer diagnosis came without even ONE test, then she put me through THREE tests to verify her assumption. I feel there was an easier route to diagnosing without the threat of spreading my disease, but who am I, just a little woman going up against the 'Big Bad know it all Doctors'.

Psoriasis: Physically visible my skin was as scaly as a fish! I had dry patches on my elbows and knees, my ears, and my back. This is a chronic illness that kept me in jeans and long sleeves for most of my life. There were times that it healed (so I know the signs of the healing) but over the years it has gotten worse. 

Arthritis: This did not surface until the year of the trips to Omaha took place. The too numerous-to-count, to me four-hour trips, that left my back in pain that I'd never known before. It cost me my ability to walk right. While the trips gained my husband his eyesight back, it cost me the ability to walk. I went to an NP (nurse practitioner) who had an office in a little town and she sent me for an x-ray and it was verified I had lower-lumbar-facet-joint-arthritis; an illness the current P.A. (physicians assistant) could not find as a feasible illness. (Shrug me off) But I know different because I am in this broken body. And if truth be told, just because other people have taken trips to Omaha in two-and-a-half hours and can walk, undermines my truth in the reason I can't walk. (Try driving in high winds, two and three times a week to Omaha! Eight-hour round trips.)
{whatever will be will be}

You have the trio, the proof that they exist, and now you need to know the truth that they are healing! I don't know if you've seen the movie, 'What About Bob', if so, you will understand the term baby-steps. I know for a fact that God is in the business of miracles, and I know people who have experienced them (my husband for one, his sight restored) and I know people who think He just blinks them into existence. Let me ask you this, did the miracle of Christ's birth blink into existence? Was it easy for Mary and Joseph? Was the miracle of Christ's death blinked into existence? Was carrying the cross an easy task? You need to seriously read and understand the Bible before you can understand what I say about my healing and it not just 'blinking into existence'. 

Let me first say I trusted God from the very beginning of this diagnosis. I trusted what He was saying and where He was leading. With that, I bring my baby-steps to healing and my continued healing!

Psoriasis: In the beginning when I began this journey my scars were visible and embarrassing, to say the least. Now, my 'sores' look like targets. I have big circles like a ring of fire, where the sore began and the center is in the clearing stages. Smooth skin is resurfacing and yes, it's taking its time, but it IS a work in progress moving FORWARD in healing and not getting worse. No new sores appearing.

Arthritis: The pain subsided for months last year as my tumor seemed to grow. Three levels of healing Psoriasis, Arthritis, and the Big C, all taking turns on the healing journey. The signs ARE there! While the pain may be back for a time...

Big C: The tumor is now in the SHRINKING phase. VISIBLY SHRINKING! I can't say much more without showing you a picture (eww gross) and I only wished I was of this techno world that takes a pic of everything just to document my PROOF. But then again let's go back to the Bible... show me pics as proof. (that is sarcasm, friends) We only have words to go on and as this journey of mine, it's all in my words. 

Go back and read my words from the beginning, it's all there. One day, my family might finally stumble upon my words and they'll finally SEE, CHRIST IN ME! As I take baby-steps toward my healing, I am enjoying each and every breath in the day because let's face it, as we enjoy these summer months, one never knows what the next day has in store. Cherish the day! 

May God bless each and every one of you! Have a beautiful Summer! Godspeed...

1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

I Don't Want To Know

James 1:2 (NIV) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” 

I Don’t Want To Know

Something came up in conversation the other day with my husband. I was taking my supplements and pointed out that many were for inflammation. He responded with, “Did you ever think that’s not what it is?” Referring to my immense amount of daily pain. "Absolutely," I responded. I don't think of it often, but it certainly crosses my mind on occasion. Maybe it isn't inflammation, maybe it's worse. Yeah, I won't go the doubt route.

I feel negative comments surfacing on a regular basis now. I feel like others are doubting and it's not helping my journey any. I snapped back at my husband and told him that No, I don't wanna know if it is something else. I don't want to go to the doctors for them to hound me and tell me I should get chemo. I don't want to know if it has spread and I only have six months to live. I am persevering and doing everything I can to prevent death but then when you think about it, no one can prevent death, we're all going to die.

Memorial Day was no different with the poor poor pitiful Joni, looks. I didn't want to go to his mother's, but I did want to see the family. She wasn't having a cookout or anything, just a yearly gathering of his aunt and two uncles that we only get to see one or two times a year because two live out of state and one hours away. I didn't want to go because well, I'm in constant pain and it's a challenge to get out the door, down the steps, into the truck, back out of the truck, ascend more stairs and do it all over again when the visit is over.

I was also concerned with the questions that would be aimed at me. Luckily his brother was there with his wife and son so it kind of took the questions away from me. Instead, I was met with eyes of pity. They looked at me like the cripple I am and treated me like a fragile broken child who needs assistance with every step. I wonder how they think I manage to get through every single day? I don't have a live-in nurse that cares for me, I DO take care of myself. I AM a little slow but I'm not a precious vase about to fall on the floor that needs catching before it smashes to the ground.  

Then there was the lightning storm going on for two hours and more. The gusty winds arose right before we left as did a little thunder and lightning and I wanted to wait but no, hubby had to leave then and there. The dirt road was a sloppy mess as we swerved and swayed until it came to an end. Every swerve of the car sent a tingling pain up my back. The short trip to his mother's had the pain rising and rising with each clap of thunder and every sliver of lightning. We arrived in a downpour. I said I'd wait in the car, but I got so frustrated with myself, I hopped out and limped, cane in hand, to the front door. Hubby on arm trying to walk in his normal stride and me trying to keep up with my tiny limps, in the pouring rain and gusting winds. 

I try and understand that his family never sees me, and hasn't seen me using a cane and just expected bouncy-bouncy Joni, but instead, they were met with Tiny Tim. After his brother left, his aunt was right on me asking how I was doing and if I was still doing my protocol. I tried not to be snarky but it was quite hard as my back felt like a tightly wound rubber band about to snap and I really was not up to a visit that day. I just said yes, yes, I wake every day and thank God for another day. I was curt but not snarky. 

When I went to get up to use the bathroom his mother was about to leap into action, "You need help?" Umm... no, but thank you. As I walked past her my husband was sitting there and I asked for some water and his mom quickly jumped up and said I can get it, I can get it. I love having people care, I love that they want to know more about how I'm handling my illness. I love that they don't even talk chemo with me, but a tightly threaded quilt will eventually dry rot. Remember, I'm here year round. Not that anybody ever asks about my writing but is as important to me as my husband's now-defunct blog he had while he was blind. Writing is my life and I live to tell my story. 

On the ride home from his moms the storms were still churning; hard to see, muddy roads a bigger mess but we made it home and my tears fell unseen as quickly as the raindrops. It was a trying day for me that no one understands. As stubborn as I am, I am not one to be pitied and the looks, the stares, they tore me apart shred by shred. While I know and understand how lucky I am to be in this family and to have people that care, you don't realize how much it hurts to know I have a family back home that couldn't give a rip about me. I never cross their mind in a day, month or a year. It makes me feel defensive and isolated when a person after months of not seeing me shows signs of caring. I go on.

Tuesday, the entire day was rainfall! Glorious rainfall with rolling thunder and a flash of lightning here and there but rain it did! I think we had ten storms in one day and they didn't stop until eleven at night. The temps dropped to normal on Monday, meaning Springlike temps of the 60's and yesterday the temps that were predicted near ninety barely made it to seventy. Alleluia Amen.

Like summertime storms, life comes at us unexpectedly. Sometimes the trials are easy to endure, at other times they're difficult. Sometimes it's a delicate rainfall, at times a hard downpour. Sometimes high winds, a few times tornadoes pop up. Surely you need to be ready but if you knew ahead of time that you were going to die, what would you do differently? If a doctor told you that you have six months to live, how would you spend those last six months? Me, I don't want to know. I want to live until I die and that's that. Sure I'll prepare myself for the storms about to strike but I will not sit here and count days and think each one my last. As long as God is my guide, I never fear the valleys. Don't pity me as I persevere! I go with God!

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

Just Some Thoughts

Pss. 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” 

Just a long note of thoughts…

I am still out here in the throes of pain and the end of it not in sight any time soon. I again wish I could just blink it all away but again, my time is not His time and that is what holds my keys to my sanity these days. My riding lawn mower will allow me to see the property and actually feel like I’m accomplishing something in each day, something besides the tedious mundane chore of cooking a meal or washing clothes. 

I haven’t been to WalMart in quite a few weeks and have allowed hubby to do all the shopping. The things I put this man through, I could just sit for hours and cry but I won’t because I know his love for me is deep and he does everything for me with endearing love. And we both know I’m on the slow road to healing, it’s just taking its good ol' time.

I finally got the chance to use my new mower last week since we had to return Murray the mower because his breaking down twice in one week was a sign that he was the little mower that couldn’t. He was made very cheap even though the sticker said MADE IN AMERICA, showed the little guy wasn’t up to par. Makes one wonder. The sun finally came out after the many damp and darkened days.

We returned Murray with no problem and my hubby just paid the extra money for a better mower at a different place. To someone else a hundred dollars or so is nothing; to me, it’s a million. What the heck, if you’re going into debt for a little, why not go into debt for a lot? I think he felt secure going into debt for this mower knowing my supplements are all up to date for at least another two months, so far. I have an amazing donor that helps keep my supply full allowing my hubby a little leeway in purchasing a riding mower (or organic foods) for me so he can see me happy this summer in some small way; to me, it is a big way!  

I did get out of the house last Tuesday by taking my hubby to the movies to see the new Avengers flick. I had money left from my birthday (shows how often I get out, right?) and he was willing to pay for it but I demanded it to be a DATE, a gift from me for our anniversary, for all he’s done for me! He knows I don’t care for Marvel movies so this was a true extension of what I’d do to show him how much I love and appreciated all that he’s done for me. 

It wasn’t a horrible movie but the incline going into the movie tripped me up (no I didn’t have my cane) and a muscle in my left leg screamed in pain, but I endured, for love. All in all it was a good day!

When Wednesday came and the sunshine was blazing I finally got the chance to ride my new mower Cubby! I finished my entire lawn in one hour compared to the four hours of back-breaking work with the push mower in previous years.

I haven’t been feeling too confident lately but getting out and mowing made me feel like a champ! I was recently berated by the BC group of women for reiterating something I said in one post. A lady lashed out with insults saying, “SOME PEOPLE, [me] always need to have the last word.” And went on saying something about my ego. I was insulted and left in peace with my head hung low and my tail between my legs but it was too late, the mud had been slung, was drying and hardening.

It’s weird, the only people in the group are women fighting breast cancer NATURALLY and we ALL know how sensitive each one is, but these ladies think their horse is higher and better than the lower mule riders like myself. Even the administrator was disagreeing with my link because it didn’t align with her links. Her protocol is right and everyone else’s protocol is wrong. She claimed I was misleading the women because HER links provided FACTS mine were different, even though I got the link from the very source she was touting, The Truth About Cancer. [Scratching my head] I was only trying to help and instead got insulted and hurt. All is okay though because by the end of the week another lady joined the group, Beth Misner, who healed her and her husband’s cancer within a year. It turns out I was right about the link I had posted, glutamine MIGHT NOT be good for this disease. Thank you, Jesus, for clarification!

I’m going to sit in my cubby hole awhile and think about my next step in the plan of winning on the road of this disease. Ironic that I named my [Cub Cadet] mower Cubby the very week I’m relinquished to a cubbyhole of sorts. Now that the rain showers came and darkened the finish to the week, and did so in a three-day spree of fifty-degree temps with lightning and thunder!

Then there’s my mother who very much still yearns for my dad who passed away in October of 2015. Her loneliness is understandable since she was married to him for sixty years. She isolated herself for those years to only living for him since she was a child of seventeen and now she is alone without her helpmeet. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, her parting words to me were, “Live every day like it was your last because you might not be here next year.” She has no idea I have cancer. In the midst of her heartache, her words were aimed at me but meant for her. I understand; I have to, right?

I’m feeling better going into this week and maybe I can write some more this week as the showers let up and the summer like temps resurface. No Spring this year, just summer! This was a longer note of thoughts than I expected but you get my meaning, life goes on in these parts and every day is a trial, and every waking day is a success. 

May the God of peace wash over you all! 

Godspeed!

Philippians 1:6 (NIV) “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” 

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.”

One Year Ago Today

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

One Year Ago Today

January 25, 2017, was one of the worst days of my life! That was the day I had an appointment with a doctor. I wasn’t told by my GP that she was a breast surgeon. Everything about doctors, to me, is a secretive mysterious puzzle of sorts.

The tests of the day were excruciating, to say the least. I had no say in the matter as to what was going to happen to me that day. I wasn’t given a choice, I was just told by a surgeon, that was only going by what she felt (the lump) that I had cancer and that a string of tests was in order to confirm.

If I was told about the tests doing more harm than good, I would have gone home to cry that instant but instead, I was wheeled from one test to the other. Pressed, prodded and poked in a puddle of tears left behind. 

When I finally returned home from all of the tests, I had to face my son, I had to tell my niece. She is a Reiki specialist and knows her stuff when it comes to holistic healing. She didn’t have one ounce of negativity in her words. She filled me with hope and inspired me to take on the whole team of oncologists and put them in their place. They worked for ME, not the other way around. They were not going to shape my disease in any way! 

You are free to read my last years worth of posts, all documenting this wondrous journey. My plans are to write a book, Beating Cancer on a Budget but as you know, I have to beat this disease before the book will ever see the light of day. But my blog is the (partial) documentation I’ll need to put the book together.

I am going to admit that the diagnosis that came two weeks after the tests were cryptic, to say the least. I was never given a stage of the BC, I was only told what HAD to be done, the chemicals and drugs that would be put into my system via an IV and pills/drugs I would take for ten years, the radiation and cutting of my body that I’d need; not one ounce of positivity. What they didn’t know was that I’m an optimist, in every sense of the word. They could not, as hard as they tried, fill me with fear of the disease that takes millions of lives!

Today’s post is not about the ‘bad news’ I received on this day a year ago. This post is about the BLESSING I received in knowing I, Joni, was given a second chance to turn my life around and change some wrongs and make them RIGHT! I peeked into the window of all the detrimental toxic treatment I had given my body over the years that basically is the cause of this disease. First on the agenda, life-changing protocol for daily living.

In the eyes of the medical profession, this disease cannot be won without their money-grabbing negativity infused treatment. Little do they know, or want to admit, there are thousands of people out here in the world successfully treating themselves with no surgery, zero radiation, and most of all no DRUGS!

After the diagnosis, the year of toxic weight lost, the abundance of pivotal supplements, I am healed! Have I received verification? Of course not, the doctors threw up their hands and disposed of me, moving onto their next victims of the disease.

I say I am healed because I asked my Lord and Savior and we’ve had some long talks over this year, He confirms all I need to know. You don’t need to wish me a happy anniversary because it is not a HAPPY anniversary, this is a day I wish to put behind me in my pile of negative build-up rubble. 

This is the day the Lord has made, I will REJOICE and be glad in it! I will not be sitting behind the screen today, I’m going to go out for awhile and love life. The NEW life I live with God beside me all the way.

All praise and Glory to Him! 

Pss. 118: 24 “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” 

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!

A Milestone...Changes ARE Happening

Isa. 60:19 "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory."

A Milestone

I wanted to share a bit of a milestone that really came out of nowhere. You remember that for years I thought I had MS and that my unbalance may have been a symptom? I have posted numerous times telling of my pains in my back, knees and everywhere else. 

I know I have one friend that remembers the intimate details I displayed for you all here on my blog. If you’re a follower, you know my story. If you’re not a follower, there are previous posts links over there to play catch up.

Being unbalanced left me either sitting or standing and holding onto the wall but never could I stand and put my pants on in about four years now; it was just too uncertain.

Yesterday it happened, I had to go into my bedroom and get pants. Without even thinking, I stood in the middle of the room and put my pants on, one leg at a time. No wobble, no uncertainty, no holding onto anything, nothing. After pulling them up and buttoning them, I stood there and thought, ‘did I just do that’? A tear came to my eye because it had been four years since feeling like a somewhat normal human being.

My body is changing for the good. Apparently, a healthy lifestyle is what I needed to regain my balance. Not only has the loss of thirty pounds made a significant difference in my wardrobe (115 lbs and holding), the adding of pertinent supplements and healthy eating all around has made a difference in my showering, the way I dress, the way I walk and just about everything in my life. 

This week though, I’ve been on the defense in so many ways. I’m thinking October 29th, the second anniversary of my dad’s passing is taking a toll on me that I never seen coming. I am at peace with his passing but I do have to contend with my mother, very much alive who misses him terribly on a daily basis. She says she can’t figure out why she was kept here alive and I told her point blank, maybe it’s for ME! I think God is going to keep me alive for HER as well.

My mother has no idea I have this ugly disease, she would become paranoid (as usual) and worry too much and try to instill fear in me so I think her NOT knowing is for her benefit as well as mine. I think God has kept her alive for me since she is really the only family that I’m in touch with on a daily basis, my grounding so-to-speak. I’ve always been very close to my mother and not physically seeing her for over ten years has its own stress factor but to hear her voice daily helps relieve the stress immensely.

Another milestone is the tumor itself. I’ve been feeling some sharp pains here lately and instead of fear and panic I kicked into research mode and conferred with ladies experiencing the exact same thing as I, as we are all on an alternative path together. I’m going to get a little (a lot) personal and graphic here, if you’re a man, turn away now. 

The tumor is in the rapid cell die-off phase. Without a doctor, you might be wondering how I know this. Well, let me tell you. The tumor is big. I’ve already done immeasurable research on this and have found that the tumor is not cancer. The tumor is a result of the cancer, a reaction if you will, it is NOT the cancer itself. Back in January when the disease was discovered, I went to the doctor with a C+ cup size of my left breast. I, my life since teenage years, have been a very comfortable B size. 

With my diet change and weight loss, I’m bound to lose breast size so that isn’t the telltale sign I’m looking for in healing, no, the pains are. Over I’d say this past month (since a miraculous herb literally walked in my front door) or two I’ve had a reduction of breast size on the LEFT side. No longer a C+ or even a C, I’m fitting comfortably back into my B cup! You might see that as no big deal, but visually it IS a big deal because I SEE the healing taking place! The tumor is still there but if the pains are a telltale sign of rapid cell die off, I’m winning this battle, a little pain at a time!

I have to share this graphic tale with you as I move toward the continued healing part of my journey. I’m still edgy and defensive but hey, maybe a lack of sugar and carbs is having that effect nine months later. I still have my sense of humor, I took a six-week writing course, and while a little stressful for me, I took it as a challenge to stretch my writing muscles even further. I’m still maintaining strict eating habits that I’m coming to enjoy, I’m still walking and exercising, still loving life and still have problems with my defensiveness. I can work on that though. I’ve done so much work this year that finally I’m seeing the results of my labor. A little defensiveness is nothing to tackle.

All my praise and glory goes to my God on most high! I could not and would not be where I am today without Him holding the reins! My supportive friends are very much an aspect of this healing too! Thank you, and God bless! 

The Ten Commandments to Kill The Toxic Invader

Ps. 9:2 "I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High."

The Ten Commandments

To Kill The Toxic Invader

1) Open a vein and look inside the window to your life. Observe yourself and all of the past open wounds that have been seeping all of these years. If you feel scarred, you will feel glass separate you from your inner self, the you in your past. Look deep within your relationships, go back in time to nurture, face and heal those intimate sections of your life that might have been buried. Look at what shames you and causes you to turn your head if people were to know the truth that you’ve burdened yourself with. What guilt do you carry around with you that has kept you from healing that part of the child, the teenager, the woman? Look at the stress and all of the ugly pain associated with that part of your life. Number one will be the hardest thing you face in this healing journey. You know what they say, ‘One is the loneliest number.’ 

2) Be honest with yourself. If you’re going to stand and look in the window and see a perfect person, who knew no sin, then you are the toxic invaders next victim! Honesty is a healer. It can slowly stitch up the severed portion of your skin so it can begin scabbing over and healing completely with no scar left behind. Yes, that’s right, no scar left behind! Be honest in your healing, the non-truth will only hurt you. You’re the one that needs to heal.

3) Change… the norm! Change your fears, change your shame, change your diet, embrace a new you. There are going to be many challenges and changes in every way, shape, and form, literally. Two years from now you’ll look back at this time and wonder who you are right now. You won’t be staring in the window of a traumatized person, you will be looking into the face of a healed wounded soul. Change your way of thinking. Change your food, change your water, change everything from pots and pans to the soaps and shampoo you use. Now is the time for change…drastic change!

4) Pray and meditate! To whatever you believe in, now is the time to pray. My earnest faithful prayer is toward God in heaven. If you’ve ever read any of my blog posts, you will know, God is first and foremost in my life. Without Him, I would never attempt alternative treatment. If Jesus isn’t everything to you, then He is nothing to you. If healing is taking place in you then you know what it feels like to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. 

Meditation also brings the healing to the surface as it slowly simmers the blood in your veins. You face what has leaked into your body to cause the cells damage head-on, you face the trauma in you with the One and only healer. I cannot attest to any healing taking place if you believe in nothing. All the diet change in the world won’t save you, it might be able to help you deal with chemo, but that is NOT an alternative route to healing this disease.

5) Just say no! We all have the power to say no, but we all know that sometimes we can be weak and never say no to anyone or anything. Take for example our food choices, we know they’re no good for us, our doctor has warned us, you’ve read about the dangers but you still reach for tempting, heart-damaging, health ravaging toxins. Say no to chemo, so no to oncologists that only believe in the almighty dollar. Believe in the power of real healing and you’ll begin to feel a real healing taking place. The only way to accomplish that is Just Say No! 

6) Research. Research your heart out. You might feel overwhelmed with information but then you’ll need to surround yourself with supportive like-minded individuals. The more research you do, the more empowered you’ll feel in your fight against naysayers who think you’re crazy. The more empowered you feel the more doorways to healing present themselves and God Himself walks beside you allowing channels to miraculously open that you thought might have been closed off to you. 
As the months' pass, you’ll feel the best you’ve ever felt. Pounds will shed like dandruff, food will have an enhanced flavor, skin and hair will take on a new luxurious look. While other cancer patients are falling ill, vomiting, sick in pain, you’ll be feeling great and wondering why more people haven’t gone this route. Fear, they fear the stigma surrounding the diagnosis, not the disease itself.

7. Supplements. Your body has announced over the bullhorn to you that you're sick, something’s not right and the noise and static have starched you into attention. Your cells are screaming out that they’re damaged and need repair. The symptoms have been clawing at you year after year, your instincts have been poking you with an icepick for you can’t remember how long, you’ve waited and waited it out and the problem never went away. Now with your immune system shot, your cells are done, they’re dying. Unless you save them! SAVE the cells you’re blessed with! Wake up and take charge, seize the very moment you’ve been given. Your doctor might want to hand you drugs and you readily take them because after all, he is a doctor. If he/she has heard of supplementation, ask if they are willing to work with herbs and vitamins BEFORE the drugs. They will, of course, say they can’t because they don’t know enough about them. It’s okay, you know why? Because you have already read through number six and are now aware of more than when you walked into the doctor's office.

If it is a matter of life and death: like you’ve had a heart attack and they need you to take medication to live, then by all means, listen to your doctor. If he tells you that you have the Big C, that leads us right to number eight.

8. Never fear! The word cancer in and of itself conjures fear. WHY, because everyone has lost someone to this disease. They’ve never heard of or known that there was another way to healing, why? Because of fear. The doctors' race in with the fear tactic even when you’re stage one, non-invasive. Did you know there are four stages? Why would a doctor tell a young mother who has found a rice size lump that she is going to die if she doesn’t get that piece of rice slaughtered out of her breast? Then they’ll radiate her to make sure they got it all and more times than not, they NEVER get it all. That’s because the tests, the digging, the radiating, the chemo all cause the C cells to spread. They don’t tell you that do they? No, they sure don’t. They tell you they got it all, send you and your drugs on their merry way and if you’ve done nothing to change your life, I can guarantee the C will resurface. But because of the research, you did in number six, you no longer live in fear!

9. Repair. Do everything and anything, legal or illegal to save your own life because rest assured there is nobody going to do it for you. Everyone is out for their own selves in this dog eat dog world, so save yourself with the love and strength of God and most importantly keep the faith in healing. Repair the inside and outside of you with all of the above tools. Fight like you’ve never been in a boxing ring but are well prepared to go a few rounds. Come out fighting and believe you're winning!

10. Rejoice! This is one you’ll want to do every day that you wake up alive and get to look in your husband or son’s eyes. Another day to be with the ones you love who are there for you in your world, making your concern their priority. You’ll want to rejoice in your healing. Praise God for the opportunities in front of you. You need to REJOICE in the midst of doubt and fear; wash off the dirty sediment that fear tries to sling at you. Rejoice in being alive. You are HEALING! Live it! BELIEVE it!!!

God Bless You!

A rock God placed in my path! 

Sometimes... A Rest

Job 11:18 “And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety.”

Sometimes… I just need a rest...

I don’t know if you noticed, but I posted for five days in a row after a week of no writing. Sometimes I just need a break and sometimes I just can’t stop writing. 

It’s not what you do in this physical body that God rejoices over, it is what you do in the spirit. My spirit is waning thin so I think I need a rejuvenating withdrawal from a society that sees me as well. I tried mowing the other day a little and my hubby who could see in my face I couldn’t do it anymore, stopped me short of the finish line. I hadn’t even done a lot I just wanted to try and do one of my favorite things in the summer for exercise and that’s mow.

Sometimes it’s just not meant to be. Sometimes He just wants us to rest and I’m not one that takes sitting down lightly. I would’ve kept going, working until my knees buckled but again cool temperatures or not, mowing wasn’t in the cards. Not much IS in the cards these days except writing, that keeps me busy.

I think I’m just going to take a break from it all. I’ve said that before only to come back the next day posting and commenting but quite honestly, I’m getting bogged down. I need to stop worrying what everyone else is or isn’t doing and I need to focus on ME! Me and what I’m doing to get myself well.

I’m in a BC support group on facebook but it doesn’t really feel like a support group, it’s more information to use and rules, what you can and cannot say, what you’re allowed and not allowed to post and it is all constricting like a Boa wrapped tightly around my neck. It also highlights all that I’m doing right but moreso things I may be getting wrong. After using all the money for supplements now is not the time to tell me that maybe this or that one is just not right but I’m glad to learn as I go.

I have enough supplements to get me to January, my one year mark since my diagnosis, then I’ll be out here on my own scraping the bottom of the barrel for the most important vitamins to keep in my arsenal. I can’t stress about that now, it is too far in the distance. With everything going on in the world from fires raging, taunting regimes, earthquakes rattling, hurricanes destroying, floods, tornadoes, there isn’t much ground left for society as a whole to hide.

Me, I don’t want to hide from it all, I just want to see and appreciate all the beauty in front of my eyes. From the silky blades of grass, to inhaling the newly mowed lawn, to playing with the hose a few more times before it gets too cold to do such an activity, to watching the falling leaves. Life is too short to worry about the physical, I’m going to inscribe in my soul the spiritual that will sustain me to the end.

I’ve noticed something with this disease, people are more sympathetic with you when you’re bald and accepting chemo, struggling in pain, vomiting, and accepting chemotherapy. Maybe getting sliced open appeals to some and it helps people sympathize easier. But when you’re going holistic, you appear well so nobody really gives a flying fig. Oh don’t get me wrong, some do, but when a friend writes on her wall, “Wouldn’t you like to just be able to slap some sense into people, this is a serious disease.” I know it was aimed at me and it’s okay, I have sense; I’m choosing to say NO TO DRUGS! That’s the best sense available to me. I’m healing and will continue to do so.

I’m glad that the drugs work for some. I’m glad people are living healthy lives and breathing with no problems from their chemo. That’s great it worked for THEM. It would never work for me. It just wouldn’t! I’m going to climb on my high horse now, then ride off into the sunset, and settle down with a good book and wait for winter to wrap me in its arms. If I think of something to write, like after the hurricane season finishes wiping out the states. God bless you all! I understand wanting to do it your way! Ride out the storm, you live you live, you die…oh well, at least you lived. That’s exactly how I feel. 

Godspeed…

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