Skip to main content

Treatment begins

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
Today is the day I begin, at last, treatment.
Today is the day I begin to kick cancer's ass.
Today is the day I start infusing ugly, nasty, side-affect laden, toxic chemicals for the greater good.
Today is a day that I wish I could rewrite the script for completely deleting the part requiring me to need breast cancer chemo.

 And yet, here it is and at 1:15 EST I will be at the Cancer & Hematology Center in Holland. It's where I will be a lot for the next five months. It's where I will, I'm sure (and surety is something I have less of these days as I know not how I will respond to chemo), create new friendships and forge bonds with people that I am currently unfamiliar. Because that's who I am; a lover of people and a woman that wants to know and love on all the people she comes to meet. 

 I don't know why I have breast cancer but someday I will ask God (along with a whole bunch of other questions!). I do believe to my deepest core, however, that being the Pollyanna, people-loving person that I am, that I can be an example of strength and hope. That is my prayer, at least, to remain steadfast in positivity and faith so that others may witness. Because, I also believe, that God has this and has put the care team in place to kick cancer's ass.

 It doesn't mean I'm not a little nervous or even afraid, it's the great unknown after all, it just means that I won't rest in that fear because that doesn't do me or anyone any good.

 So today I don my imaginary boxing gloves (cue the Rocky theme song) and my very real smile and my deepest faith to begin the fight of my life. And if you're a betting kind (Kris, I know you're reading this!!), I'd place all your money in my corner - because that's where God is!

 Can I get an Amen???
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights were blazing last week - when for the first time in the history of our little town, the Saugatuck Indians clinched the district title! You can see the sheer joy on Matthew's face and the pride in his father's eyes in the picture above. Leading up to and during the game, there were several things that made the victory even more sweet. The first being that the sports writers in the area, to a person, all predicted the opponents, Climax-Scotts, to win. They'd had a perfect season - until Friday. The second was that we had to travel quite a distance (nearly 90 minutes) to get to the game. And the weather was frigid and snow was blowing - thankfully it was blowing towards the Climax-Scotts stands and was at our backs. And then our quarterback injured his shoulder and had to sit out for a good portion of the game. Thankfully, the replacement quarterback (a sophomore called up for the playoffs from the junior varsity team) did not let the stress effect his ...
3 comments
Read more

I had to use a calculator

I have been living with MS since 1992 - I used the calculator on my phone to determine that it's 29 years (because unlike the man pictured above my math skills are lacking). That's a long time and you don't need to be mathematically inclined to come to that conclusion. And when first diagnosed, my neurologist declared that with all the research he believed a cure was imminent likely 'within five years'. that would mean that we would have had the cure 24 years ago. We don't. So I am grateful I didn't wager any money on Dr. Wiley's prediction.  But what we do have, instead of a cure, is a plethora of pharmaceuticals to help stem this disease's progression and help us live fuller lives, longer. I am happy for that but am also curious and a tad skeptical because these drugs cost a person living with MS a lot of money and pharma has no financial incentive to search for the cure when they can keep us living less gimpy lives for many years reliant on their ...
Post a Comment
Read more

You don't know me . . .

I stopped blogging for awhile. I know some might think that I was being lazy, or overly-involved in some community or school venture or in the middle of some really good books or projects. While all of those are true, that's not the main reason. I stopped because it felt strange to be somewhere and have someone refer to something I wrote. It was like they knew a secret about me (though secrets are not usually published on the Web) that I hadn't shared with them. Though in reality I had shared because I wrote it on the blog.  Truth be told, I don't know who reads this - I have a smattering of followers but a lot more readers. Blogger lets me see how many page views for each posting and I can even tell the referral site. The most I have had for any post was 152 and I've had readers from as far away as New Zealand (thank you Gretchen) and Alaska. Most readers are referred through Facebook. I know that if I were more diligent, I could market the crap out of the blog ...
Post a Comment
Read more