Other People have been faced with death in other ways

Another life reality check today....I scheduled a session to record a kids voice for my audio ah biz and Mom shows up with her face partially paralyzed. I thought to myself, "is this bells palsy or is it a stroke"....we continued our session. When we were wrapping up I looked at her and said "is everything okay?"....and she proceeded to tell me 8 weeks ago on her way home from work on the local freeway she was in a near fatal wreck. Driving along and a car comes careening accross the highway and slams into her....her car flippd several times and it landed on it's hood. A teenager was driving wrecklessly, clipped another car which in turn careened accross the highway hitting Nancy. I was in shock. Her entire body was bruised and her left cheekbone crushed. With physical therapy she will heal...but there I was completely understandng what she must have been going through the past 8 weeks. I was able to ask her "mentally/emotionally how have you done?"....she said after about a week the reality of almost dying never seeing her little boy again and husband and family had her sobbing for days. I knew all too well what the emotional part was all about. It felt so real to be able to ask her this and actually understand it...I told her my last 12 months journey-but I found I didn't want to stay on me-I wanted to stay with the connection we had. Again my cancer has taught me a lesson. Compassion is now understood quickly. God presented it all to me. My cancer isn't the "all bad"....car wrecks and other illnesses, and disabilities are all bad too.  These people have been faced with whys and fears and tears and rage and lessons too. God puts this in front of us for good valid reasons. I need to get it again. I need to never forget. Maybe just maybe what my friend said to me while going through chemo "one day you will thank your cancer" that  may be slowly becoming true. Todays meeting with Nancy and her son Eli nudged me. I pray for Nancy's full recovery-she so deserves it. Angels watched over her.

One of my cancer patients died

Probably one of the most profound days in my chemo journey was meeting Nicci.There I was walking myself up the walkway to return my pump. Patients walked out one by one with bandanas on their heads as I sighed with dread as I was about to enter the building. I checked in and sat down when in only a few moments a woman sat down next to me and let out a huge sigh.The normal opening line from me, "so what type of cancer do you have?"....she sighs again, "it started with breast but now it has went to my brain". She paused for a moment and then looked deeply into my eyes and said "I don't know what's worse, having cancer or having my only son die in our house fire:' I gasped. I had just read about it in the newspaper. it was her! Her husband and son were taking a nap when the fire broke out in the loft-she had steped out for an errand and came home to firetrucks in front of her house. I told her she has to live for her son, for her daugher, and her grief was undeniably to be expected. i asked her name, and it was Nicci. I had my port flushed and pump retturned and i could n't gt out of there fast enough. I wept uncontrollably in the parking lot...for her, her family, my cancer and all those others affected by the disease. I called jeff and wept to him...I had to do something. Nicci mentioned her husband was an Allergist so I looked them up in the phonebook and made the call. I explained to the receptionist who I had met and if by chance this was the Doctors wife...it was. I hung up and penned her a note telling her my admiration for her was enormous and me crying over my treatment was trivial.....and so i went on. A few days ago a friend of mine was working in the lab at the local hospital when her colleague said 'I am so sad, my best friend died from cancer' naturally my friend mentioned me and my diagnosis-when her colleague described her friends  fate, it was Nicci. So I receivd the phone call telling me she had passed. I was stunned. I have been thinking about her nonstop for days ever since learning of her passing...so many people have to go through this disease and all it's extensions. The lessons I was dealt are numerous, but this story floored me the most and now her family must go on having lost a son, a brother and she taken by this deadly disease..It's all so insane, it just has to  be cured. It has to be.

The word "remission"

I was watching "The Bucket List" tonight on a DVD.....and Jack Nicolson made a comment about him being in cancer remission....and my heart suddenly sank. I thought "my God, I have to live through that to be able to hear myself say in 5 years... "I am in remission". The thought scared me. The thought that I now have that  in my story.... it is absolutely mind blowing. Never in my wildest dreams, never.

My faith deepened in all this

I find myself scurrying every Sunday to hear words from the scripture-yes this is just what God wanted...for me to be hungry to hear the word. I love starting my Sunday this way.My  happiness has little to do with externals it is a condition from my heart, mind and soul. Fortunately I learned this while in my Radio broadcasting career-I could be at the top of my game and knocked off for no reason other than a stupid ass corporate decision to make unnecessary changes, but it wasn't about the show, or my title. What was going to save me through the heart ache was that my heart and mind and soul needed to get it right. And it all happenend in my cancer journey. When I think back about it all it was truly horrific. I couldn't figure out why...but it was a lesson and it built more of my character and I have come to conclude, I am just going to savor each moment and love life, no matter what the hell is happening around me. My husband irritates me, my kid's decisions scare the hell out of me, my ex could still give me an apology, and I still can get in a beef with a chidhood friend or stranger-but when I can get ahold of the present moment-it's senseless to get all whipped up about it. I can't make time for that b.s. to park itself in my brain....i just can't. So I close, and go out and do what I love...just entertain myself in my simple little ways without bothering anybody. yep that's what God taught me.

Voice Over Girl: CT Scan clear-hallelujah!

Voice Over Girl: CT Scan clear-hallelujah!: "I was holdi ng my breath for this CT Scan result as I just couldn't bear to go through with it all again. The news was joyous-but a lifetim..."