Love.

a friend posted on her facebook tonight that she knows way too many people with cancer right now that are close to her in her life. i can honestly say that before my own cancer, i only knew of one other person who had had it and that was my grandfather who sadly passed away from a long, long battle. but now i know many, many people with cancer. meeting so many through radiation and chemotherapy, i have so many new friends now who are fighting for there lives. i love about 20 knew people who i call friends and who i pray for by name every day. most times you could find me begging God to save them, crying my eyes out knowing all too well their struggle. these people know a part of me that no one else knows, that no one else could understand. these people cheered for me the other day when i came in with a new hair color and hair cut. these people screamed "hurrah" when i told them i was spending the day outside running around with my kids. these people cling to me for hope. and these people are sick. and it makes me sad. and it makes me angry. and confused. and bitter. and it makes me lash out at the people i love. i hate cancer. i hate cancer. i hate cancer. i will never be the same. ever.

"you wonder where God is when things like this happen to you. and then you realize He is there in the pits right beside you."

Although this picture is completely corny, it is what i feel like doing right now. if you are in the fight, just found out you have cancer, hating chemotherapy, lost someone to cancer, cursing the world, angry, sad, mad, confused... then i want to kiss and hug you. i am in the fight too and it really sucks. but it IS giving me my life... and ah, it's such a good one. "this too shall pass."

Break.

i am taking a break from this blog for the moment. mostly because it totally depresses me. but also because i am taking a general break. i have two weeks off to get a little healthy and strong and then i am having surgery. then 3 more weeks of radiation. and then the scans begin, and so does my life of wondering if i'll ever go a day without thinking about cancer. i have so much to write about, so much that weighs on me heavily, so many subjects that need to be talked in the dark, to my husband, in the privacy of our room. this is by far the saddest thing i have taken part in. it shattered our family, and at a very young age jonathan and i are learning how to plan on putting it back together again, when we are up against statistics that say i have a 70 percent chance i will even be alive in 5 years. i am battling fatigue that would normally land me on my back and in bed, but after what i've just been through, i am calling those days, "good days." with already missing out on the last two months of my kids lives, i am trying to jump back in and participate finally, even if it makes me dizzy. i miss my husband. i miss being able to kiss him on the lips because my white blood cell count is low, and getting sick at this point could land me in the hospital. i'm sad that my kids can't share my drinks, or that i can't suck on their little, chubby baby fingers in fear of getting sick. in so many words, I AM OVER IT. AND CANCER CAN TOTALLY KISS MY A**. so the next two weeks i am going to spend them breaking the rules. i am going to kiss my husband till it hurts, and share my drinks, and suck on baby fingers and toes.... because this is medicine also. the kind i really need right now to begin truly healing.

Born.... Again.

Born... Again.

I am sitting here in a new Lily Pulitzer nightgown picked out by my daughter with a home made necklace strung around my neck. i look like i could be jet setting to the Caribbean, but my body reminds me other wise. i have bruised veins and a stomach that won't let me ignore the schedule that has now become my daily pill regiment. but i am blessed. i turn 28 years old today. and i am beginning to understand that any day with cancer, is in fact a good one. i am alive. i am free. i have three beautiful children, a husband that i am in love with, my family is in town getting me through this ordeal but today is here to help me celebrate. I praise Your Name God, and thank you at the top of my lungs. Today, i feel born again.

The Tough Questions 101.

I've spent the last couple of weeks with terrible insomnia. i lay awake playing out every scenario from my own funeral arrangements to my daughters high school graduation. point being, i have no idea what is going to happen with and to my life, like most people. i just happen to carry around a cancer statistic over my head that says what kind of percentage i have of being alive in 5 years. one thing that does play out over and over in my head is my movie like moment... the one i'm told that i am cancer free. but wait- hold up...... (insert screeching brakes). i had a visit with my doctor today. he actually told me i'm thinking "too much." but really, i've never been down this road before. i've never used words like remission and pet scan, and blood levels when i am thinking of being a healthy cancer free living momma. well, it doesn't quite work like that. my movie like moment won't come for two years. for two more years i don't get the opportunity to say i am living "cancer free." the first year it's scans, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, and scan me again. the first couple of scans might even show cancer still! what! this is news to me. so after i caught my breath i pressed on with more questions. what does this mean for me? tonight, do i go home and finish picking what flowers i prefer at my wake? well, not exactly. he did continue to tell me that by the 6 month scan that if it shows that cancer is still there, then we worry. chances are something didn't work and boom, i still have cancer. from then they would only do chemo, because where i have already been radiated on is way to softened and could never handle that type of radiation again. from there we'd pray that chemo would do the job. it wouldn't be Cisplatin, because that's already done a number on my kidneys... so... well, you get it, i am a thinker. i guess my next question was, "what if i make that first year with all clean scans?" then i go into remission. and if that whole year i get clean scans, well then i'll get my movie like moment. i'm thinking... i'm walking down a long hall, going into my doctor's office and he looks up and smiles, and says these words i've been fighting to live for, "you are cancer free." see, this is where i can decided, how do i live with cancer, and choose not to die from it?

the funeral flowers are just gonna have to wait.

For Jonathan.

"There is a madness in God's plan. But know that between my sighs and moans of desperation i feel your pain, too." - from the book, Surviving Cancer

i've met so many couples in the last almost two months. each with a heart breaking story of life, love, pain, and sickness. jonathan and i are one of them. as i sit here typing, my hands are shaking. i don't eat anymore, and i've resorted to IV fluids to get my hydration. to say i feel sick would be a huge understatement. but i've been wanting to get this post written for a while, and i am going to do my best to be the voice of these people.

there is something that no cancer patient gets, and that is what their significant other is going through. as i look around the room while i get my chemo, i see so many older couples. one couple is about to celebrate 64 years of marriage! cancer has brought them here. one couple met in 1943, in Germany, he met his bride and brought her back to America. she sat next to me last week. she is fighting cancer. as i look at these men and woman waiting for their loved ones to finish the treatment, fight this battle, or even wait for it to claim the life they once knew, i wonder what that moment was like. the one where their heart shattered into a million pieces, the moment they were told that the person that has taught them the most about life, shared children with, the person they love the most, what that moment was like when the blood drained to their feet, where they would struggle to walk out the door that day, the day they were told that the one they belonged to had cancer. i know what it was like to watch jonathan, but i was in my own shock hearing the news. so over the last couple of weeks i've been asking. what was that moment like? and every one i've talked to can agree that it was the worst kind of pain they have ever experienced.

knowing that my jonathan is suffering like this makes me angry, mad at the world. it makes me want to scream. sometimes i do. mostly into my pillow, letting my fists fly around me violently all over my bed. wailing. sobbing. the pain sometimes, i wonder, has already won.

i sit in a room full of people who are fighting to be with other people. to live for other people. i celebrate my wedding anniversary, 5 years, this september. strangely, that chemo room has made me fall more deeply in love with jonathan and the idea of marriage. i feel honored to sit in a room full of people who fought for their marriages and now for their lives. by this september, i hope i can say, "happy anniversary baby, i am cancer free."