My Rambling Thoughts

Chemo on Monday was a hard day - for me.  The room was packed with people who could not get treatment on Thursday and Friday due to the holidays.  Many of the caregivers sat around tables doing puzzles, chatting, reading.  I was fortunate to have a chair to sit beside Joe but all 50 recliners were filled with people receiving treatment.  Most of the time the atmosphere is quiet some chatting with your neighbors about what disease you have and where are you in your treatment but almost always it's a subdued time.  Not on Monday.  Monday with so many people in the room the noise was sometimes at a party level.  Monday I paid way too much attention to patients as they came in and settled down.  For some reason we could hear everyone talking about their holiday's and how they didn't throw up and only had to take a couple of naps.  My ears were trying to reject these conversations - I don't like to know that part of this demon.  One couple at the end of our row, married over

Yes, I do realize that it is not Thanksgiving but I don't believe in setting aside just one day to appreciate my blessed life.  In light of Joe having surgery today - this thankful list is based on my mind as it is today.  This list is not in any order. I am thankful for: 1.   2.  Julie having the flu in August. 3.   4.   5.   6.   7.   8.     9.   10.  

As we sit here trying to not be afraid of tomorrow's first day of Joe's chemotherapy for Stage II Lung Cancer I find myself thinking back to the first time 6 years ago when the diagnosis was Stage IV Cancer of the Throat and Neck and two people scared to breathe and totally unprepared. This is a portion of my blog from that day: Let The Games Begin   We show up at Ironwood Cancer Center on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 looking like we were planning on moving in.  Joe brought his laptop, I had a bag with crosswords puzzles, books, DVD player with movies and an iPod.  The room where the treatment was administered is a very large glass walled room with around 40 recliner chairs.  Joe got weighed in at around 190 pounds, blood pressure taken and was very good.  We picked two chairs on the far side of the room against the windows and sat down to begin our day of chemo.  His nurse for the day, Cindy, inserted the IV into the portacath with some saline and Joe immediately broke ou

I hear the ER doctor say the words "metastasized mass" and something  I never wanted to hear again is spoken. I stand outside room 487 and pause for a few seconds as I see the layout of a room that I never wanted to set foot in again. I walk down a long long hallway with my feet feeling like magnets stuck to metal to a place I never wanted to walk to again. My heart breaks for my husband as he prepares to endure pain that no one should ever have to feel. I am reminded of the year markers that we waited to pass so the we were "disease free".  One year, two years, three years (that's the special one that most throat cancers come back by), four years, five years.  Five years that's the biggie - that's CANCER FREE.  How wonderful it felt to reach that mark and begin our now cancer free walk into the sixth year.  Now we sit here today and wait until 2:15 when the doctor will tell us words that we don't want to hear - but already know. We sit in an

"Where death angels never call.  Where no tears will never fall.  That's the place my soul is longing for".   Yesterday our friends and family said good bye to  a true saint of God.  What started out to be a celebration of Mary Joe Zenor's life turned out to be that and so much more.  It is no secret to anyone who reads my blogs that 3 years ago our family went through one of the hardest things we've ever done when we left the church we had attended for over ten years.  We want through the phases....hurt....anger..... sadness......loss.....more hurt.  We have gotten through it and moved on-for the most part. Memories.  Memories can be wonderful things but they can also be very painful  especially when you are forced to come face to face or rather head to heart with feelings you've pushed down. Yesterday I watched the anguish and sadness on Kaitlin's face when we entered into our old church with our best friends the Eckerts and were reunited with

Did you know: Depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. This includes major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder. Everyone, will at some time in their life be affected by depression -- their own or someone else's. Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers -- over a million -- are clinically depressed. The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression. 30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher 54% of people believe depression is a personal weakness. 41% of depressed women are too embarrassed to seek help.  80% of depressed pe

Novice:     A person new to a field or activity; a beginner. When my daughter Julie was very young she would make up words to express herself better than words that already existed.  For example - combound.  She thought this should be a word when you put two things together and as we say - combine.  I have to say I like combound much better.  It just sounds more expressive.  She would also "guess" at what she thought words meant.  One time she asked me what the N was on the driving gears.  I told her Neutral but she insisted on calling it "novice".  We still call it novice. Last week our church hosted a Vacation Bible School for 3 year olds thru 6th grade.  I was the director (although I had many many many volunteers who made this event happen) and my job most of that week was to put out fires, organize late registrants and keep the schedule flowing.  Most of those activities require pretty quick brain action and reaction.  While VBS ran smoother than even I

Yesterday my friend Lynne (who really is a writer -  http://www.lynnehartke.com/ ) posted that even in her business of the next few weeks she was going to participate in a 15 day writing challenge.  My first thought "wow, I wish I could find time to do that".  My second thought "I am going to join her and we can be accountable to each other in our businesses".  So that is what I am going to do over the next 15 days but I'm really wanting to push myself to do something for "myself". Today's challenge is  Declare you’re a writer.   Wow, I have to actually say that out loud in front of all of you?  OK.  I'm a writer.  I do love to write and to share and to express myself.  I cannot tell you how many times starting as a teenager I would write things down either a list, a play a funny thing that had happened.  I remember as a child of I think 7, I sent a letter to the Editor of my local small town newspaper on some federal holiday because the cour

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 the Bible instructs us to give thanks in everything because this is God's will. When the sun is shinning, it's easy to give thanks. When there is no unemployment and money is there, it's easy to give thanks. When everyone is healthy, it's easy to give thanks. Ahhhh, and there is today's issue.  This morning before church started and the choir was in robes and waiting to enter the sanctuary, a member shared a prayer request for her niece.  She had just been diagnosed with cancer of the eye.  There was evidence the cancer had spread and the diagnosis, if it has, survival is 1%.  The little girl is 2.  A friend of the family who has been cancer free for over 20 years, has been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer most likely caused by a chemo used in his treatment years ago.  How can I be thankful?  What is there to be thankful for in either of these situations? But God didn't promise us that everything would be "sunshine and ros

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Florida to spend some time with my Mother and attend the memorial service for my Step Father.  Thinking about having to fly for 4 hours then drive for 2 to see my Mother made me think about the way it was before flying was an option.  My girls have some awesome aunts and uncles that they haven't really had an opportunity to get to know because they live scattered across the country.  How different it would be if they could just walk down the road to go to my sister's house or to shoot some baskets with their grandfather.  Instead, they see them maybe every 2 years or longer. I realize that I am romanticizing how life actually was but, according to history, as children married and moved from the "homeplace" they bought or were given land close to where they grew up so that everyone lived in the same general area.  Except for those who were more adventurous and moved into town or even into the adjoining state.  I have a friend who grew u