May 18, 2013 Recovering & Seeing the Breath Taking View (Pendant Mother’s Day 2013- Diluted Chemo)
Recovering & Seeing the Breath Taking View
May 18th, 2013
One month ago today I had my last radiation treatment. After nine days of healing and recovery at my parents, I returned to Campobello still with a sunburn on steroids, but well on my way to healing. If anyone had told me last year that I would have breast cancer… go through chemo and radiation treatments… and then sell our house of 30 years in less than a year, I would have told them they were crazy! If you want to hear God laugh just tell Him your plans. My plans were simple last summer… I was going out to Kansas for two weeks bringing my grandchildren home for two weeks and then going back, until sometime in September when Lindsay’s baby (Owen) was to be born. Well those of you who have been on this journey with me as I journaled it, know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. Sometimes I start to reflect back, but realize that I am just not ready yet. God has brought me far and wants me looking forward and not back right now. Really who has time to look back, when they are packing up their house of 30 years and getting ready to move! Yet I do reflect back, as I clean out many things, but it is to the years that I raised my children… funny how little items you find can mentally take you on a vacation that leads to the past.
When I got back home from, “my beginning road to healing” at my parents house… well things felt different. Why wouldn’t they after the journey I had been on. There is a saying that says that you can’t go back. This I have found to be very true… a lot of things have changed. It’s like you have to get to know yourself all over again and learn to be comfortable in your own skin. The best way that I can describe it is… it’s like I got my personality back, but they put it in the wrong body and here I am going to have to learn how to live for the rest of my life. You come to a place where you have to accept and embrace the way things are and realize that since you have been on this journey with cancer that you never will be the same in many ways... You have a “new normal”. As rough as it has been, God gave me many blessings along the way… so many things He has taught me… yet there are many tough realities to face. Somehow I thought that I would come home and everything would go back to normal... well maybe I just wished for that. You can’t go back to what “was my normal” because that doesn't exist anymore. For the next one to two years, I will be finding out what “my new normal” is. My short term memory is SHORT all right! My heart is grateful that I am on this side of the journey, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t frustrating at times. Not being able to completely feel your hands and feet is an experience in itself. Talk about being numb!? Ok, so this is a different kind of numb than Jamie was referring to (a few times) in our conversations of way back! Well I might have used the word numb a few times, but it sure has a whole new meaning to me today. LOL
Many people have asked me if I am sad that we have sold our house and are moving to St. Stephen. The simple truth is no. My heart knows that God provided this blessing, which has really turned out to be a blessing for three families. That is a story for another day. This is like a new start, an opportunity for us and I am anxious to see where God leads us. My heart will miss the view from my house and the people in my community but the one thing this journey has taught, like no other journey ever has, is to be adaptable… go with God’s flow. You see while on the journey, I never knew what to expect from day to day… sometimes this is still true, but I am making good gains. Maybe others wouldn’t see it that way, but from where I have been to where I am now is pretty amazing. The view from my living room window is the same yet changed... a lot of other things have changed including my heart, spirit and soul. I have been to the lowest depth I ever have been and met Jesus face to face while I was there. No, I would not have chosen to go on this journey, but I would NOT change all that God has taught me. There is no no better teacher than experience. Dr. Rusk many years ago shared with me the expression, “Show me and I will forget; teach me and I will learn; experience it and I will remember.” It is experience that touches the soul.
This special treasure (a pendant) was handcrafted for me on pink sea glass, while I was going through my treatments\journey. It was given to me on Mother's Day 2013. It is made from sea glass, real silver and gold. Thank you Peter & Leesa from “Striking Gold Jewlers” in Ellsworth, Maine. Leesa & I met on a beach when we both were collecting sea glass and became instant friends. She didn’t know that when she came to see me that I had some sea glass treasures that I wanted to give her before I moved. I LOVE how God works.
My heart can't thank you all enough for your many acts of kindness along this journey! God keeps giving me these gentle nudges & hugs to let me see Him in this move. Like making a new friend and feeling like you had known them your whole life (Nelly Wry).
My phone rang the other day and it was a dear old friend that I had made while dating Jamie… actually I met her on my first “blind date” with Jamie. Now that is a long time ago! She lives in St. Stephen and wanted to let me know that she was excited that I was moving up and if I needed any help just to let her know. I have a few other friends in St. Stephen… some I taught with, right Patty… others who live in Calais and own a sandwich shop, whose chili I stopped and got each time when I was on my way home from a chemo treatment, a hospital stay or a radiation treatment (Gail & Gloria). Don’t ask me why I craved that, but I truly did… even though I couldn’t taste it a lot of the time, it still was good. It kind of became a comfort food on this journey. I will never forget when we stopped and Jamie went in the sandwich shop on the way home after my last chemo treatment (after I had been kept in the hospital for a week). He brought my chili and gluten free bread out to me. On the top of the container, they had put the chili in, was a “happy face” and the word “ZERO” in bold print. It helped me to register\process that I had NO more Frenamee\Chemo Treatments. That brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart & soul.
Now just picture someone who has been through chemo and radiation treatments recovering, as they pack up their house of 30 years to move. You might want to know what that is like. Every day is an adventure. I never know what I am going to do that morning when I get up. There is always plenty to accomplish. Accomplishments of that kind can be good feeling and a blessing, especially after the journey I have been on… as I still have a low white cell count and I can’t be out in public places yet, it is good to be occupied… especially while Jamie is away. Though there are moments that I feel overwhelmed by all the “stuff” that surrounds me, as I am cleaning out. I have never had trouble giving things away, so that part is fun. Sometimes it is nice, even if it is for only a few minutes, to forget where I have been as I am packing\cleaning out\giving things away. It’s the “Big Dig!” The “Ultimate Purge Session”. I do know that I am going to lobby for legislation that makes it illegal to have a craft room, school room, office and bed room all in one room. Many years ago I nicknamed this room as the cro-office. Little did I know it would become my nemesis. Seriously, no matter how much I give away and throw away, I swear it has multiplied by morning. There is just no way that room can still be full after all I have thrown out and given away… but it still is! Physically, I try to rest when I need to and remind myself that it is OK if I am tired. Honestly resting is hard for my type of personality to do. The more I accomplish the more that I want to do but cancer treatments has drained my energy sources. Does the term obsessive-compulsive come to mind?! Unlike house-work, the great thing about cleaning out is that each part I get done, I never have to do it again. Once it is done, it is finished. My mission each day is that what I chose to throw away makes it to the garbage bin and what I give away makes it who I am giving it too. Garbage day is a big day for me, because that means I can’t change my mind... you see what I have put out in the garbage bin is gone! Thank you, Cindy, Suzanne and Nellie for your help. A friend does make the time go by faster as you share, laugh and cry along the way. I have always told my granddaughter, Audri, that when you clean out, you always find treasures. Oh, how true it is. Something I lost about two years ago and I have been very upset about, was the diamond ring that Jamie brought for me after we had been married for five years. Would you like to guess where I found it… would you believe in the cabinet above the flush!?! I had forgotten that I had a little crystal ring holder. Someone had put that crystal ring holder up in that cabinet (probably me) and when I cleaned it out I found it. Yes I cried. It reminded me once again that God is good.
So you may wonder what God is teaching me as I recover and clean out our house to move. To me it is much like our lives… years and years of clutter exists and takes up space in our lives & minds. Carrying all that extra baggage around is heavy and prevents us from seeing the blessing & beauty all around us and often blocks the path God has chosen for us. If we just bring our baggage to God, He will help us sort through it and get rid of what we do not need... this will remove the weight of it so we can accomplish what He has set out for us to do. Things are not what is valuable. The real valuable is in what you do for God each day. The other night God kept burdening me to call Chrissy. She is one of the porters at the hospital that wheeled me down for my radiation treatments, in the beginning, when I couldn’t walk. These people are a true treasure from God. After I could walk the distance required to receive my treatments, I would pass by her station each day and whenever she was there I would give her a hug and talk. After eight weeks, it is people like this who have become your family away from home. At first I thought, "Really God you want me to call her?", but my heart knew He wanted me too. You can imagine my surprise when she answered the phone and said, “I had prayed that God would have you call me.” She had had a rough day and in some ways so had I. What a blessing to talk and share with each other. Don’t miss out on God’s blessings. Listen and He will show you the path He has chosen for you and I promise there will be many blessings along the way that you would never have experienced had you not followed Him. He doesn’t promise us that it will be easy, but He does promise us that He will never leave us. I can tell you from the depths of my soul that this is true. No matter how steep the hill you are climbing or how low the valley you are in, just breathe… and be still… and know that He is God and He is with you. It is here you will hear His still small voice with a clarity that you have never experienced before. It is here He will teach you the most valuable and irreplaceable lessons. It is here that you will experience a beauty you have never seen or felt before… it will be unlike anything you have ever known, because it is at the very feet of Jesus. You see as I sit and look out my living room window across the ocean that I have looked at for 30 years, tonight I see a richer beauty than I have ever seen before. Thank you to each of you for helping me through this part of my journey through your prayers, phone calls, emails, text messages, packages and surprise visits (Suzanne, Blake, Robert, Patty, Emily & Brandyn, Paula, Aunt Nadine and Uncle Tommy, etc.)... Know that each of you, in your own way, have touched my life deeply and for that I am eternally grateful.
Love you Davine… you were and are an inspiration… I am praying for you!
My love, ((((HUGS)))) and prayers,
Paulette
