Nothing like starting off the New Year right. New year, new you! It’s a new year and everyone gets to start fresh. This was my idea of the world before cancer.
On December 31st I gave myself my monthly breast and no-breast self exam (I feel the scar tissue to get used to the new “normal” of bumps and lumps). Just before Thanksgiving my radiation Oncologist, Dr. Gemmel, helped me to walk through the lumps in my armpit where I have on the order of 13 new scars to get used to because I was concerned about a bump I felt. As I was feeling the same area I felt that old bump, now slightly painful and seemed to me about the size of a pea. Damn.
There’s nothing like celebrating the countdown to 2012 and praying that you don’t spend another year in cancer treatment.
There’s nothing like wondering if 2011 will be your last year.
(Do you get that I’m feeling a little morbid right now?)
The Oncologist’s offices were closed on Monday in observance of Josh’s birthday (34 years, the old man!), which caused the whole nation to shut down. Subsequently today the cancer center was packed and I could only get into see the Oncologist’s nurse. Wonderful woman, who had the unfortunate job of telling me, in very p.c. terms I might add, that this was “something the
doctor is going to want to look at” and “I think it’s about 1” in diameter, don’t you?”
Uhm, yeah. No I didn’t.
We felt it again, she showed me how to not just feel the top of it but around the sides so that you can get a more accurate feel for the size. Yep, about the size of an acorn.
What do you do when your world starts falling apart?
Again.
There isn’t really anything I can do to either fix things, or make my appointment on Thursday come any faster. Good people are miraculously healed, good people die. So I pray. I pray and pray and pray. I really look at things, the winter trees, mountains I drive by. I watch my kids and thank God I have this day, another day to love them. I appreciate my husband who works so hard to provide our house, our good health insurance, the money needed to drive down for another doctor’s appointment; the man who drops everything just to hold my hand as I wait for blood work or biopsy results.
How do I combat anxiety? Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean that you don’t feel tension, fear, anger, worry. Being a follower of Jesus means that I have someplace, someone to lift the burden of my emotions when they get out of control. He says, when you are anxious, fight back with thankfulness and joy.
And so, I try to love my life even more, each little thing.
On December 31st I gave myself my monthly breast and no-breast self exam (I feel the scar tissue to get used to the new “normal” of bumps and lumps). Just before Thanksgiving my radiation Oncologist, Dr. Gemmel, helped me to walk through the lumps in my armpit where I have on the order of 13 new scars to get used to because I was concerned about a bump I felt. As I was feeling the same area I felt that old bump, now slightly painful and seemed to me about the size of a pea. Damn.
There’s nothing like celebrating the countdown to 2012 and praying that you don’t spend another year in cancer treatment.
There’s nothing like wondering if 2011 will be your last year.
(Do you get that I’m feeling a little morbid right now?)
The Oncologist’s offices were closed on Monday in observance of Josh’s birthday (34 years, the old man!), which caused the whole nation to shut down. Subsequently today the cancer center was packed and I could only get into see the Oncologist’s nurse. Wonderful woman, who had the unfortunate job of telling me, in very p.c. terms I might add, that this was “something the
doctor is going to want to look at” and “I think it’s about 1” in diameter, don’t you?”
Uhm, yeah. No I didn’t.
We felt it again, she showed me how to not just feel the top of it but around the sides so that you can get a more accurate feel for the size. Yep, about the size of an acorn.
What do you do when your world starts falling apart?
Again.
There isn’t really anything I can do to either fix things, or make my appointment on Thursday come any faster. Good people are miraculously healed, good people die. So I pray. I pray and pray and pray. I really look at things, the winter trees, mountains I drive by. I watch my kids and thank God I have this day, another day to love them. I appreciate my husband who works so hard to provide our house, our good health insurance, the money needed to drive down for another doctor’s appointment; the man who drops everything just to hold my hand as I wait for blood work or biopsy results.
How do I combat anxiety? Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean that you don’t feel tension, fear, anger, worry. Being a follower of Jesus means that I have someplace, someone to lift the burden of my emotions when they get out of control. He says, when you are anxious, fight back with thankfulness and joy.
And so, I try to love my life even more, each little thing.
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