Oh, I just love the new picture options.

I changed my mind about adding some photo's. These are pictures of the newest members to our family. Evan and Devan. They were born two months early and haven't been home long.

Wow, look at that. AOL made some changes to the journals. We can now add pics, albums and video. Isn't that special?

I have lots of pics I wanna share but don't feel like messing with it today. It takes too long for them to load.

I was supposed to be in Morgantown WV at 1:30 to start my treatment program today but didn't make it. I was up most of the night nursing an abscessed tooth. The entire right side of my face is swollen. I'm in terrible pain and taking penicillin.

As some of you know it takes me almost 6 hours to get there and that's too much driving for me or anyone on little sleep.

I rescheduled and the soonest they could see me is May 29th. They called Dr AhMed and told him I had rescheduled my appointment then he had nurse Beth call me and fuss at me.

I told her and him both yesterday that I had an abscessed tooth. He's the one that gave me the antibiotic and said that's all I need now. Talking about the tooth.

My platelets were down to 10.000 and he admitted me yesterday evening for a transfusion. Said he'd like to keep me overnight but he preferred I keep my appointment. Then I end up missing it. I bet he was pissed.

What could I do?

Anyway, I've been thinking  about Kim. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. God Bless her and God Bless ya'll.

The will to live....

So, I guess they're thinking that the stem cell transplant that saved my life ten years ago has caused this new disease. They are also saying that this type of Leukemia usually only happens to the elderly. People 50 and over but more so from 70 on up.

My brother and his girlfriend offered to be donors yesterday. I thanked them and told them I may not even need a donor because I'm not taking this new diagnosis serious until I get to Morgantown and get a second opinion.

I've been reading up on it as much as possible but what I'd really like to do is meet someone that has either gone through it themselves or with a loved one. Those are the folks that can really tell me what to expect. That is unless they are like me and chose to block that entire part of their life from their minds. I remember very little about my first encounter with cancer, that is until I read Kim's journal or someone else's who has cancer and something they are going through triggers one of my blocked memories.

Too bad you can't do that with people. I'd like to block just about every person in my life.

My motto used to be to never give up. I'd tell everyone I knew that had cancer to hang on, and never give up. But, in order for a person to want to live, or even fight to live, they must have a loving, supporting, and caring family. They must have a reason to live! Not everyone has that and without it, there's no will.

Just my Luck!

I wasn't going to write about any of this on here, but here goes!

When I first bought my truck I had the opportunity to get vanity tags. Everything I asked for was taken so I finally came up with JUSTMYLUK and I honestly believe I jinxed it because even though it's been a good lil truck, it sure has been through it and looks terrible.

I feel like JUSTMYLUK should have been embedded in my forehead.

Last Monday I had a bone marrow biopsy and yesterday I got the results. The Dr says I tested positive for Myeloid Leukemia. He also said no one around here can treat me because I have to have a bone marrow transplant and that unlike the stem cell transplant, I cannot donate to myself. So, now I have to find someone to donate to me, that is a match.

I told my family and so far I have two volunteers but both of those can't be a doner because of their own health issues.

I haven't found out for sure yet but I may have to go as far as North Carolina to be treated. I can't afford to travel that far for treatment nor do I even want to.

I've been thinking that maybe I should contact the make a wish foundation so that Cameron and I can do something fun and exciting together. A lasting memory.......Just in case.

 

When you cannot pray as you would,
pray as you can.
Dean M. Goulburn

My friend had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Understandably, her first reaction was shock followed closely by terror and all that entails: sleeplessness, anxiety, depression and anger.

What bothered her most, however, was that for the first time in her life, she was unable to pray.

"I don't know what to say," she confided. "I don't know what to ask for. I can't find the words."

I assured her she was not alone. I had also found it difficult to pray when I was first diagnosed with cancer.My biggest problem was anger. I was mad at God. He had allowed this awful thing to happen to me, and I didn't want to talk to Him anymore.

But as the shock and terror slowly wore off and I entered into my year-long cancer journey filled with multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, my anger ebbed, too.

I realized that God had not given me cancer. A misfire at the cellular level had given me cancer. A bad gene, maybe. Pesticide exposure, perhaps. Whatever had caused it, it wasn't God.
It was biology run amok.

God was right where He had always been, waiting patiently for me to come to Him and lay my burdens at His feet. He knew my fears better than anyone, and He wanted to strengthen and encourage me. All I had to do was come into His presence and ask.

He also knew that I couldn't find the words to ask for what I needed. I wasn't even sure what I needed, so how could I pray?

It was then that He reminded my of the simple bedtime prayer I had prayed as a child. "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."

He also reminded me of the Lord's prayer:
"Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name."

I realized that my prayers didn't need to be original to be heard. In fact, God has given us many prayers that we need only to read or recall according to our own faith traditions.

Sometimes I just said, "God, I am so scared and so tired that I don't even know how to pray anymore." Then I would sit quietly and wait. Invariably, God spoke to me through my heart. He reminded me that prayer is a two-way street and that sometimes all we have to do is be quiet and listen. Let Him do the talking.
Listening is prayer, too.

God is there even in - maybe especially in - the silence when we are still and quiet.


God, help me to remember that prayer is a conversation with You and that sometimes all I need to do is listen. Remind me that, even when I'm silenced by terror and can find no words at all, You can hear what is in my heart. Amen

A little catching up.

When Cameron flipped my truck over the hill, not only was he grounded for a month, I also pressed joy riding charges on him. Nothings been done yet other than a preliminary hearing where the judge explained to Cameron how important it is that he not get into anymore trouble at home or school before coming back for court. Cameron's been suspended from school twice since then and the court ordered an investigation on me. The guy from children's services came out and talked to us, asking a lot of nosy questions and then before he left he said he was putting in his report that there wasn't a problem in the home but rather at school. I'm thinking they'll tell me one thing and do another. It's one big mess and once again, this is what I get for asking for help.

On top of that mess I've been sick. Last week I spent two days in the hospital getting a blood transfusion, some platelets, potassium, and magnesium pumped into me. They said either I'm losing blood or my body has stopped making red blood cells.

 I couldn't rest. They were taking my vitals every 15 minutes through out the night and the nurse was chewing gum and popping it loudly. I asked for something to drink and didn't get anything until the next evening, even though the Doctor had me on a liquid diet. I was tired and frustrated and ended up signing myself out against the Dr's orders.

They could only use my right arm for the IV and to draw blood and my veins kept collapsing. My arm and hand are still sore and bruised. I went back to the Dr yesterday to get my results and to get more blood work. My blood pressure is low and my platelets are low, and the Dr said something was definitely going on, yet they don't want me back until next month? Makes a lot of sense! @@

 

In Memory of...

The following was written and read by Poet Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of English Nikki Giovanni at the convocation held the day following the tragedy at Virginia Tech:

We Are Virginia Tech

We are Virginia Tech
We are sad today
And we will be sad for quite a while
We are not moving on
We are embracing our mourning
We are Virginia Tech
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly
We are brave enough to bend to cry ...
And sad enough to know we must laugh again
We are Virginia Tech
We do not understand this tragedy
We know we did nothing to deserve it
But neither does a child in Africa dying of aids
Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army
Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory
Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water
Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of night in his crib in the home its father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destablized
No one deserves a tragedy
We are Virginia Tech
The Hokie nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds
We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid
We are better than we think
and not quite what we want to be
We are alive to the imagination and the possibility
We will continue to invent the future
Through our blood and tears
Through all this sadness
We are the Hokies
We will prevail
We will prevail
We will prevail
We are Virginia Tech

copied from the cancer crusade

Just when the caterpillar thought the world had ended, it became a butterfly. ~Unknown~ Over the last few weeks, we've been discussing "survivor's guilt" and trying to define the term "survivor" in these weekly affirmations, and we've gotten some very thoughtful and thought-provoking e-mails as a result. A reader named Gail brought up an interesting concern that we had heard survivors discuss before, but we'd never thought through it enough to consider it for one of these weekly affirmations. Gail's question led us to think long and hard about the subject, and we decided that it is not only appropriate to this column, but also something that we'll bet many readers have struggled with. So here goes. Gail wrote: "Since my surgery (mastectomy) and subsequent reconstruction, two of my friends had mastectomies. However, my friends needed radiation and chemotherapy, and they suffered all that those treatments have to offer...I always feel incredibly guilty when I see these women (and those like them) who have undergone so much more than I have. I don't feel the right to call myself a survivor when, in fact, my battle pales by comparison. Have you ever come across this problem?" Gail's question reminded me of other survivors I know. A friend of ours refuses to walk the "Survivors Lap" at our local Relay For Life because she says she "only" had a small skin cancer removed from her arm. Another says she doesn't feel like she has the right to call herself a survivor because she "only" had a lumpectomy and 33 radiation treatments. My own husband says that he's not sure he's a "real" survivor because he "only" had his kidney removed while I had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Children who have a certain type of leukemia often undergo more than 2 years of chemotherapy. I have a friend who has been living with cancer for 14 years and has undergone months and months of chemotherapy and other treatments about 10 different times. My own mother recently completed 35 radiation treatments for breast cancer, and my father has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will undergo a surgical implantationof radiation "seeds." My best friend had a mastectomy with reconstruction, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The simple fact of the matter is that, with a disease as complex as cancer (and remember that there are more than 100 types of cancer), the possible treatment variations and combinations are infinite! Also, suffering is subjective. What I think is painful, you might find merely uncomfortable. What you find intolerable, I might think is little more than annoying. If we were to require a certain type or number of surgeries and/or treatments in order to be considered survivors, or if we were to engage in questioning how much or how little one has "suffered," what would be the magic number or degree, extent or level of intensity? The answer is, of course, that we cannot go there. It's a pointless exercise and a waste of time and energy, and I don't know about you, but I don't have any of either to spare! If you have had a doctor tell you "You have cancer," you have suffered a psychological blow like no other. You have experienced an emotional trauma that no one who has not had cancer can comprehend. For me, being given the diagnosis was the very worst of the entire cancer experience. When I look back on my surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, I am acutely aware that - while they certainly were no picnic - they were not nearly as awful as the day my doctor told me I had cancer. If you survived that day in your own life, you are a survivor, because being a survivor is not about how many or what kind of treatments we have. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with our bodies. It's about how big our spirits are and how we carry ourselves in the face of fear and danger. It's about grace and dignity and courage and heart. I really believe it's just that simple. By the way, Gail, happy anniversary, you survivor you! Dear God, please help me remember to celebrate myself, to look back on how far I've come and all that I've endured and achieved along this difficult journey, even if it just began yesterday. Remind me that it's okay to be proud of who and what and where I am today. No matter how my story ends, I am a survivor. Amen

Roger and Kathy Cawthon

The Cancer Crusade

email: cawthons@thecancercrusade.com

web: http://www.thecancercrusade.com

 

http://www.thesurvivormovie.com/

 

Click the link above and watch The Survivor Movie.