Journey Out of Pink

Yes, I had cancer and…  I’m in the process of learning to transition from all the trauma and tragedy that came into my life because of breast cancer and get back to the art of living. It’s a real challenge. But it’s doable. First of all, I have to begin by telling you I’m a Christian. Throughout my entire ordeal with cancer, my faith has been the single most important thing that’s gotten me through it. Without God, there is no way I’d be where I am today. With that being said, let me give you a verse of Scripture that has carried me through my quest for complete restorative health: “I sought the Lord [on the authority of His word], and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4 Satan wanted me to live in constant fear, fear of recurrence, fear of the unknown, fear of all the “what ifs.” God wanted me to live in freedom! I have to give you some background information if you haven’t been following my blog since its inception: In June 2014, I was diagnosed with sta

This morning, I’ve felt an overwhelming need to write a book about my breast cancer journey and as I prayed, I felt God saying I needed to do this so others would know about His faithfulness. I’ve wanted to write a book for some time, but had no idea where to begin. My love of writing began when I was a young child. My mother tells me often how she used to find scraps of paper all over the house with my thoughts scribbled on them. She would often tease me that no one could leave a piece of paper anywhere in the house because if I found it, I would be writing something on it. And it was true! As long as I can remember, I’ve had an urgent desire to write. English and Creative Writing were my favorite subjects in school. But why did I feel compelled to write? It was a huge puzzle to me. I was compassionate about writing and really enjoyed it, but I didn’t understand why I felt I HAD to write. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I began blogging as a way to chronicle my journey

It’s been a rough day. Some days are like that. Some days I fall down. I don’t like those days because those are days I feel defeated. It doesn’t help that today’s an overcast and dreary day. Those gloomy days aren’t good for folks who’re struggling. Today, I found out a friend, I’d “met” last year via the internet, has gotten some bad news. Today’s not a good day for her either. She’s really struggling, even more than I. She just found out her breast cancer has returned and like an unwelcome guest, it has decided to make itself at home and spread out a little…all over her body. She’s devastated and my heart breaks for her. I didn’t know what to say when she sent me a Facebook message with a link to her latest blog post. (We’ve kept up with each other via our blog posts and Facebook for over a year now and even though we’ve never met, I feel like she’s a dear friend.) We share so much. She loves crafting and so do I. She is a grandmother and loves her grandchildren, so do I. She loves

I’m a writer. I don’t know when I first began writing. I must have been about ten or eleven. I loved to write. I wrote stories all the time. I wrote in my journal. I wrote on anything and everything. I didn’t know much about grammar and syntax back then; I just wrote what I felt like writing. Whatever was in my heart or in my brain just oozed out onto the paper. Sometimes I was surprised by the content. When I started high school, my English teachers were amazed at my creative writing skills. I won awards for my work and had several teachers encourage me to pursue writing as a career. I didn’t have much faith in myself. I didn’t think my work was good enough, so I never pushed forward. Throughout my years of child rearing, I continued to write. Instead of writing short stories or novels, I concentrated on poetry. Several of my pieces were published and I was so honored. My love of writing grew even stronger. After my children grew and began having families of their own, I began writing

“Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.” Psalm 4:1 What a powerful prayer found in Psalm chapter 4, verse 1. As I read this verse, I kept repeating “thou hast enlarged me in my distress.” Enlarged me. Thou hast enlarged me. Thou hast enlarged me in my distress. What did that mean exactly? The more I thought about it, the more I realized this verse was speaking volumes to me. In the middle of the tragedy of my being diagnosed with breast cancer, God was in the process of enlarging me. He was using my health ordeal as a really powerful teaching tool. He was widening my dependence on Him and in the midst of that, He was growing my faith. Little did I know my faith would be tested later in the day. Driving to Fayetteville, my mind began to wander. As I looked out over the dry, winter grass I couldn’t help but think about the seasons. It was the middle of February here in Georgia, but we were

It was dark in the cave as the rope lowered me along the cavern walls. Deeper and deeper I went down into the pit and more and more fear welled up inside me. I’d never been inside a cave before, but our Explorer troop leader assured us that this would be the adventure of a lifetime. Weeks before, our Girl Scout troop had met with the local Boy Scout troop. Our leaders had decided it would be a great idea to meld the two troops into one and call it “Explorers.” Of course, our group of pubescent girls were ecstatic to even think about doing things in the out of doors with a group of good looking, overly hormonal young men. Our leaders had no idea what they were getting into at the time, so the plans moved along and we kept our giggles to ourselves and our fingers crossed behind our backs. Our first expedition would be an overnight camping trip to the extreme Northwest corner of Georgia as it borders Alabama. The leader of the Boy Scout troop knew of a great cave in that area and thoug

 Late last year, I was totally caught off guard when I received a phone call from my son in love, Caleb, asking me what I was doing that day. “What a random call,” I thought to myself, as I listened to him chatter on. We made small talk for a few minutes and then, he got right to the point…”Mom, how would you like to come to Texas?” I almost dropped the phone, but managed to keep it from slipping from my hand. I pressed the phone a little tighter into my ear thinking I’d misheard him. “What did you say?” I asked. Once again, he repeated his question, “Mom, how would you like to come to Texas?” I told him I’d love to come. He knew I missed my oldest daughter and grandchildren more than anything. It had been a long time since I’d seen them. As I continued to listen, Caleb explained his plan. He was willing to drive all the way to Georgia to get me and then, turn right around and take me all the way back to Texas. Absurd!!! 900 miles each way and in less than 2 full days???!!! Yes, his pl

It was a cold winter morning and the warmth of the electric blanket swaddled me like a newborn babe. Although I was awake, I didn’t want to get out of bed, so I did what I usually do on those dark, snuggle down deep into your memory foam mattress moments…with my eyes still closed, I opened the drawer to my nightstand. My fingers drifted over bottles of pills and books until I felt my cell phone. Carefully, I lifted it out of the drawer and brought it over to the pillow lying on my chest. I reached back to close the nightstand drawer, because I’m a type A personality and I can’t stand to leave things left undone.  I pressed the little button on the side of my Iphone and instantly was blinded by the light. I’d forgotten to turn down the brightness from yesterday’s jaunt to the mall. After finding my settings feature and readjusting the brightness to a lower setting, I jumped on the internet to find a sermon by my favorite preacher, Dr. Adrian Rogers. Although Dr. Rogers is now deceased,

In 1972, David Bowie came out with a song called “Changes.” The song deals with changes in our lives and how we deal with them. Change is never easy. It’s always hard to welcome change but sometimes it’s necessary.  My new blog is all about moving forward and leaving pink behind, and while I hate to use the phrase “getting back to normal, ”that’s exactly what I’m doing. My normal will never be the same as it was before cancer, but it’s interesting to realize that normal is a relative term. Change is a good thing and God uses it to help us grow. I’m noticing some big changes in my life and here are some of the things I’m seeing after 19 months of focusing solely on surviving breast cancer.   First of all, I’m still here! When I was first diagnosed, I immediately thought I’d been given a death sentence. Cancer is a scary word but it doesn’t necessarily mean imminent death. I’ve fought hard to be here and I’m glad God’s allowed me to continue living. I know He’s not done with me yet and

Last night was a tough one. My jaws were hurting a lot from having two molars extracted on Friday and the pain medication wasn’t helping alleviate it much. I went to bed around 10:30 p.m. and dozed off about an hour later. In the wee hours of the morning, my pain became more intense and I got up to take another pain pill. I read the bottle before taking out one pill and saw the directions said it was okay to take 2 if necessary. I was afraid to take more than one. Codeine and I don’t do so well together and even though this was a synthetic form of Codeine, I didn’t want to chance it. I took the pill and went back to bed. Around 3:00 a.m. the pain had come back and I knew it was too early to take another pain pill, so I took an Advil. The combination must have done the trick because I fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until 8:00 a.m.  I went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for my husband. I drooled as I made him boiled eggs and toast. Although it wasn’t a fancy breakfast, it w