Journey Out of Pink

It's been a while since I've written an honest, open, and raw post about how things are going in my life so I decided today would be a good day to do just that. I know reading my posts on grand spiritual insights can get tedious and sometimes boring if the reader isn't quite in the mood for such heavy fodder, but don't worry, today will be light and airy. It's the end of April and soon, I'll be celebrating 2 years of being in remission. (July 9th is my actual "cancerversary") It's hard to believe 2 years have passed by so quickly. Although I say they've passed quickly, some days felt like they'd never end. It's been pretty hard to look at my calendar and see an average of 1-3 doctors appointments scheduled every single month. Some months there are more but never less than 1. Sometimes I feel like a bug under glass...a science experiment gone terribly wrong. But I'm thankful for attentive doctors and though the appointments get tir

Summer is a challenging month for many women. We don't like sweat. It's unattractive and bothersome. We don't enjoy having to reapply our makeup or wear ultra strength deodorant to keep ourselves looking and smelling pleasant. But add to those minor inconveniences the challenges of having to wear silicone prostheses and compression sleeves for Lymphedema and you get some pretty hot ladies! No, I'm not talking about hot as in extremely good looking...I'm talking about hot as in lots of heat, as in who turned up the thermostat to 120 degrees?! The excessive heat of Summer is instantly compounded by having to wear these medically necessary items. So what's a girl to do? My first Summer after having bilateral mastectomies, I went without prostheses. My scars were still pretty raw and I didn't like to have anything rubbing against my skin. I found cotton tank tops provided just enough coverage while at the same time kept me cool and dry. It wasn't a problem

Today I had to go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor...well, I don't really hate going to the doctor, I hate going to see the doctor and having to get on the scale. I hate that they have the scale right out in the open in a hallway where anyone who passes by can see what you weigh. For me, that's scary. I want to keep my weight private. Shouldn't there be a HIPAA law or something to protect me from having my weight scrutinized by prying eyes? Surely there should be. Anyway, as much as I hated going to see the doctor today, I went. This was a follow up visit for an esophageoendoscopy I'd had done recently. I already had the results so I didn't really understand why it was necessary for me to go in for an office visit, but I'm compliant, so off I went. I arrived at the gastroenterologist's office about fifteen minutes early. I'm always early. I like to have a few minutes to just sit in the waiting room and chill out before my appointment. For some

Medically unnecessary. Those were the words printed in large letters across a document of denial I'd recently received from my insurance company. My oncologist had ordered a new type of recirculating compression pump to alleviate the extreme swelling in my upper extremities. This condition, called Lymphedema, had occurred shortly after I'd been through surgery to remove both of my breasts and several lymph nodes in each arm. As I read the letter, I became very upset. As I re-read the letter, I became angry. How dare these insurance company agents determine what is and what is not necessary for my health? Shouldn't my oncologist be more educated in matters pertaining to breast cancer and the side effects? I certainly thought so. Toward the end of the letter, after the insurance company had supplied their standard explanation for the denial, were instructions on how to submit an appeal. Finally, a ray of hope! I was definitely going to do that, but first, I had to contact my

Oh, it feels so good to have a normal day, just a normal day. Nothing spectacular happened today. My husband was off work and so we decided to go visit some local gardens so I could take photos. We visited two and they were both closed today. We'll go again tomorrow when they're open. By the time we left the second garden, it was time for lunch so we headed to a local Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a normal lunch with normal conversation. It felt so good. When we were finished, Hubs asked me what I wanted to do next, I didn't have a clue so we just started driving. We came across an antique store in a neighboring town and I asked if we could stop in to look. I hadn't been antiquing for a long, long time and I really do enjoy looking at things of the past. He said, "Sure." We went inside and he let me look in every single booth without complaining once. He was so sweet! He even let me buy a couple of things I fell in love with. As we were getting ready to lea

It's late at night and I've been thinking. I'm dangerous when I think, especially when I think about things that are hiding in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind. I hide things there...things I haven't processed yet, things that hurt me deeply, things I'd rather not think about and to make matters worse, I had been holding onto something I shouldn't have. I should have let.it.go. but I couldn't. It was too painful and I needed to keep my ammo just in case I ever needed it again, or so I thought. When the terrible awful occurred, my heart was shattered in a million pieces. I could barely believe the person I loved so deeply could wound me in such an offensive way. Though undeniably guilty, my loved one had finally admitted fault, had even asked forgiveness and I, in my piousness, sat high upon my throne of self righteousness and stared smugly with arms crossed and nose tilted high in the air. How dare this one dare ask forgiveness when such a grievous

Beautiful green ferns Sunday afternoon was supposed to be a fishing trip for my husband, one of my daughters and her boyfriend. We'd planned it and were looking forward to it but things didn't go as planned. Things shifted and what would have been a relaxing day on the water, turned out to be a blessing in the woods. Wood Violets We drove to a nearby state park and stopped by the visitor's center to get a park map then drove straight to the day use area which butted right up to the Chattahoochee River. It was crowded but we wanted to make the best of the day and unloaded the gear and headed toward the lake. After a few minutes, on the bank of the river, we realized this wasn't going to be a good spot. It was much too noisy. We decided to head toward a beaver pond nearby but first we needed to stop for a potty break. As we were heading toward the pond, my daughter said she'd like to try geocaching. We'd picked up a map from the park service. Everyone a

This blog post will be a lot different from most of my other posts. There won't be any insightful spiritual message or sage advice. There will be a lot of the ordinary everyday events...ones most people call mundane, but to me, it is evidence of my getting busy living. If you read yesterday's post, you'll understand what I'm talking about. If you didn't, you can read it here . This morning, I woke up at 8:00 a.m. to the sounds of a Summer's eve compliments of our sound machine we keep on our bedside table. (It's funny, we haven't used it since we've had it, but yesterday, after talking to my oldest daughter about my issues with insomnia and hearing the peaceful and constant tapping of her off kilter ceiling fan, I decided last night to give it a try. There were lots of settings to choose from and I sampled each one before deciding on the Summer's eve one. There was an Ocean settings, Thunderstorm, Rain Forest, etc.) I sat up in bed and rubbed m

Recently, on a chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon, my husband and I decided to watch a movie. Although we could have picked a recent box office hit by going through our cable company, we decided to forego spending any money. As we perused the free movie titles, we came across an old favorite. We settled down in our cozy leather recliners and clicked play on the remote. The movie began and we became engrossed in it. Even though we'd both watched the movie many times before, we enjoyed picking up little details we'd missed in the scenes or the script. As the movie neared the end, one of the movie lines hit me right between the eyes. In 1994, the movie drama, The Shawshank Redemption , came out. It was basely loosely on the Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The movie revolves around two main characters, Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, played by Morgan Freeman, and Andy DuFresne, played by actor Tim Robbins. Through a series of unlikely events, these