Journey Out of Pink

There it was, just sitting at the top of my inbox in bold letters, another cancer email. The subject line on this one read “World Cancer Day Celebration.” Without taking time to read the email in its entirety, I quickly deleted it. I didn’t want to read anything else related to cancer. I was sick of cancer. I was tired of hearing about it, reading about it and seeing cancer-related items. Pink was not my signature color, in fact, I hated pink. How did they get my email address, anyway? I hadn’t signed up for anything regarding World Cancer Day. I wondered if, somewhere out there in internet land, there might be a huge database where solicitors gleaned information on cancer victims because lately, my inbox had been flooded with cancer-related emails. When they first started coming, I read every single one. I thought there might have been some important information I needed to know, but as they kept coming, I started sending them to a junk folder. I couldn’t handle all that information...

My oncologist is Jewish and that's pretty much all I know about his personal life. He looks to be in his mid forties and since the day we first met, I've been very impressed with him. The thing that's impressed me most about him is his attentiveness. On my very first appointment, instead of rolling up beside me on his little wheeled doctor's stool, he walked in the room, came over, shook my hand, and jumped up on the exam table scooting so close to me I could feel his breath on my face. I was sitting in a chair and my my oldest daughter was sitting beside me. Both of us were taken aback by his aggressive and playful nature. When he spoke, he leaned in really close and talked in a very calming tone. Instantly, I was put at ease. He's different than most doctors and I like that. A few months ago, when I started experiencing overall body pain, I contacted him. I was concerned. For some reason, I immediately thought the worst...cancer in the bones, my worst nightmare....

This weather is making me crazy! One day it feels like the middle of Spring and the next day, we're slap dab in the middle of Winter. I should be used to it now. I've lived in the South all my life but the older I get, the thinner my skin gets. I don't tolerate the cold well any more. Since having my thyroid gland removed in 2005, the cold has been almost unbearable. For those who may not understand the thyroid gland's function in the body, it's like a thermostat on a heating unit. When it's functioning normally, your body stays at a relatively comfortable temperature. When it's in hyper mode (hyperthyroidism) you'll feel extremely warm when others are comfortable and when it's in hypo (hypothyroidism) mode, you'll feel colder than cold. My husband has learned to accept the fact that I'll be wearing silk long johns most of the year and I'll be sleeping with an electric blanket on year round. (I was considerate enough to buy a dual c...

Inauguration day is tomorrow and the whole world will be watching as Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office. It's definitely going to be an historic day. I'm not big into politics so I haven't been monitoring the news on a daily basis, but I've been surprised at the number of elected officials who've decided to boycott the ceremony. And that's all I'm going to say about that. There is an electricity in the air and you can definitely feel a change coming. I learned a hard lesson today. You'd think I would know better than to post my personal opinion about anything on Facebook, but suffice it say live and learn. I made a comment about the election and referred to a scripture found in the Bible admonishing us to honor our king....boy, did I get a lot of responses to that post. Some of them were positive and some were negative. But you know what they say about opinions...everyone has one. It always amazes me how family members react and reminds me I ne...

For the past year, I’ve been keeping a secret. None of my family or friends know I’ve been struggling with extreme fatigue. The exhaustion has been debilitating, so much so that I’ve silently worried my cancer may have returned. The gray winter days haven’t helped. The cold  coupled with my exhaustion has only made me want to slide deep under the electric blanket and hibernate. Truth be told, I’ve been a couch potato for months. I’m sure there’s a permanent “behind” shaped depression in my recliner and the writing on the TV remote has practically worn away from use. I knew this was not healthy. I knew something had to change, but I didn’t feel like doing anything. I knew exercise was supposed to be a healthy thing to do, especially under my circumstances. I’d done a lot of reading, after all, I’d been doing a lot of sitting and reading is easy to do while you sit. I’d also done a lot of surfing the internet. It doesn’t take much energy to lift a finger or two. According to an ...

Mrs. Betty Ellington was a blue haired old woman with a heart of gold. A member of my church and a wonderful pianist, she was also my eighth grade English teacher.  To say she loved English would have been an understatement. She lived and breathed English. She wanted the students in her class to love English and to respect it. Like an Army drill sergeant, Mrs. Ellington worked hard to help us grasp the concepts of the English language. Parts of speech were her life. She especially adored prepositions. It's hard to believe, after 45 years, I can still recite most of the 48 prepositions we were required to memorize in her class. Today, as I was thinking about that long list of prepositions, my focus narrowed on the word, through.  I'd recently done a Biblical word study on the word abar,  a Greek word meaning through.   Abar , pronounced Awbar, is an action word indicating movement. The Hebrew Greek Key Word Study Bible points to Strong's concordance which says aba...

A glorious day! What an absolutely gorgeous day we've had today! The sun was shining, the temperature was in the seventies, and it felt so good, literally. For the past few months, I've been freezing. Wearing long johns has become a daily joke at my house but for me, it's been a necessary evil. Since having my thyroid gland removed in 2005, my body's thermostat is out of whack. The doctors try their best to regulate my thyroid hormones with supplements but it's a roller coaster. If it's within normal range, I feel pretty good and I'm fairly warm. When it's too low, I freeze and am lethargic. Right now, I'm in the freezing zone so I'll be visiting the endocrinologist in a couple of weeks to get things back on an even keel. I know my hubby will be glad to have me back in the normal range because the setting on our thermostat will return to 68 instead of 78. Yesterday, one of my daughters and I spent most of the day stacking wood. We'd rec...

My friend Bonnie (second from the left) When you live in the country, you become friends with just about everyone. Neighbors offer a friendly wave if they're out when you pass by. But after almost 3 years, we haven't quite gotten used to the small town feel here. Even though we're very familiar with small towns and had come from a small town in the Metro Atlanta area, it's just different down here. Everybody seems to know everybody else's business. So today, when I went to get my mail and found a pink sticky note stuck to the top of my incoming mail, I wasn't really surprised to see a note from my mail carrier. (She and I had become friends shortly after we'd moved here and were on a first name basis.) I read the note she'd scribbled and stood in my driveway dumbfounded. She'd asked about the neighbor who lives behind me. The neighbor who also shares my same first name.  Bonnie was an older woman who lived alone. She was used to being independ...

The Weather Channel has been bombarding us with details of Winter Storm Helena as she's begun pushing east after pummeling the west with heavy snow. Folks in the deep South don't take these warnings lightly and have already begun to raid the grocery store shelves for staples such as milk, eggs, and bread. Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina have all declared states of emergency. Past ice storms and unexpected snow events have caused them to act quickly instead of taking a wait and see attitude and often, those storm warnings end up being much ado about nothing but sometimes...they're underrated and we get slammed. In any event, it's best to expect the best but be prepared for the worst. And so we have. There's food in the pantry, firewood stacked high, flashlights and batteries, long johns, and I've saved the best for last...a down jacket and cozy, down slippers.  I don't know when I became such a fan of goose down but it was probably way back in the...

I love surprises because they are usually unexpected and make me happy. They can make us feel loved or validated in some way. Most people I know enjoy surprises. Yesterday, as I opened my email, I received a surprise! I'd been awarded the honor of being considered one of the best cancer blogs for 2016 by the "I had Cancer" support group. It made me feel good to know all the work I'd been doing for the past couple of years had been appreciated. Although I don't really write for others, I'm honored my writing has touched the lives of some readers. Hopefully something I've experienced on my cancer journey has proved helpful to someone out there in internet land. Maybe I've given a piece of advice that helped a struggling soul or maybe I've caused someone to laugh and say, "I know exactly what you mean!" I may never know how or if my blogs have been beneficial in helping someone else but they've certainly helped me. Without the freedom ...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, at least that's what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux penned in 1150 A.D. Actually, his sentiment was expressed as "L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs" (translated: hell is full of good wishes or desires) and both translations describe me today. It's already the third day of the New Year and it's started off in a blur. I had so many good intentions of starting the year off productively but my plans didn't come to fruition partly because I was preoccupied and partly because my husband had taken an extended vacation from work. Today I hope to get back on track and begin focusing on my goals. Every year, on the first day of the new year, I ask God to give me a word to focus on for the entire year. In 2015, He gave me the word JOY and it was very appropriate since I'd spent the following year focusing on health issues. In 2014, the word I was given was the word TRUST. Little did I know that was the ...