Journey Out of Pink

In my house, you never know where my boobs will turn up. Wait a minute you say...what is she talking about??? I'll back up and explain for those of you who don't know. Almost 3 years ago,  I had both of my breasts removed due to breast cancer. After surgery, I chose not to have reconstruction. I didn't want to go through the pain of more surgery. The breast surgeon said if I didn't choose reconstruction I'd have to either be flat chested forever or wear prostheses. I figured my best choice would be to remain flat chest for most of the time and wear prostheses only when necessary. It's worked out pretty well for me. My first set of silicone breasts were a large C cup. The fitter at the little boutique selling after care items for breast cancer patients encouraged me to go with a large cup size. She said the prostheses needed to match my body. (I guess that was her way of saying I was overweight or of large stature?) I had no idea what I was doing so I trusted h...

Cecil B. Day Butterfly House There's a place not far from here where butterflies flourish. If you choose to visit, you will surely not be disappointed. The Cecil B. Day Butterfly house is located on the grounds of Callaway Gardens. The ornate glass building is conducive to providing the perfect amount of sunlight for plants and warmth for the butterflies. At times, it's hard to deal with so much beauty in one place but I go because I love butterflies. Yesterday was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. My husband and I decided to take a "mini vaca day," as we like to call them.  They're short jaunts we can accomplish in a day or less. Where should we go? We talked about several locations and agreed Callaway Gardens would be the perfect place to spend the day. We hadn't been there in many years and felt it was time to go back for a visit. Callaway Gardens is a 2500 acre property nestled in the southwest part of Georgia. Some of the many attractions included i...

Rows and rows of greeting cards line the drugstore shelves. I peruse them laughing at silly ones and cringing at racy ones. Some are beautiful with heartfelt sentiments while others are too graphic for my taste. Greeting card artists choose different ways to present our feelings on paper. As I look over the cards, I'm overwhelmed. There are so many from which to choose. How do I pick a card to convey my deepest sorrow over the loss of a dear friend? I leaf through several cards and read the wording. None of them seem appropriate. None of them come close to explaining heartbreak. None of these will really reach out and touch the recipient in the way I intend. I forego a purchase and opt for a handwritten note. I can express my feelings more clearly than an anonymous greeting card writer. I leave the store and head home. In the past few weeks, I've attended funerals, visited dear friends in hospitals, and focused on the brevity of life. No one knows the number of days we're...

If you've ever had to wait for the results of a medical test, you know how nerve wracking it can be. You sit by the phone waiting for it to ring so you can pounce on it and pray your ears work well enough to hear clearly what the doctor is saying. You feel like you can't even run to the restroom for fear of missing that important call, especially when the doctor is going to call on your house phone and your house phone is hard wired instead of portable (yeah, I'm one of those rare folks who still have a land line, don't judge me)... All Thursday evening, I bit my fingernails and prayed. My husband I talked out every possible scenario and hashed out how we would handle each one. If the ultrasound showed cancer, I had to decide if I was willing to go through chemo or not. The first time with cancer it was easy to refuse chemo, the second time around would probably be much harder. We hoped I wouldn't have to go there. I didn't sleep a wink that night. I tossed ...

A phone call. That's all it took to shake me to my core. I didn't even get to talk to a real person but the message on the other end of the phone speared me through and through - "This is --- from --- I need to talk to you about your test results. Can you please call me as soon as possible?" I wasn't expected that call and I certainly wasn't expecting it to affect me the way it did. I had an honest to goodness meltdown and I didn't realize it until I was in the middle of it. We had been in the middle of eating dinner. I'd gone to my office to retrieve a book and saw the red light blinking on my desk phone indicating I had a message waiting. I picked up the receiver because I knew it would only take a second to hear the message and curiosity got the better of me. I wish I hadn't seen the red light. I walked back into the dining room and told my husband I'd received a call from the endocrinologist's office. They wanted me to call them bac...

On March 11, I attended a celebration of life service for my sweet friend, Bonnie Ferguson. Although she'd passed away on the first of January, her last wishes were for her family to hold a service to honor her life when the daffodils were in full bloom, so they waited. I was hesitant about going to the service because I knew it was going to be difficult. Bonnie and I had shared breast cancer. I had a touch of suvivor's guilt and didn't quite know how to deal with it. Why was I still here and she was not? I may never know the answer to that, but God, in His sovereignty, does. Bonnie and her daughter My husband and I drove down the long gravel road to Bonnie's house. As we bumped over the road, I couldn't help but think about Bonnie. She was quite a lady. We'd first met her almost three years ago when we'd moved here. I remembered, as we were unpacking our car, how she had pulled up along the side of our house in her little golf cart. It was warm that d...

It's amazing how much power there is in such a little word. When I say the word NO, I can feel the power rising up in me. Even when you whisper the word, it's authoritative. I've learned to love the word and that wasn't always true of me. You see, I've been a people pleaser most of my life but I didn't realize it. I never understood doing something when you didn't really want to do it wasn't the way things were supposed to be. I was always raised to be agreeable, so I never rocked the boat until I was in my late teens and I learned I had a voice. But even after I learned I had my own opinion and I had a right to voice it, I usually kept my opinions to myself. When I reached my mid forties however, things drastically changed. When I began working for one of the mega churches in the Metro Atlanta area, I decided to participate in a training program for lay counselors. As part of our training, each of the participants had to go through personal counseling...

My routine 3 month my checkup with the oncologist was scheduled for today. I don't know why, but I dreaded the appointment and asked my husband to go with me. I hate going to see doctors and always feel better when I don't have to go alone. I didn't sleep a wink the night before and I'm sure it was due to worrying about this appointment. I was thankful my husband was driving. I don't think I could have focused on the road if I'd had to. It was quiet in the car as we drove. The scenic countryside was calming to look at as we continued on for over an hour. Finally we arrived at the medical building and found a parking space. I took a deep breath before we got out of the car and felt reassurance as my husband squeezed my hand and said, "It's going to be okay."  I didn't have to wait long before I was being called back. After being weighed, I was sent to the lab for bloodwork. The phlebotomist had trouble finding the vein in my hand and afte...