NEW LIFE - THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

Well this is the day that I could no longer write about "LIFE AT 60"!  LOL  I could have just decided to write about being 61, but that would be boring, and besides, it really is not feeling any different being 61 than it was being 60.

Over the last 5 or 6 years on my birthday or the surrounding couple of days, I would ride my bicycle a mile for every year old I was.  This year that just is not going to happen.  I went out on my birthday and got in 4 miles.  UGH, that is a few miles short of 61.  :)  That 4 miles really kicked my butt,  HOWEVER, considering the alternative, Im very thankful and grateful to God for just being able to get on the bike and ride the 4.  Im sure everyone that has been reading this blog for the last few months knows about the cancer and the fact that God healed it.

I actually started writing this a few days ago, but just could not finish it at the time.  As most of you know, Ive been doing the radiation therapy treatments.  1st of all, in MY opinion there is NOTHING therapeutic about them!!  Im sure they will disagree, but something that burns your skin, that takes away your taste buds, and kills your salivary glands, in my opinion is more torture than therapy!!  LOL Seriously, Im grateful for the technicians and the Dr who is in charge.  I KNOW they are doing what they have been trained to do, and that is to treat people with this dreaded disease.  All is all, I suppose what Im going thru could be much worse.

As long as Im on this subject, I may as well expound a bit.  (What else would I do??)  LOL  I consider myself to be very blessed.  Now some of you might be wondering why I would say that.  Ive been so close to totally losing my voice, and having to have a trach tube put in, but God did not allow that He healed me.  I did have 3 chemo treatments with some pretty heavy duty drugs.  They had side effects far worse than I had.  OK I lost whatever hair I had, no biggie!!  I did have quite a bit of fatigue, but I could sleep as much as I wanted.  :)  I did have a bit of nausea, but nothing major.  NOW on to the phase I was NEVER looking forward to, and I could not talk them out of it, so here I am in the middle, literally, of getting my neck and throat radiated.  Sometimes I just feel like an experiment going somehow in the wrong direction.  HA, I could only wish, that way it would be DONE!!  Seriously, I KNOW that what Im going thru is somehow going to be a blessing to someone else.  Im 1/2 way to the end, then I DONE, period.  July 12, or maybe if Im really blessed a bit earlier.

Ive wondered since the beginning of this journey WHY!!!  Ive never been a smoker, NEVER chewed tobacco.  NOT really a heavy drinker, yet these are all things that lead to this particular disease.  SO I really dont know why, but Im beginning to.  Ive known for many years that God wanted me to do certain things, but being the stubborn person that I am, and having a mind of my own, I kinda ignored those things.  NOW is another story.  I guess the older you get the more mellow you tend to get.  HOWEVER when you come face to face with your life and destiny, you get serious very quickly.   Ive said this before, but Ive come to look at people a bit differently.  I tend to see their pain, or their problems in a way, that I would previously not looked at if I could help it.  God has a way of grabbing your attention when He really wants it.  :)  A good example of what Im talking about is some of the people I see on a daily basis are people that may well die in the next few months.  One in particular will probably die soon, even with treatment.  His choice was less than a month without treatment, or maybe 6 months with it.  Ive not talked to him yet, only his wife.  It started out with the fact I mentioned I was working a church VBS called JUMP.  This is no ordinary VBS, it is a VBS on steroids.  Approximately 5000 kids over a 2 week period.  WOW, they did not have that when I was a kid!!  Anyway, this lady happens to work literally across the street from the church, and knew exactly what I was talking about.  We started chatting, and she shared what was going on with her husband.  I was able to see the pain in her eyes at the possibility of losing her mate.  Of course she wanted him to do whatever possible.  We will continue to talk, Im determined to let her know the love and power of God.  Ive already shared that God has healed me, and she acknowledged that.  So what am I saying?  Im saying that Im willing to share what God has done for me, to whomever will listen for a few minutes.  I did not have that boldness prior to all of this.  God is guiding me in a direction that Im not totally sure of right now, but Im along for the ride, and willing to do what HE tells me to do.  Im sure some people will think Ive totally lost it, but thats OK.  Im on the right side and He is my guide in all I am doing.

I really cant wait for the treatments to be DONE.  Im SOOOOOOOO done with them.  I want to be able to taste food like its supposed to.  The Dr says that might take as long as 6-9 months, but Im counting on really tasting turkey at Thanksgiving.  I will have so very much to be thankful for.  Im also looking forward to being able to work out.  Im looking forward to NOT being fatigued all the time.  However you know these are really not much in the broader scheme of things.

LIFE AT 60 - RADIATION

Well it will only be about 11 more days, and I wont be able to use that title any longer.  60 has been an interesting year.  61 will be an incredible year.  :)  Wonder what I should start calling this blog?  Any ideas?  Feel free to suggest, would be interested in ideas.  The 1st half of this year was not too bad, and actually the last few months other than a bit of a detour, has not been bad.  God has given me an incredible insight into life.  A view that had I not gotten this illness, I would not have found.  I'll be forever grateful for His love, mercy, and grace.

Well I started radiation on the 23rd of May, and have had 6 treatments.  Aside from a bit of claustrophobia, it has been OK.  I did have one issue that kinda freaked me out.  :)  If you know know how they administer the radiation, they form a plastic mesh mask to your face, head, and neck, including in my case the upper shoulders.  This is done for them to be able to "map" where the radiation is going to go.  It is also so they can literally fasten your head down to the table so you cannot move.  Im sure you are probably guessing now what my issue was.  Yes it was a bit of claustrophobia, but it was because the mask had apparently shrunk a tad and was resting across my throat and I was having trouble breathing and swallowing.  NOT a fun thing.  Well anyway, lost that day.  I really got to praying about it because I could not afford to lose any more days.  I had a foreboding that day, just a feeling that something was not going to be just right.  The next day, (yesterday), everything was fine.  I got there and they had already made a hole pretty much where it needed to be.  Pretty cool how God went before me and the path was cleared.  They had to make one more cut to enlarge the hole to make it all good, and so yesterday and today all was good.

Ive been praying since I found out that I would definitely have to have the radiation that I would not have any of the debilitating side effects.  There are several that I have been warned about.  Severe sore throat, very thick, mucusy saliva, mouth sores, and several other things.  Im just believing that God is going to protect me from this.  After all HE healed and made everything new, why would He not keep it that way?    The really good news is that the Oncologist has told me NO MORE chemo at all.  THANK YOU JESUS!!!!  There was a possibility of more, but after thinking about it decided that since there is NOTHING there, that more chemo would not really serve any purpose.  Imagine that!!!

I had a brief conversation with someone not long ago and they told me to not be surprised if God did not completely heal me.  WHAT?????  I dont know of a single incident in the Bible where God/Jesus did not completely heal.  Imagine if Jesus had told the blind man to go wash in the pool of Siloam, and your sight will be only partially healed.  You will still see blurry images.  NO that was not the case.  The man did as he was told and his sight was FULLY restored.  The same is true for the woman with the issue of blood.  She had this problem for years.  Yet she KNEW that if she could just touch the hem of his garment, she would be healed.  YEP that is the case once again.  She was completely and fully healed in an instant.

I have been so very blessed during this journey.  Im still blown away every day by Gods mercy.  When I go into that CT scanner and have that mask bolted down, I just try to rest in HIS arms for those 15 minutes.  I get up and walk out and am able to sing praises.  OH YEAH that is another thing.  My voice is BETTER than it was.  I have more resonance, and when I sing, I have gained 2-3 steps on my high notes, and probably 3-4 steps on my lower notes.  God is truly amazing.  He not only heals, he makes it better than it was.  AWESOME!!!