reflection

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas via webcam

We find ourselves alone again on Christmas, but not without invitations. We could have gone to New Jersey, Arizona, Washington, California, Idaho or Florida … or further north in Oregon. But Gary has to work tomorrow and Saturday. Drat these day jobs.

Gary’s out shoveling snow and I have Cinnamon Waffle batter ready to go when he comes in the door. We’ll call Arizona a little later in the day (our son and daughter-in-law won’t appreciate a phone call too early in the morning!) … and we’ll connect with both our moms and all our brothers and sisters today. We have an invitation to join friends for dessert this evening if the snow allows.

It’s human nature to not appreciate things until we have to do without them. But we have always appreciated family. Only now there is a greater desire to get together as often as possible because—although there are never any guarantees of tomorrow—metastatic cancer serves as a daily reminder that time is ticking away.

Meanwhile, we will enjoy the simple pleasures of this day – a fire is burning cheerily, the turkey is thawing, we are at peace, and there are new books setting on our coffee table beckoning us!

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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

A merry little Christmas

I’m home a little early from work. I’ve been fighting something deeper than a head cold for a week now. I just got up from a nap – the kind that makes you feel worse from having taken it – and am sipping hot tea with honey.

This has always been my favorite time of year (I’ve been known to keep our Christmas tree up until the end of January to prolong the magic). I love what Christmas means – Emmanuel, God with us. I love the family and friend get-togethers. The anticipation of someone liking a gift I’ve made.

I love the music and the movies, the really good ones, like It’s a Wonderful Life, The Nativity Story, The Bishop's Wife. I love cooking large holiday meals. I love pulling grandkids in little red sleds and making gingerbread houses with them (we’re talking about Christmases past since they live on the other side of the world at the moment).

I love the lights, the decorations, flickering candles. This year, for the first time ever, we almost didn’t put up a tree – the time, the hassle, no kids or grandkids to enjoy it. In the end, we set out a little 2-footer and strung it with tiny white lights and it’s just as lovely as a full-blown tree.   And so as I sit here with the fire lit and my steaming mug of tea, watching the snow fall and waiting for my husband to get home from work, wondering if we should try to attend the Christmas Eve service—my favorite service of the year—and share my germs with our fellow church-goers, I am deeply content and grateful for all the blessings of this past year and for the hope of new adventures in the coming year.

Wishing everyone the merriest of Christmases!

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Monday, December 22, 2008

Somewhere on purpose

It is sweet to sit in this darkened room, lit only by the lights on the Christmas tree and the glorious white from the snow that shines in through the large picture window. My head feels achy and stuffed full of cotton balls, but I am deeply content and at peace. 

I think sometimes God uses illness to get us to slow down and do some reflecting. And so I’ve been on a steady diet of juice, hot tea, toast and scrambled eggs … and reading. Lots of reading.   One of the books I picked up this morning is one I read a couple years ago by Andy Stanley, entitled Visioneering.

The term visioneering is defined as "the engineering of one’s vision." In other words, not just dreaming about what you’d like to do with your life, but figuring out how to get there, and then taking steps in the direction of the dream.

“Everybody ends up somewhere in life,” writes Stanley. “A few people end up somewhere on purpose. Those are the ones with vision.”

Gary and I are working in the direction of our vision. We already have several speaking opportunities lined up for 2009 and have started the process of marketing our book.

Where do I hope we’ll be a year from now? I hope we are able to quit our day jobs to travel and speak and write full-time. I hope we’ll be able to see our kids and grands often. And in the next few years, I hope we’ll do some cool things together with all four of our children – like feed African orphans and a half dozen other things.

Achieving our vision will take divine intervention. And it just so happens that I believe in divine intervention and in a God who wants us to end up somewhere on purpose.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Adventure and romance We had a really good day yesterday. Probably most people wouldn’t consider shoveling snow in 1 degree temps (Gary, not me) and then driving 130 miles over a snowy pass to get a shot that cost $1700 a very good day.   But when you’re skipping out on work, then it becomes an adventure.   And when you’ve left early enough to sit in the café at Borders sipping Chai tea with your sweetheart, then it’s a date.   Adventure and romance. It’s all in your perspective!

Gary’s once-every-four-months cancer appointment was yesterday. His PSA count, we are sorry to report, went up a little more. It went up 4 months ago but the esteemed Dr. E said not to worry, these things fluctuate. The next test, one month later, showed a downward trend. This time it went higher than the first upward swing.

So Dr. E is taking Gary off Casodex as a method of tricking the cancer cells with the expectation that the PSA will drop.

And so we are not letting this little speed bump slow us down too much. We are planning to enjoy this Advent season; we’re not going to let our snowshoes collect any dust; and we’re anticipating a trip back east sometime after the New Year to see all four of our kids and the grandkidlets.

Life is good … it’s all in one’s perspective!  

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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Celebrate life

‘Tis the season of year-end parties and celebrations! Gary and I attended our respective company dinners this past week – both were very nice – but my favorite party was the annual Celebration of Gratitude that Cancer Services hosts in honor of survivors.

The invitation went out and 149 RSVPs came back. The Mountain View High School jazz choir performed; my co-workers (aka Santa's elves, at left!) set up a Christmas ornament-making station; there were plates of holiday goodies at each table; and a guest photographer was on hand to capture family and friends photos.

My job - as the reindeer with the lit-up rack - was to dispense festive bling. (Bling was our name for the brightly colored, foiled, decorative stuff that can be bent into different shapes.) I walked around making bling bracelets and bling necklaces for the children … and convinced quite a few adult princesses that they needed bling tiaras!   I love that so many people celebrated with us and lingered long over the Christmas ornament craft tables. And I love that we (in Gary’s words) “had a chance to let our hair down.”

A young woman, a breast cancer survivor, who I had been in communication with via phone and Facebook (but had never met) came to the party with her husband and daughter. She and I plan to get together for lunch sometime after the holidays.

I've often thought how cancer has enriched our lives in a number of ways. One of them is this cancer community connection - wonderful people we might not otherwise have met who joined with us in celebrating life!

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Monday, December 8, 2008

Imagine

Confession. I made Gary watch You’ve Got Mail with me for the umpteenth time. (Actually he puttered, got on the computer, came back to watch for a few minutes, dozed a little … so we almost watched the movie together.)

There’s a scene where Jean Stapleton’s character says to Kathleen Kelly, the heroine, “Closing the store is the brave thing to do … you are imagining that you could have a different life.”   The only problem was, Kathleen wasn’t looking for a different life; she wanted to keep her bookstore and her present way of life.   If you had asked us four years ago, “Do you want cancer?” our response would have been, “You’re kidding, right?” But here we are with a new way of life that we wouldn't have asked for, that we wouldn't wish on anyone else, but one that has given us a new perspective.

Four years ago we never could have imagined that we’d be trying to work our way out of our day jobs, that we’d be addressing audiences of people within the cancer and medical communities, or that we’d have a published book of cancer heroes.

Imagine!

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Friday, December 5, 2008

Men and menopause

Gary and I presented to a group of prostate cancer survivors and their wives last night at the Willamette Valley Cancer Center in Eugene, Oregon. Since our tag-team presentation only takes 20 minutes, we planned a couple of fillers in case the Q&A was dead. But our audience was very much alive.

Men don’t normally like to voice their fears and anxieties, especially prostate cancer men, because then you have to talk about the aftermath of surgery (incontinence and impotence) and the side effects of hormone therapy treatments (Gary and I are going through menopause together) – all the stuff that attacks a man’s maleness.

Personally, I think every woman experiencing menopause ought to have a husband on hormone treatments. It makes him sympathetic of her hot flashes, lack of energy and mood swings … oh, and those blank moments.   The other day I was waiting for the toast to pop up—butter knife in hand—but couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long. Until I noticed there was no bread in the toaster. Gary says he doesn’t know how many times he’s launched Internet Explorer and then forgot what he was searching for.

Let’s see, now where was I? Oh yeah, last night. I loved how the new-timers weren’t afraid to voice their concerns and ask questions. And I was very impressed at how the old-timers jumped right in with their encouraging survivor stories.

All in all, a great evening; a mini-vacation overnight in the Marriott Residence Inn, courtesy of the Willamette Valley Cancer Center; and Chai tea on the way home over the beautiful Cascade Mountains. It just doesn’t get much better than this!

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November 2008

My Thanksgiving list

Thanksgiving Eve

Roundabouts

How Starbucks saved my life

Training for Switzerland

Radio interview

Super colon

Thoughts on being invisible

The speed of a turtle

October 2008

Obligation of the cured

Cancer Adventures – the book

Blue and orange town

Hope Couture

First snow

Simple pleasures are the best

128 quilts

September 2008

Whale watching and kite flying

The new and relaxed Gary

The scenic route
Packing the essentials

One step at a time

PSA count celebration

August 2008

Frost in August

Reading list

Soaring Spirits

Checking in

9:30am rock band

Lingering

July 2008

Grand for a reason

Mickey Mouse pancakes

Survivorship is all the rage

Follow your dreams

Birthday weekend

Only in America

Unrelated goose incident

June 2008

Geese

Road trip

Friday night date

Tough day on the job

Best dad

Confession

Light bulb moment

Homesick

Amazing volunteers

May 2008

Countdown

Extended family

Testing the limits

Trailblazers

The last lecture

Mother’s Day thoughts

Welcome to our world, Lydia

Personal touch

April 2008

Dispensing goodness

Cancer community – Part II

Cancer community

Barn door analogies

Homemade soup day

Mice and tumors

Waiting room magazines

Weekend date

First entry