Archive February 24, 2014

Here we are week four. It is a month. A month of living with cancer. I guess living is the key word there, we are living. So we made the trek to Madison in -25 degree windchill weather today. We can’t sit in the car while waiting for chemo today we have to sit in the waiting room. Creamy is not settled today and she’s barking at everyone in the waiting room. She didn’t take her usual snooze when we got to cruising altitude in the van. (that’s highway speed) and when Creamy barks Coffee barks, so much fun! I do my best keeping them calm but people and dogs come and go all day long….and Coffee makes growls under her breath…oh my gosh! Coffee is a growly face and Creamy is a barky face…. oh my goodness.

Coffee is a growly face

Creamy barked face

Ok I have figured this out. When the vet assistants come and tell you the vet needs to talk to you…that’s bad. When the vet doesn’t talk to you and just technicians come to get Coffee and take her, then everything is good. Today we had round three of chemo and all blood work was good.
Coffee is in full clinical remission…..
One of my friends sent Coffee and Creamy personalized cancer awareness t shirts. Coffee’s is white and says “fight like a girl, pink ribbon”” Coffee the fighter”. Creamy’s is pink and it says “I wear pink to support a cure” “Creamy the supporter”……they are so cute. It was -25 degrees today so maybe we can wear them next week to treatment.

Creamy

Coffee

Our first grade writing center with a spring theme!

I hate being the center of attention and I have to decided whether to have a party to celebrate my retirement. My retirement wasn’t exactly planned, it was duty disability retirement and it was along hard road to get it approved and my school district took every advantage of me to postpone it, refuse it or just tell me what a leaker I would become to ask for my pension three years early. A brain injury makes it very hard to function with any stimulation around you. So should I celebrate having to leave a job I loved? Decisions decisions. What should I do?

Our sunflower garden in the hallway. Then I found a book called Sunflower House. I love that ok. We would read it, take our sunflowers to the gym and make a sunflower house and sit in the middle.

I have the greatest friends. A true friend is there no matter what happens to you, no matter what people say about you, no matter what …period……..they support you through it all no matter the life event…..good or bad… and they believe in you.

My friends have seen me through thick and thin, through bad and good. My friends are my family and they are always there for me.

THANK YOU FRIENDS. I believe everyone is in your life for the moment you need them and my friends have been their for my lifetime!

Have you ever though about happiness. I have not been truly happy for a long time. I am one of those people that have to have everything in place to be happy. Something is always out of place……but most people see me as a cheerful happy bubbly person. Really I am not. I am afraid of crowds, afraid to speak in public, and I am incredibly shy. Most people don’t even know I am shy. In high school they just thought I was stuck up or someone to be picked on. In college, it was just so big that you were never with the same people often. I am old now and I think I need to aim at content. I need to find content(ness).

One of the things I do is collect little magazine articles on subjects and store them. I have to stop doing that. Anyway I found one on HAPPINESS IS…..Good Housekeeping 1994. See I told you I have been thinking about this awhile….it’s for an author who wrote a book called Real Moments….moments are what makes your life matter. It is about experiencing fulfillment and meaning in your life now. Not waiting for the perfect circumstance, or relationship or weight….but in this moment and every moment.
She says:
Look honestly at yourself
Look deeply I to your own heart
Look closely at the values of your spirit
Pay attention to moments of your life as they unfold

Real moments means you are fully experiencing life as it unfolds feeling fully present, fully feeling and fully alive.
Happy moments, sad moments, scared moments..but always when you are paying attention to where you are and what is going on, right now you will experience a real moment. Mindfulness. I talked about that before in another blog I wrote. Mindfulness. Allow your mind to be full of the experience. Real moments are consciousness, connection, and surrender.

Happiness is not an acquisition it’s a skill.

Here’s the problem I like being in control. I was an inner city school teacher with tough tough kids and you have to be in control 110% of the time. You even have to be in control when your are sick and when a substitute is there. Control is all encompassing. I really hated that but I was good at it and in a classroom if people see you in control they think your a good teacher.

My other problem is I am an escapist. I can escape in my head whenever I want to. I am good at it. I grew up in a violent situation and escaping in your head is something your can do anywhere and anytime. Leave your body here and go anywhere, become anyone, have any life you want, except it not real it’s in your head. But small children use this as a form of protection, just like if they are in grave situation of stress or harm, their mind will go blank and they won’t remember the trauma. It a their mind’s way of protecting them from emotional and psychological harm. My mind protected me a lot growing up on the farm.

Control and escapism totally stand in my way of mindfulness.

I love the yellow mini chair from the top, looking down

Well week three did not go as we had planned. Coffee is doing good, because she still doesn’t know she’s sick except for drinking water and peeing and the vet says that’s the predisone. We didn’t get chemo today. First of all we had to change the days from Thursday to Wednesday because Wiscsonsin is expecting bad weather tomorrow the 20th of February. We could always outdrive weather in one part of the state, but the bad weather is going to cover the whole state tomorrow. So what we did was called, and begged, and the clinic gave us a waiting appointment. They get us in and see us when they can. Sort of like stand by on an airplane. Anyway they took Coffee but she had low white blood cells count and a one degree of fever, 103. So no chemo treatment this week. This week she gets antibiotics, fluids and we hope the cells go back up and the fever down. She normally has a 102 temp, so the fever is not high high. They said prednisone and chemo can lower defenses, so we wait a week. Her glands are or al1 normal size though. A very good sign. We won’t leave her at the medical center. She would be too far away and she’s never been away from us before for the night, so that’s not an option to get her better. (I had an african water frog get sick last year and the aquarium specialist said don’t isolate him, taking an animals that is sick out of its home environment is the worst thing for it. Isolating is not a good idea) so no leaving her so far from home.(Frito the 25 year African water frog healed very well) so the advice is good advice for anyone……even humans.

The doctor said Coffee is in clinical remition!

Coffee sound asleep on the way home. Lots of pokes today!

Creamy being a supporter. Not east when your friend has cancer.

Have you ever thought about the fact that we think too much? I got so much done on Sunday. After my brain injury, I have become a procrastinator. I used to be a “go getter” and a “get things done now” person. Instead of getting stuff done,now,is like pulling teeth. I hate that……I hate not having the ambition to do things……I just hate it!

I suppose it is something that I will learn to live with…..always feeling like I need a fire lit under me.

KNOW THE TRUE VALUE OF TIME; SNATCH, SEIZE, AND ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF IT…..NO IDLENESS, NO LAZINESS, NO PROCRASTINATION….NEVER PUT OFF TILL TOMORROW WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY.
lord chesterfield

It’s funny my mother was raised in rural Arkansas, graduating the 8th grade, a cotton farmer’s daughter. Everything she learned she taught herself from books, magazine, and radio. She was the smartest person I know. She lived Lord Chesterfield’s words from a world away. I have no idea what she would think about all theses things I can’t do after my brain injury. Maybe it’s better she never see me like this. I miss her so much!

Mom just before she left Arkansas

Mom with my dad and Principal Killins with Herb Kohl when I received the Herb Kohl Fellowship Award