#7

I don't know who is still reading. Let's update quickly: I now live in Denver and attend University of Denver, I am still cancer free, and God still loves me. Life is beautiful, still.

On November 14th it snowed. Why does the earth silence when it snows? Rain is annoying and "clicky." Lightning and thunder are...lightning and thunder. Sun sizzles and makes things sweat. But snow, snow is silent. It's like a buffer, a dusty foam that absorbs everything except the whispers of that old couple walking hand-in-hand. Snow is white, and white is my favorite color. Snow is fun. Snow is smooth.

Don't forget to snow every once in a while.

#6

April 17, 2008 marked two months since I finished ABVD chemotherapy and was also the date of my first follow up PET scan.  These scans measure metabolic activity, fast dividing cancer cells show up in pretty pinks and reds- the rest of the body is a cool blue gray.  Okay, so the pinks and reds really aren't that pretty.  They mean you have cancer.  (Infections also show up, which is why one doesn't get a PET if one has a sore throat, pneumonia, etc.)  After waiting an hour for the radioactive dye injection to pulse through your veins, you enter the machine- a thirty minute scan.  

I count the entire thirty minutes.  Sixty, thirty times.  Twenty seven times to be exact.  I was only a minute off this latest time.  Not bad for a dyslexic...

During the hour long saturation process I read Sunset magazine, Elle, and then I thought.  My only thought was this:

Sickness is a part of life.  I am not singled out because I got "sick."  Everybody gets sick, it's just a matter of when.  This is an obvious thought which I am sure the majority of adults have considered.  Still, what if being alive also means you get sick?  You die.  You ail.  You'd think I would have thought this all through after my sister died and was sick for ten of her fourteen years.  Nope.

#5

Have you ever swallowed a pill you didn't mean to take?  It's a horrible feeling.  One time I took a second dose of Vicodin right after the first one because I forgot that I swallowed the first batch.  I played images of me overdosing by accident in my head.  I tried to throw it up.  I ate and drank a lot after the vomiting idea did not work.  You want to undo something that can't be comfortably undone.  

Have you ever spoken words you didn't mean to say?  I'll bet there are many more agreements to that one.  There are similar scenarios.  Sometimes words will fall out of my mouth and into this world- accidents.  I want to breathe them back instead of throw them up.  I want to speak more to cover up my trail, just like I want to consume more to dilute the drug in my stomach and blood stream.  I replay the damage words can cause and what the repercussions are for me and the parties involved.

One instance involves taking something unwanted in, the other spews something unwanted out.  

#4

There was never a day more beautiful than today.  At least not in March.  Cancer is becoming a distant memory.  Maybe it's because my "chemo brain" fog is preventing me from remembering it or maybe, just maybe, cancer has become a memory because these current days and moments are so infinitely better than what the last 6 months have been.  The good is better than the worst of the bad.  It reminds me of a salad I made the other night- no matter how wilted the lettuce it's nothing a good amount of blue cheese dressing can't cover up...Kinda.  

Thank God for good days.

#3

I think my life would be drastically different if I could pick up a phone and call Heaven.  How helpful would it be to call God up on your way home from work and chat?  I need Him now and I need a direct line.  I need to talk and I need to be talked to.  I need Him to answer the phone.  I need Him to be more than a testimony, more than Scripture, more than nature, more than miracles.  I need Him to be HERE.

#2

I was driving this evening at around 6:30 pm.  The sun was just starting to set and was creating a beautiful palette in the dusky sky- a frequent perk of living in Southern California.  So, this scene was setting behind me and I tried to appreciate the beauty just by staring in the side and rear view mirrors, but to no avail.  I missed this sunset.  

Then I started thinking:  I saw the dusty pinks and mossy greens. I did see the sun sink into the mountains.  But not with my own eyes.  What is so special about witnessing something first hand, in the moment?  I couldn't appreciate it fully because I didn't watch it fully.  Same thing happens when I look at an Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph.  I want to be there!  And I am sure plenty of others do too.  What is it in me that wants to do it all?  I could get myself into trouble...

People cannot live in other's shoes, but they can tie them.    

#1

This Monday I will go to the gym for the first time in several months (I can't remember the last time I sweat).  My body cannot wait!  Today I am getting a renewed passport so can leave this country and soak up some foreign sun- a "you're done with chemo!" gift from Daddy.  The wheels of Life are beginning to creak forward and the best part is that I am not chasing after them.  Instead, I'm sittin' on top, riding this thing with eagerness.  Rocking back and forth in an attempt to leverage those wheels forward faster.