“Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (The Message)
The whole works. Fibromyalgia and all, it is God’s. The tender points that just feel bruised all the time, the over sensitivity to everything, the foggy brain that struggles to communicate a complete thought or remember names, events and the entire to-do list. Every single joint from my shoulders to my toes that scream when the weather changes, stress gets to be too much or sleep is disturbed. All of it is His, as he created it to be. The whole works.
As you have perhaps read in previous posts, I am running a half marathon in October. A marathon is 26.2 miles, half of that is 13.1. I’m breaking that down so you see that A.) ½ is still a whole lot and B.) I’m not as crazy as I potentially could be. This morning’s jaunt was 4.1 miles and it took me 59 minutes. There was pain every time a foot hit the pavement, from the very first step. I completed 7 miles on Saturday and still haven’t recovered from it. Part of the whole works, Fibromyalgia is with me every step of the way. On October 9th, I will venture out among ‘real runners’ certain I can complete 13.1 miles, however slow I might be.
We are created in God’s own image (Genesis 2:27) and I know that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13), so surely I can make it 13.1 miles on my feet. I am running to raise money with the American Cancer Society’s DetermiNation program, but that’s not the only reason I am pushing myself. My Fibro places limits on how I do things, but not so much on what I do. We can learn to manage and accept the hand we’ve been dealt and still push to reach new goals. I want to be an example of that, to let people ‘see God in and through my body’. The whole works.
Chemo week & making a difference
This week we traveled to St. Louis for Dane's scans and chemo treatment. Good news. His scans were stable and he will continue on the same regimen. Dane has been on this schedule for quite a while so there are several familiar faces.
A sense of community is nice, but it is tough to make friends at a cancer center. Cancers are incredibly different, treatments vary greatly and so do the outcomes. You may get to know some who are blessed with remission and get to ring the bell and run free. I'd be lying if I said there isn't a twinge of bitterness. We applaud when the bell rings and cheer, seeing that it is possible but still long for it to be Dane. Making friends with others whose news is worse...sucks. What do you say? When what you are really honestly thinking is thank God it's you and not me. And please, God, don't ever let it be me.
A couple with whom we have spent some time in treatment got bad news this week. He had some new growth and they were told one to two years. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks.
Thing 1 was with us on this trip and he asked what was wrong after the wife had parted from the waiting room. I told him her husband got bad news that his cancer had grown. Gabe got frustrated and said he hated that all he can do was a stupid bear drive. The bear drives he has done with school both in Douglass and Mulvane for Victory in the Valley are not in the least bit stupid, and I am so proud and overwhelmed by his kind, tender heart. Cancer is so out of our control and it sucks. We want so badly to do SOMETHING, anything, to help the ones we love and those we see suffering.
We pray. It is the most powerful thing we can do and I have seen God respond in amazing ways. Still, we long to do more, any little thing we can to make a difference. So I am running a half marathon as part of my company's national DetermiNation team for the American Cancer Society and Thing 1 promised this week to help with the fundraising. It is a tiny effort and it sucks that it's all we can do. After three days at a cancer center, I am so grateful for my ability to walk and run, slow and painful that it may be. I am also so grateful for our answered prayers and our kind hearted Thing 1, excited to make a difference.
A sense of community is nice, but it is tough to make friends at a cancer center. Cancers are incredibly different, treatments vary greatly and so do the outcomes. You may get to know some who are blessed with remission and get to ring the bell and run free. I'd be lying if I said there isn't a twinge of bitterness. We applaud when the bell rings and cheer, seeing that it is possible but still long for it to be Dane. Making friends with others whose news is worse...sucks. What do you say? When what you are really honestly thinking is thank God it's you and not me. And please, God, don't ever let it be me.
A couple with whom we have spent some time in treatment got bad news this week. He had some new growth and they were told one to two years. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks.
Thing 1 was with us on this trip and he asked what was wrong after the wife had parted from the waiting room. I told him her husband got bad news that his cancer had grown. Gabe got frustrated and said he hated that all he can do was a stupid bear drive. The bear drives he has done with school both in Douglass and Mulvane for Victory in the Valley are not in the least bit stupid, and I am so proud and overwhelmed by his kind, tender heart. Cancer is so out of our control and it sucks. We want so badly to do SOMETHING, anything, to help the ones we love and those we see suffering.
We pray. It is the most powerful thing we can do and I have seen God respond in amazing ways. Still, we long to do more, any little thing we can to make a difference. So I am running a half marathon as part of my company's national DetermiNation team for the American Cancer Society and Thing 1 promised this week to help with the fundraising. It is a tiny effort and it sucks that it's all we can do. After three days at a cancer center, I am so grateful for my ability to walk and run, slow and painful that it may be. I am also so grateful for our answered prayers and our kind hearted Thing 1, excited to make a difference.
I'm running 13.1 miles?
Oh Dear Lord,
You saw me do that, right? I must be crazy. Why didn't you throw a page error my way to stop me?
In the absence of 'page can not be found', please Lord, can you give me strength and endurance? Please bless me with peaceful time each morning to train for this. And friendly weather on October 9th?
Please bless me with friends and family who understand my crazy and will support the cause. Because surely there is a reason and a blessing in store for this madness? I continue to trust You, God, that there is blessing in Mr. 1inamillion's suffering and I thank You for his determination. I pray that there is blessing in store for my DetermiNation as well.
Amen.
You saw me do that, right? I must be crazy. Why didn't you throw a page error my way to stop me?
In the absence of 'page can not be found', please Lord, can you give me strength and endurance? Please bless me with peaceful time each morning to train for this. And friendly weather on October 9th?
Please bless me with friends and family who understand my crazy and will support the cause. Because surely there is a reason and a blessing in store for this madness? I continue to trust You, God, that there is blessing in Mr. 1inamillion's suffering and I thank You for his determination. I pray that there is blessing in store for my DetermiNation as well.
Amen.
Juggling.
I finished my degree as a grown up. Not long after Thing 1 was born, I had to write a paper that required an interview with an HR professional. One of the questions I stuck in there was one I was desperately trying to figure out, "as a working mom, how do you balance it?". I will never forget her answer. She told me that you just have to know your priorities. She said, "I always have several balls in the air and I know I'm going to drop at least one. I just have to be sure it's the right one." Permission to not be perfect.
Permission to drop the ball. All the time. Awesome.
I have sense envisioned myself as a juggler. Kids, husband, work, dogs, work-outs, volunteering, housework and blog...in my mind's eye they are each faces on bowling pins I am tossing through the air. I remember the first time Mr. 1inamillion was hospitalized with an infection during chemo. My imagination placed me on a football field, throwing Things 1 and 2 to my sister, work to my favorite teammate, dropping a few other balls and sprinting down field with a football that was my husband.
As life has continued, I've dropped a lot with no intention of picking it back up and with little regret. PTO? Nope. Classroom volunteer? Huh-uh. Scouts? Not this year, but I'll happily guilt another mom into it for you if I must. Clean house? Bahaha. I began to feel as though I'd progressed to juggling on a tight rope. Maybe a little too cocky about my mad juggling skills, I still tend to take on too much. Let me tell you, in January the balls that couldn't be dropped got heavier, the noise I could typically tune out got too loud and I lost my balance. I didn't just drop a ball or two that could safely bounce. I fell flat down on my rapidly expanding fanny, and was buried below all of it.
That's where I've been, in case you were wondering about my absense here. Flat on my ever-expanding fanny, buried in my basement. I have been digging my out and am beginning to see daylight. I am regaining my balance and focus, slowly adding to what I juggle. Today I picked up the blog and am putting Mrs. 1inamillion back on the list.
Permission to drop the ball. All the time. Awesome.
I have sense envisioned myself as a juggler. Kids, husband, work, dogs, work-outs, volunteering, housework and blog...in my mind's eye they are each faces on bowling pins I am tossing through the air. I remember the first time Mr. 1inamillion was hospitalized with an infection during chemo. My imagination placed me on a football field, throwing Things 1 and 2 to my sister, work to my favorite teammate, dropping a few other balls and sprinting down field with a football that was my husband.
As life has continued, I've dropped a lot with no intention of picking it back up and with little regret. PTO? Nope. Classroom volunteer? Huh-uh. Scouts? Not this year, but I'll happily guilt another mom into it for you if I must. Clean house? Bahaha. I began to feel as though I'd progressed to juggling on a tight rope. Maybe a little too cocky about my mad juggling skills, I still tend to take on too much. Let me tell you, in January the balls that couldn't be dropped got heavier, the noise I could typically tune out got too loud and I lost my balance. I didn't just drop a ball or two that could safely bounce. I fell flat down on my rapidly expanding fanny, and was buried below all of it.
That's where I've been, in case you were wondering about my absense here. Flat on my ever-expanding fanny, buried in my basement. I have been digging my out and am beginning to see daylight. I am regaining my balance and focus, slowly adding to what I juggle. Today I picked up the blog and am putting Mrs. 1inamillion back on the list.
two in two million
Mr. 1inamillion's first sarcoma was diagnosed roughly four months after we married and moved to Indiana. I remember the first visit to IU Med Center as the longest day of our life. (note, I was in labor with 9.5 lb Thing 1 for nearly 2 days before the emergency c-section. That still comes in second to this day at IU.) We saw a parade of doctors while sitting in a small exam room. Each one wanted to press on his belly because although the tumor was the size of a soccer ball, you couldn't see or feel it externally. At the end of all of that, they performed a needle biopsy.
He was put in a recovery room after the biopsy with another patient. I remember just resonating on our differences. We were approaching our first holiday season as newlyweds. The couple on the other side of the curtain clearly was not. I don't think we ever knew why he was in there but I remember hearing the patient's wife and grown daughter talking about the impacts of this hospital stay. They were going to need to change from their Thanksgiving traditions for the first time in many years.
I remember being the first ones into the waiting room during his first surgery, and the last ones out. I also recall that I was the youngest one there. We were always the youngest. Excluding the rare presence of a pediatric patient, the patients surrounding us then were old. Thirteen years later, they are still older. The support groups tend to be full of women with grown children, lifetimes of memories accumulated. Also their cancers are very different. People haven't heard of or understand sarcoma. We have simply faced and accepted the fact that one in a million is lonely.
I never really realized how lonely it was until it wasn't. Two weeks ago I received a Facebook message with the subject title "You don't know me, but we have at least one thing in common". She spotted my Facebook profile picture on the Sarcoma Foundation's page, a picture of Lucy and I. I cried as I read that we had more than just one thing in common. Her things 1 & 2 are ages four and two, her husband has liposarcoma, has completed 28 treatments of radiation and they are approaching his first surgery. His radiation oncologist is even the doctor Dane saw when we lived in Florida. I cry again as I write this. Tears of joy and relief that someone else knows and understands this experience; and tears of grief that someone else must also endure this experience.
I have been trying to recall the feelings and thoughts they must be having so that I could perhaps offer a bit of comfort. His surgery is tomorrow, the sarcoma they are removing is near his spine.
Dane's first surgery was frightening. It was long and difficult. He took every pint of A negative they had on hand. He was puffed up a bit like the Michelin man from all the fluids afterwards and they kept him sedated and in ICU through the following day. That all might not sound comforting, but to me it is. Each surgery since, we have had that hard fought victory under our belt. The power of prayer had been proven, our fears diminished.
I ask that you please pray with us for the Howard family and their surgeon, Dr. Scarborough. (My mom always said to pray for the doctors, too.) The most powerful thing I can offer is the sharing of our family's prayer warriors. You all have such a proven track record!
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8
He was put in a recovery room after the biopsy with another patient. I remember just resonating on our differences. We were approaching our first holiday season as newlyweds. The couple on the other side of the curtain clearly was not. I don't think we ever knew why he was in there but I remember hearing the patient's wife and grown daughter talking about the impacts of this hospital stay. They were going to need to change from their Thanksgiving traditions for the first time in many years.
I remember being the first ones into the waiting room during his first surgery, and the last ones out. I also recall that I was the youngest one there. We were always the youngest. Excluding the rare presence of a pediatric patient, the patients surrounding us then were old. Thirteen years later, they are still older. The support groups tend to be full of women with grown children, lifetimes of memories accumulated. Also their cancers are very different. People haven't heard of or understand sarcoma. We have simply faced and accepted the fact that one in a million is lonely.
I never really realized how lonely it was until it wasn't. Two weeks ago I received a Facebook message with the subject title "You don't know me, but we have at least one thing in common". She spotted my Facebook profile picture on the Sarcoma Foundation's page, a picture of Lucy and I. I cried as I read that we had more than just one thing in common. Her things 1 & 2 are ages four and two, her husband has liposarcoma, has completed 28 treatments of radiation and they are approaching his first surgery. His radiation oncologist is even the doctor Dane saw when we lived in Florida. I cry again as I write this. Tears of joy and relief that someone else knows and understands this experience; and tears of grief that someone else must also endure this experience.
I have been trying to recall the feelings and thoughts they must be having so that I could perhaps offer a bit of comfort. His surgery is tomorrow, the sarcoma they are removing is near his spine.
Dane's first surgery was frightening. It was long and difficult. He took every pint of A negative they had on hand. He was puffed up a bit like the Michelin man from all the fluids afterwards and they kept him sedated and in ICU through the following day. That all might not sound comforting, but to me it is. Each surgery since, we have had that hard fought victory under our belt. The power of prayer had been proven, our fears diminished.
I ask that you please pray with us for the Howard family and their surgeon, Dr. Scarborough. (My mom always said to pray for the doctors, too.) The most powerful thing I can offer is the sharing of our family's prayer warriors. You all have such a proven track record!
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8
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