Show me the Love

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. My prayers have been answered and I have a snow day today! So I’m going to be writing, editing, making bean soup and running. Ugh on the running part, but it’s a necessary chore if I want to stay healthy. Right? 🙂

Photo on VisualHunt

 

Anyway, today I’d like to talk about how people show love. This post was inspired by my friend Christine and her blog post, “What love looks like when you are Sick.” Here’s the link: https://imsickandsoareyou.com/2018/02/09/what-love-looks-like-when-youre-sick/

 

Photo on Visual hunt

 

It’s a touching post and it got me thinking about the ways people in our lives show their love, and the fact that there are so many different kinds of love in the world. I don’t know about you, but I think it is truly amazing that the kind of love we need appears just when we need it. Have you ever noticed that?

There’s the love of a mother for her sons. The love of a father for his daughters. The love of a husband for his wife and vice versa. The love of a brother for his sister and of a sister for her brother.  The love of one cancer survivor to another.

That camaraderie you can only have by going through something together or through a similar situation. I love the woman who helped me deal with my chemo. She was there as a calming voice in the swirling vortex of my anxiety when my fingers and toes began to go numb from the medication I was given. She understood my fear. The fear that my fingers would stay numb and I wouldn’t be able to type any more. That’s love folks. Love of a survivor holding the hand of someone who wants to survive.

 

Photo on Visual Hunt

There’s also the love of my sons for me. They were bright lights in my dark world at that time.  I remember my oldest calming my fears when my anxiety had ramped up and I didn’t want to do chemo any more. I’d lost my hair and twenty pounds. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Mom. You only have two months left.”

Photo credit: Nick Fuentes on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

He was so calm and reasonable and that’s when I knew I could do it.  I never thought I’d be turning to my son for emotional support like that. It was an incredible moment.

Now that I’m better, we don’t talk about those days. Instead my kids show me love by stealing my blanket and still asking for bedtime stories even though they’re in the tween and teen years. Those moments are precious to me because I know they’ll soon be grown and off to conquer the world. I’ll hold onto those memories and they’ll sustain me when I miss them.

They say that people who live for experiences are happier than people who live for things and I believe that’s true. I wouldn’t trade my memories for all the money in the world.

What are your thoughts? How do the people in your life show you their love? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Did Someone Say More Cowbell?

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I’ve got nothing. I can’t think of an interesting blog post to save my life. I’ve got the dreaded disease Blogger’s Block.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had it, but mine came on gradually. I’d start writing a post and it would start off good, but then it’d dwindle down until I found myself asking, what am I trying to say? Who is going to read this?

When no answers came to me, I trashed my words and started over. I did this three times. Now I’m confessing. I have Blogger’s Block and I need a cure.

Did someone say More Cowbell?

This image courtesy of allthefreestock.com

http://allthefreestock.com/

More Cowbell is definitely the cure for this horrible illness. Don’t know what I’m talking about?

Check out this YouTube Video and you’ll understand:

More Cowbell

I know I’m dating myself here, but this was one of my favorite skits on the great Saturday Night Live show. This show started in 1975. I remember, I was a skinny teen then and it was a big deal to watch it.

I’d have my best friend spend the night. We’d stay up late eating popcorn and drinking fizzy coke, while we watched this amazing comedy show.  We’d laugh and laugh. Our fears and insecurities would become non-existent because we were having too much fun.

We’d get to school on Monday and the buzz through the halls was, “Hey did you see Saturday Night Live?”

“Wasn’t that the best?”

We’d go into great detail about what skit we thought was the funniest. Then we’d discuss SNL shows of the past, ones that were truly iconic.

Saturday Night Live has been around since 1975. This show has been making people laugh for forty-one years. It is the longest running sketch comedy show on American television.

Many young comedians have gotten their start on Saturday Night Live. Dan Aakroyd, Bill Murray, and Will Farrell, just to name a few. These stars have gone on to have major success on the big screen.

Laughter truly is the best medicine. I’m sure you’re aware that laughing secretes endorphins in your brain. Endorphins are hormones that activate our opiate receptors. They make us feel good. 🙂

Laughing also exercises your abdominal muscles and the muscles in your face. Which means it also burns calories. I bet you can see where I’m going with this one, can’t you?

But the best time to watch SNL skits is when you’re going through chemo. Because you’ll laugh, and you’ll feel better even if it’s just for a little while.

So whether you’re dealing with Blogger’s Block, or something much more serious like chemo. Just remember, the cure is More Cowbell. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post today. I’ve got some other SNL favorites for you to check out. The links are below.

Steve Martin’s Skits

Top Ten Picks of SNL Skits

Weekend Update

Funniest Cats

Church Chat

Another Top Ten List of SNL Skits

What are your favorites? List them in the comments. I’d love to check them out!

Do Blondes have more fun? A Slice of Life Post

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with another Slice of Life Post. Today, I’m discussing the question, do blondes have more fun?

Now, I can do a survey and ask a random sample of blonde women whether they agree with that age-old theory or I can tell you about my experience as a blonde versus my experience as a brunette.

I bet you’re wondering how I can do this objectively. Well I’ll tell you. You see before I went through chemo. I was blonde. I had some chemical help too, but that’s beside the point. 🙂

Anyway, then I started chemo and I lost my hair. It all fell out. I was bald. This was quite a shock for me, but my family took it in stride. So I bought a wig and I was fortunate enough to find one that matched my former blonde locks to a reasonable degree.

I finished chemo and to tell you the truth when I was going through it, it seemed like it would never end. Now that I’m done, and I’ve been done for about a year, it seems like it happened a lifetime ago. Isn’t the human mind a wonderful thing? It can take some horrific event and make it seem faraway and small.

Well, when I finished chemo, I started to recover and my hair started growing back, but it came back very dark, almost black.  It’s still in the process of growing in, but it’s long enough so that I can style it a little now.

Because of this experience I feel that I’m qualified to answer the question: Do blondes have more fun?  After all, I’ve been a blonde and I’ve been a brunette.

And the answer is: It doesn’t matter if you’re blonde or brunette. The people who have the most fun are the healthy ones. Take care of your health and you’ll truly have wealth.

This image courtesy of all thefreestock.com 

http://allthefreestock.com/

 

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Leave a comment and let me know what you think! I’d love to hear from you.

For more Slice of Life Posts click here:

Slice of Life

 

 

A Slice of Life

 

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with another Slice of Life Post. I reside in Michigan and we’re having an unseasonably warm winter. I appreciate this because last year was horribly cold and I was going through chemo. I couldn’t warm myself to save my life. I wore layers of clothing and bundled up under blankets to keep warm. It seems like ages ago, but it has only been a year since I had to undergo treatment.

So, the fact that I can take a walk in sixty degree weather, wearing my spring coat in December is something I’m grateful for. I enjoy walking in nature. It calms me and settles my rattled nerves when life gets too busy.

This time of year life gets hectic. The holidays, while fun can be stressful. My hubby and I went Christmas shopping last night and the crowds were overwhelming, especially to a couple of introverts like us. As you can guess, we avoid crowds as much as possible. They stress us out.

Since there were so many people, the lines to check out were long. We grew tired of waiting and patrons were grumpy. I made a mental note to start my shopping earlier next year and do it in the morning. I doubt the stores would’ve been so busy then.

Photo courtesy of allthefreestock.com 

http://allthefreestock.com/

Not only were the lines in the stores long, but traffic around the malls was heavy. Because of this, it took us forty-five minutes to travel to a destination that would normally take us twenty. I could feel the frustration growing inside of me. I tried deep calming breaths, which helped, but didn’t completely dissolve my angst. Glancing at my hubby, I found him hunched behind the wheel, white-knuckling it as he glared at the inconsiderate drivers trying to switch lanes in front of us.

Then I thought of last year. How I couldn’t help my hubby with the shopping because I didn’t feel well. I remember I wasn’t excited about Christmas. It had become a daunting task in the wake of my diagnosis and treatment.

I chastised myself for allowing some ornery people and insensitive drivers to have such a detrimental effect on my mood. I started thinking about my boys.  I love the fact they still believe in Santa, and the fact that we have to take precautions so we won’t get caught with the presents. I appreciate that I’m able to shop this year for my boys. I’m glad I’m here and that I can share another Christmas with them.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

http://all-free-download.com/free-photos/free-christmas-images.html

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

http://all-free-download.com/free-photos/free-christmas-images.html

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post! If you’d like to leave a little Slice of Life in the comments section, please do! There are other Slice of Lifers out there too. Check out there posts. You can find them here:

https://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/

 

 

Is Our Food Industry making us Sick?

Hello everyone! I hope all is well with you. So sorry for my long absence, but I’ve been recovering from my bout with chemo and it has taken a while for my energy to come back. Therefore, I’ve had to pick and choose the things that I can spend my time on and of course, my first priority is my kids.

Anyway, since going through the whole cancer/chemo rigmarole I’ve been paying a lot more attention to my health. I’ve always exercised, but I didn’t always eat healthy meals. Now that I can taste what I’m eating, I’m paying more attention and making sure that I eat more fruits and vegetables. I’m convinced that our processed foods are causing many of the types of cancers we see today. Now please remember that I’m not a doctor, but I find it interesting that cancer is on the rise instead of the decline with all the information we have available to us.

My hubby and I watched a documentary recently titled, “Fed Up.” This movie reinforced my belief that processed food is making our population sick. Not only are the preservatives a problem, but the added sugar is also a danger to our health. The added sugar not only causes cancer and heart disease, but it also increases the likelihood of obesity and diabetes, both of which are on the rise in the United States.

According to the documentary, the food industry is removing the fat from the food they’re manufacturing, but then adding sugar to enhance the flavor. This sounds an awful lot like what the Tobacco industry did. Didn’t they add nicotine to their product so that consumers would become more addicted to it?

Did you know sugar has the same effect on the brain as cocaine? I find that incredibly interesting and it explains the struggle we have with weight and sweets. Did you know that more and more Americans join Health clubs every day, but the average weight of the American is on the rise? What this means is that more and more of us are exercising, but we’re still gaining weight.

That’s certainly cause for speculation, wouldn’t you agree? Now, there may be a variety of reasons like people are joining the gym but then not using it like they should; technology has allowed us to become lazy; I don’t have time. I agree these reasons factor into the obesity problem. However, the added sugar to our food is a much bigger culprit.
Here’s where you can watch a trailer of the movie and order a DVD. I believe it’s also available on Net Flix. http://fedupmovie.com/#/page/home

If enough people complain about the added sugar in our processed foods, maybe we can get the food industry to change the way it manufactures our food.

Until this change occurs, however, try to eliminate processed foods from your diet as much as you can. I know it’s hard to do with our busy lifestyles, but isn’t our family’s health worth it?

***photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons. Here’s the link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Chemo Update Number Seven

Hello everyone! I hope all is well with you.  I’m back today with another chemo update. This one is late in coming because of the holidays and the emotional issues that go along with chemo.

I was prepared for the physical side effects, but sad to say the emotional ones have blindsided me. I wasn’t prepared for the anxiety and depression that seems to go along with treatment.

The anxiety hit me like a runaway freight train. One day I was fine, the next day I started worrying about everything. Even little everyday things seemed to cause an inordinate amount of stress for me. Couple that with the stress of raising two little boys and there are some days I’m wired tighter than a piano string.

I was able to get some anti-anxiety medication and it seems to help, but I still feel anxious sometimes and it makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide out until this process is over.

Of course, I still have some physical symptoms like the nausea, but that’s not as bad as it was in the beginning, which does help. The newest side effect is the numbness in my hands and feet. This is scary for me, because it generally goes away when you finish chemo, but it can be permanent. So of course, this causes me some anxiety as well, but there’s really nothing I can do about it except pray that it’s not permanent.

However, it does help to write about all of this, it eases some of the anxiety, and hearing from all of you helps. Your kind words and prayers make me feel less alone in this battle.

I also have a wonderful support system. My hubby who has picked up a lot of the slack even though he has encountered some health issues of his own. My family and my husband’s family as well as colleagues from work have all stepped forward and made offers of assistance.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has assisted me at this time in my life. I’ve been blessed by not only strong family members and colleagues, but by authors, editors, and publishers as well. Thank you so much for your support and prayers they mean a lot to me. Thank you. I am truly blessed.

Dreams are important to Our Mental Health

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I want to talk about focusing on your dreams. In my opinion, dreams are important to your mental health.

Why, because our goals and aspirations are what get us out of bed in the morning. Your goals can be small or big, but if you have a huge goal, you might want to break it up into a bunch of smaller goals to make it more manageable.

Achieving our dreams provides us that motivation we need to keep doing those small mundane tasks that are boring. However, if we have our goal in sight, we can grit our teeth and get through them.

This is an important part of the process, because every dream has those moments of perfecting our technique. For example, let us say you want to be a professional basketball player. Well, in order to do that you have to be good at making baskets. So what are you going to do? You’re going to perfect your shot. And not just one shot either, you’re going to perfect your jump shot, your layup, your hook, and your free throw shot, just to name a few.

I bet you know where I’m going with this, don’t you? You’re going to have to spend a lot of time in front of the basket, just shooting the ball. If you have your goal in sight, this isn’t going to be a problem for you. You’ll grit your teeth and get through it because it’s important to achieving your goal. You’ll look forward to it.

In addition, the thing you’ll have to remember is, even professional athletes still spend a lot of time practicing their plays and perfecting their shots even after they’ve reached professional status. Because once your there, you have to keep your edge.

Another thing about goals is this, when you’re going through a particular trying time in your life, for example, like me having to do chemo. I have to for my health. However, I’m able to focus on my writing, not as much as I did before, but enough that I feel I’m moving forward with it. So staying focused on my goals is actually helping me get through this period. It helps me to make sure I’m doing what the doctor says because I want to write. I don’t want to spend my time dealing with the side effects.

So if I manage my side effects, I get to work on my next book, or on editing the ones that are coming out soon. My writing goals help me to manage my side effects so that I can work on them. And that’s good for my mental health too. I won’t be slipping into a depression because my side effects have gotten the best of me.

So there you have it. Goals are important for our mental health.

On a side note, I’ve received some awesome news! My next book “Gideon Lee” will be releasing soon! Yay!

It’s the first book in the Starlight Chronicles and once I receive my galleys, it will be set up for preorder. So crossing my fingers that all goes well and I can tell you the release date very soon!

Thanks for stopping by my blog and if you’d like to leave a comment on why goals are important to you, please do. I’d love to hear from you!

Second Round of Chemo

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with the second round of chemo under my belt. I was a little anxious because I’ve been told that the side effects grow worse each time you have a treatment.

I spoke with the nurse about this and she told me that the only side effect that gets worse is the fatigue. Well, fatigue I can handle, it’s the nausea that gets to me and since there’s the wonderful anti-nausea medication, I feel like I’m good to go.

Since I’ve had one treatment, I know what to expect. For example, in my concoction of chemo drugs there’s a steroid that makes sleeping difficult. Now that I know this, I’ve been able to prepare for that and take something that’ll help me sleep.

The biggest difference between the first and second chemo is the loss of hair. I was hoping that I could bypass this side effect somehow, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I started noticing my hair coming out in tiny clumps when I was in the shower a day before my second treatment.

After my second treatment, it came out in huge clumps. When I brushed it, there were even bigger clumps stuck in my brush. I’m not bald yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

I expected it and prepared for it, but it’s not a happy moment to say the least.

There are some positive effects to this event in my life. I know what you’re thinking, how can this be? Well, first and foremost I’ll have my life back in just four months.  According to my oncologist, I’ll be cured. The cancer won’t come back. That’s a big positive in my book.

However, there’s more to it than that. It’s brought my family closer. Hubby and the boys are more attentive and we appreciate each other’s company more than we did before. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a tenderness there that wasn’t present before.

I also have a  lot of support. I have a long line of strong women in my family, both on my mom and dad’s side. So it’s nice to have these women rally around me and offer their support.

Speaking of support, I have to mention my friend from Gilda’s club. Her name is Ginger, and she has been a constant source of positive energy for me. She calmed my nerves when I found out I had to have chemo. She took the same drugs that I’m taking and she was very helpful because she shared her reaction to them. It really set my mind at ease.

First Round of Chemo Under my Belt

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with  you. I’m back today with my first chemo treatment under my belt and I’ve officially started the count down. I have seven more to go.

My mother went with me and we chatted while I received the drugs through a port in my chest. I appreciated her support because this was the scariest part of the journey for me.

My husband appeared after a little while and I was happy to see him. It gave my mom a break and she was able to grab some lunch. While she was at lunch, my mentor from Gilda’s club showed up and gave me an awesome bracelet and lots of hugs and advice.

I have lots of support and I’m grateful for it. When the chips are down, I know who I can turn to.

The experience for me wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. They give you anti-nausea medication before they give you your chemo and this helps tremendously. I did have a little bit of a headache when I returned home and I did take some anti-nausea medication in the early evening.

I slept a lot on Friday and Saturday and continued with the anti-nausea medication. This first round wasn’t bad, but I hear the symptoms will get progressively worse each time I go. Thankfully, I only have four rounds of the first cycle and four rounds of the second cycle. Then I’m done. Cured according to my oncologist. I can live with that. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. If you have any questions or comments please leave them in the comment section, I’ll get back to you!

Thank Goodness for Gilda’s Club!

 

 

Hello everyone. I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with a Gratitude Post. Yes. I’m so grateful for Gilda’s Club right now. I called them after I received my diagnosis and I found out what an incredible organization it is. Here’s their facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/gildasclubgr

First of all, they told me they serve free meals Monday through Thursday. This amazed me. What an awesome organization and it’s not just for the cancer patient it’s for the whole family. This is for everyone not just those families who don’t have the greatest insurance or no insurance at all. This just warmed my heart that someone thought about this.

They also have support groups for not only the cancer patient, but also a group for the spouses as well as a group for the children. I’m definitely going to try to get my hubby and kids to go. I think it would be good for them.

However, that’s not the main reason I’m grateful. They put me in touch with someone who has gone through the same exact thing I’m going through now. When we spoke, it was after I had received the “education” portion from the nurse about the drugs I’m going to have to take. Now the education was important, but it created a lot of anxiety for me.

I grew anxious because someone close to me had passed away from Ovarian cancer after fighting it for ten years. So, the image that came to my mind was her and how she was toward the end. She was very weak and wasn’t able to walk on her own.

This scared me. Therefore, when I spoke with the person from Gilda’s Club she calmed my fears and I will be forever grateful to her for that. (Thanks Ginger!) She told me that she was nauseated but able to work although I should expect fatigue. I won’t be able to do as much as I used to.

She also told me the side effects of some of the drugs she took. This was very helpful because they were the same drugs that I’m going to have to take and the debilitating effect that I was expecting is not the reality. So that eased my mind.

In closing, I’d like to say if you ever find yourself stricken with this disease please look for a Gilda’s Club in your area. It will help you. I guarantee it.