Busy, busy, awfully busy....

I can not believe that it has been almost 4 months....4 months since I last wrote.  So much has happened. And now I am busy, busy, busy with end of the semester and end of the school year activities, grading, projects, ceremonies, and presentations.  Spring planting, weeding, and planning is in full swing.  While the weather is windy! Blustery! And the evenings are super chilly this week.  But the garlic is up, the onions planted, the hoop house full of young tomatoes and peppers, the sweet peas, snap peas, radishes, spinach, kale and beets are planted.  And I even transplanted the broccoli, red cabbage and Chinese cabbage this past weekend.  Hopefully they won't freeze in this late spring cold weather.

And tomorrow I'm off to work (2.5 hours away) while the bee packages come and the yellow raspberries, strawberry plants, and horse radish arrive.  In one week 600 new blueberry plants arrive as well. And I pick up the 50 meat chickens, 20 Americauna pullets, and 20 broad breasted white turkeys next Wednesday. In the meantime, I've been recovering from reconstructive surgery and my final infusion and weeding endless rows of blueberries, while preparing to plant a farm of flowers.  Such excitement! And the Farmers Market starts next week.

 The daffodils are blooming!

Today's Journey Joys: a hoop house that is some how holding on in these 45+ mph winds, raspberries poking their heads out, tulips growing, leaves bursting from buds, cats pushing against faces for love and affection, hot cinnamon tea.

One year-a-vers-ary

The clouds were gray and dripping misty. The sounds of the rhythmic tinkling of moisture as the tires moved along the cold pavement.  I almost missed my turn.

As I entered the familiar building with its customary smells, sounds, and sights, I lugged my laptop bag, my purse, a fresh cup of Dunn Bros. coffee and a large tray of muffins.  Blueberry.  Apple crunch.  Chocolate chip. In a sense to celebrate.  In a sense to remember.

Kimberle greeted me with her usual giant-heart smile and big brown glittering eyes. Donning lilac purple framed glasses and enormous matching dangling ear rings, she embodies grace and comfort. She expresses joy in her very being, through her presence. "Breakfast!" I enthusiastically call out as I eagerly hand over the massive, and somewhat teetering, tray.

I am the only one in the office waiting room.  The TV blares some inane morning game show. The windows dark with clouds. I quietly read over my students' postings on my laptop as I wait until it is my turn to see my local oncologist.  But my heart and mind are distracted.  One year.  It's been exactly one year since I walked into this building for my very first chemotherapy treatment.  Scared, eager to begin, uncertain of the course, the outcome, the process.  And I look back and see the mountains, the valleys, the thorns and the flowers.  I remember the deep penetrating love of friends who journeyed alongside at various points in the trek.  The gracious gifts of food, trips, hospitality, friendship, and presence.

And I find myself reminiscing about the deep and emerging understanding of the grace of God.  Of its personal nature.  Its sustaining love.  And I rejoice in the truth that I have experienced the meaning of heaven - the experience of heaven - here, in this lowly earthly journey.  For it has been during tremendous and overwhelming emotions of gratitude - gratitude for the presence of God in the midst of long, lonely wanderings through chemo, radiation, and surgery, where I have tasted, just oh-so-little, the experience of Heaven. That is, being with Jesus.  The intense, delightful, flavor of His presence creating a longing for the great Feast. If only for this realization, this understanding, that I endured the long road of cancer treatment, it is enough.  I am savoring the longing for heaven, the experience of being in the presence of perfect Love.  For I have tasted a morsel and am eager, hungry, perhaps even ravenous, for the real.

But I am here today.  In this place of chemo smells, fluorescent lighting, blankets and IV beeps.  My nurse accesses my port, secures it with a dressing and hooks me up to the normal saline solution which is dripping quietly and steadily, waiting until the infusion to treat my cancer is ready to hang. A relatively quick infusion.  I'll be out of here in an hour.  So different from the six hours of my first chemotherapy.  And I'll only be slightly nauseated with an odd taste in my mouth.  Only three days or so.  Again, much better than the taxol, the adriamycin or the cytoxan days of pain, fatigue and helplessness. And yet, I am weary in a different way.  I heard myself exclaim, "I am ready to be done with this."  But knowing I have more tests, more infusions, more surgery ahead.

Is this what a runner feels like? After running miles and miles, up and down hills, around corners, through wind and weather, does the knowledge that the end is nearing - but is still quite far away - sap one's stamina?  Does a runner ever wonder, "Will I make it to the finish line?" "Will I crawl bloodied through the ribbon or run through triumphantly?"  I do not know.  But does it really matter?

I have tasted Heaven.

I am not alone. (Kari Jobe)

When I walk through deep waters
I know that you will be with me
When I'm standing in the fire
I will not be overcome
Through the valley of the shadow
Oh, I will not fear

I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me
I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me

In the midst of deep sorrow
I see your light is breaking through
The dark night will not over take me
I am pressing into you

Lord You fight my every battle
And I will not fear

I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me
I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me

You amaze me, redeem me
You call me as your own

You're my strength
You're my defender
You're the refuge in the storm
Through these trials
You've always been faithful
You bring healing to my soul

I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me
I am not alone
I am not alone
You will go before me
You will never leave me

Today' Journey Joys: I am not alone.  Colorful Christmas lights still blinking in mid January, warm blueberry tea, a scrumptious salad with bright spring lettuces, crunchy green snap peas, broccoli florets, cheese, red aromatic strawberries, and a bright yellow-orange yoke of a hard boiled egg topped with poppy seed dressing.

Semester Reflection Story

The semester started in the midst of August heat. Corn sweet tantalizing.  The sugars drifting through the air as the stalks bent and crinkled in the summer’s blowing.  Tomatoes rich red and deliciously dripping in mouth-watering tanginess.  Raspberries expanding with rivulets red and juicy.  And I was prepared.

I had gotten the courses organized, syllabi written, exams built. 

But I wasn't prepared. Truly, I wasn't.

The tolls of chemotherapy, double mastectomy, breast expanders, every three week Herceptin infusions, coupled with daily radiation therapy…. for the first 4 weeks of school… I struggled.  I struggled to be engaged and manage my courses well.  And while I was sequestered to Hope Lodge at Mayo Clinic I actually did.  Yet when I returned home the family expectations returned.  The farm beckoned.  The skin reddened and peeled sending spasmodic penetrating pain deep into my chest.  Sleep was scarce.  Lotions and creams, antibiotics and salves soothed the depressing distractions. Eventually the skin split and sloughed off and the breasts were left clean, pink, and healing.  A month later they even tolerated pressure from the mattress so that I could curl into blissful sleep.

Periodically they still spasm.  Tight, as though a rubber band were gripping them.  The edges of the expanders tender, digging into the chest.  Bruising the ribs and chest wall.  Painful with arm movement or lifting.  Oddly shaped and unfamiliar. Restrictive.  And the axillary cording shortening my extended arm movements.

But my work entails only punching letters on a computer.  I could complete it.  Albeit slow.  Mentally weary and chemo-fogged, it was hard to concentrate, communicate without ambiguity. It took me hours, hours to interact and provide constructive feedback.  Deeply cognizant that my students needed more than I ever received in graduate school.  They needed to learn, to be transformed, in their thinking from a nurse to a nurse practitioner. They needed to be prepared – their patients needed them to be prepared.

But the students beat me up. Left me broken. 

I’m feeling the un-met expectations of disappointment and frustration.  Or could it just be my expectations and my frustration?  But I am repulsed by the criticism and interference.  “Please, can someone, anyone, be supportive or positive?”  And so I plod on.  Grading, reading, evaluating, answering inane and repetitive emails.  If only students would read the information I had posted.  My time and energies are so limited.  The questions which really shouldn't be questions leech my resolve, my strength. Yet they require an answer.  And so my energies wane.  And my aspirations in teaching do as well. 

But I look fine.  My hair is growing; I’m gaining weight.  I laugh and plaster the smile on my face.  My voice is strong.  I can walk in heels again.  Is this what people with chronic disorders face?  Un-well inside but seemingly fine on the outside?  No grace or gentleness for expectations. 

Three weeks to go until the end of the semester.  And one week until I return to Mayo again.  Tests and infusions.  Exams and consultations.  Scheduling and hopes.  A tiny squeaking voice of unknowns, what ifs, and uncertainty.  Am I really almost done with this chapter? 

And Thanksgiving is upon us.  Eucharisteo. The perspective which makes sense 
in any season.  Remembering I Thessalonians 5:16-18 – giving thanks always, always.

 

Today’s Journey Joys: gingerbread cookie dough, an amazing video, warmth on a snowing day, cold metal mailbox filled with spring seeds of anticipation, toasty comfy blankets, chocolate chip, butterscotch, oatmeal and M&M cookies, shopping for scrumptious meal of farm raised turkey and pumpkin pie.

Six degrees and thankfulness

Six degrees. That's what the thermometer on the car read this morning as I zipped up our lane to meet the bus with Ally.  Six degrees.  It's not even Thanksgiving.  An inch of snow covers the gardens.  A few untamed remnants of crusty brown weeds (and seeds) poking their defiant heads above the cold white blanket.  These will eventually succumb to the winds, wet, and decay.

Seventy two.  That's what my indoor thermometer on the desk in the living room reads.  Toasty warm.  Snug as a bug.  Grateful that our outdoor wood burning furnace is puffing away....heating the water and keeping the house comfortable.

The house is quiet.  The hum of the refrigerator.  The creak of the house.  The wind of the heater blowing. The tick of the rocking chair as I glide back and forth.  But overall quiet.  The skies are wintry gray and the bare bone trees are shaking in the gusty breezes.  Few leaves remaining except the mulberry who clings to those last rust-colored crunchy remains.  Light snow blurs the horizon.

I have a pause.  A pause in the chaos which has been my life in the last month.

A welcomed, restful, quiet, peaceful pause.  Unexpected.  As if it snuck up on me without any warning. Sigh.

The perpetual drone of grading papers, answering emails, creating exams, interacting with students.... all activities which I have typically enjoyed.... has become arduous.  Laborious.  Students repeatedly complaining or asking questions which they already had access to the answers, if only they had read. Papers with the same mistakes over and over again in spite of my correction.  Plagiarizing. Scheduling and organizing student on-campus days.  Details.  Final clinical exams.  More details. Feeling criticized.  Regardless of preparation and input. Weary of pressing on.  My stress bucket is full.  I am eating poorly and not active or exercising.  I read, read, and read paper after paper after paper. Scrambling like a rodent on a wheel cage trying to catch up.

And then finally, I did.

The papers were graded.  The exams readied.  The evaluations posted.  The discussions interacted with. The face-to-face exams completed.  Only a few more phone evaluations and some weekly assignments before the semester is completed.  Whew!

And when I get a chance to breathe... like now.... I remember.  I remember that weariness is caused by treading without purpose or direction.  My focus nearsighted.... myopic.  Failing to recall the purpose of this trek.  Looking at the hurdles, the difficulties rather than gazing at the goal.

"One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." (Psalm 24:4)

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

A heart of ungratefulness is a poison far worse than any physical ailment.  Without a heart, a life, of reflection on the grace and mercy of the Lord, life is wearisome.  Arduous.  Painful. Deeply hopeless. An ungrateful, un-thankful heart is a cancer waiting to spread its metastasizing, menacing, and malignant fingers into any and all nearby.

Oh, how I have failed to give thanks!

Eucharisteo.

Today's Journey Joys:  quiet restful reflective opportunities, washing machines for dirty ol' gloves and mittens, blue skies peeking through wintry cloud cover, outside cats all snuggled together on top of worn out pillows in the igloo, cleansers to scrub away the ring on the tub,  turtlenecks keeping my skinny little neck warm, students who have learned, opportunities to demonstrate grace and love, continued recovery from cancer.

The Folding-Closed of Summer

"So Chris, are you back to normal yet?" My friend Steve, who himself is recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery, inquires over a comforting meal of beef stroganoff and apple cider. The question stimulates a reflective moment.  "Normal?" "No, I'm not back to normal.  I don't think that 'normal' will ever return."  "Perhaps this, whatever this is, is the new normal."

My mind is not as quick, my body easily aching and tiring, and my emotions less controlled. I tear up easily.  I laugh easily. I am drawn to beauty, to color, to depth and texture.  I relish tasty food and an energetic brisk walk.  By 8:30 I am exhausted and by 4:30 I am awake.  My hot flashes are as numerous as they were before tamoxifen, but now they are hotter and longer...often ending up in a puddle of moisture.

And I smile.  Smile more.

 Yes, I'm still receiving Herceptin infusions every three week.  They aren't the "bad" chemo though.  I only feel a little nausea and a little more tired for a week or so. ...

And I ponder worrisome-ly... how long does it take to know the cancer is gone?  Before one can embrace the hope of a future here? Here among my family and friends?  To rest in the vision of continued life with my Farmer husband and teen aged children? Or is this part of the journey only a rest, a plateau, before more and greater hard roads await?

If....if.....if the Road turns to cancer again..... I know and am peacefully resting in the experience and knowledge that the Lord God walks with me.  He has faithfully journeyed with me through this past year.  Close and palpable.  Leaving me strengthened and comforted during the hardest climbs and deepest valleys. And I have tasted Heaven during this journey.  Remarkable.  A glimpse and a longing...... overwhelmed and speechless.

Today's Journey Joys - sunshine over autumnal trees, bees scurrying for one more taste of nectar, raspberries still blooming and ripening, the blaze of pumpkins, speckled squash, applesauce bubbly, blueberry syrup, and seed and nursery catalogs.

Weary and Rest

The skin became taunt, rhubarb red... and the pain was troublesome and wearisome.  Amela, my wonderful PA in Plastics said, "I want to see you."  But I convinced her that maybe we could do this over the phone and email with photos rather than have me drive 4.5 hours for a 10 minute visit. So a photo or two of my poor, poor breast was sent.  (Puts a whole new meaning to the term "selfie", eh?). 

After Hibiclens soaps, Silvadene cream, Damore and Aquafor ointments and Bactrim oral antibiotics, all began to heal.  The tight skin cracked and peeled.  And miraculously underneath nice healthy looking skin without infection or pain was revealed.  I am thankful for soft clothes and the new ability to sleep on either side at night.  Resting better now that I am able to get comfortable.  Such a blessing sleep is.

I'm still tired, but less so.  Most of the weariness is mental I think.  Teaching this semester has been difficult and challenging for me.  I am running out of energy to help some of my struggling students. There are about a handful which drain my reserves of patience and encouragement.  And I know they have their own story to walk.  That my presence in their journey is but a small one.  But I take joy in my teaching and guiding students to think on a more complex yet logical level and to make conclusions. In health care education it is called "diagnostic reasoning".  I am thrilled when the "ah-ha!" moments arrive and suddenly the student grasps the significance of the puzzle of evidence.  But some students seem to not be able to make the transition from simplistic fact ordering of information to the higher level of thinking required in making medical diagnoses.  I have tried.  Tried numerous techniques and teaching-learning styles available in an online environment.  I have called and set conferences in hopes of identifying the disconnect which appears to be prevalent in those that wrestle with the hierarchy of details. And it is draining. Case studies, professional visual scenarios and examinations, and discussion postings related to data mining in a patient encounter.... it doesn't seem to help in these cases.  But perhaps I am left without energy because I do not have the energy to begin with.

I want to rest and reflect more deeply. To soak healing into my weary bones and being.

But the tyranny of the urgent, the pressing daily chores, the quickly arriving winter push me to keep working on so many things which seem so very unimportant.  But yet oh so necessary.  

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Today's Journey Joys: super soft camisoles, warm flannel shirts and sheets, toasty outdoor wood furnace, late fall honey harvest of buttery goldenrod, apple pie with crumbly topping, fresh raspberries on spring mix lettuce greens, brave, determined and gentle-hearted son who runs and then cheers his teammates, Homecoming dance, an experience of worship in the presence of the King during church this evening - a taste of heaven.  Makes me long dearly for Heaven.

Recovering

I am tired.

Shooting intermittent, unanticipated, and unpredictable pain grabs my left chest area and axilla.....as though someone were pouring burning hot water on the skin.  It only lasts seconds.  Takes my breath away.  And I moan...grimace.

It happens more at night. Perhaps my positioning makes the nerves more susceptible to whatever stimulation is causing the hot and penetrating sensation.  And so I do not sleep. Not well anyway. Oh.... so tired.

My chest wall is bright red with splotchy areas of peeling skin.  Some areas have infected areas which ooze a sticky yellowish fluid which then dries on my ever-so-soft camisole.  But then when I take the camisole off, the skin peels with it and then bleeds.

This is not what I expected to happen after my radiation was done.  During perhaps; but not after.

I'm pretty sure this is not what is supposed to be happening.  Not desired. Yet nevertheless, I continue to gently rub the Damore and Aquafor creams on in the hope that they will heal the skin more rapidly.  I placed an email to my plastic surgeon who apparently sent some medicine into the pharmacy.  I'll have to get it tomorrow after I drop Ben off at school.  They are closed now.  I'll pick up some of those non-adhering dressings as well so that my skin won't keep getting damaged.

Today's Journey Joys:  Safe and pleasant drive to work (2.5 hours away), good connections with colleagues, Katy who picked up and cared for kids, sun slides of light through clouds, warm homes on a cool evening in early autumn.