Thankful for Cancer?

Tomorrow is shot number 2. I am anxious to see how I handle the side effects this time around. Now that I am on a better drug regimine I think that Kev will be able to get me through a little easier this time. He's the best nurse. Overall this week was bearable, I mean compared to what life looked life before cancer treatment it wasn't but now I consider days different. The first 3 days were really hard and I've battled nausea everyday. I'm very tired and have slept a lot. I've had to start taking sleep medicine to help me get better deep sleep during the night. I'm so thankful for my mom being here and now our Duck and Kevin are here to entertain the kiddos and help too. Emotionally I think this week has gone ok, I'm so tired I'm numb to even thinking much or reading anything. I feel like I'm missing life already and it's only been a week. Wishing for a day of running to target or planning ahead all the fun things that come this time of year, gulp... I've been assigned different plans for now.  The girls are doing fine, I've had a couple hard days of them preferring everyone else over me and being emotional about that. It's ok though I know its a blessing they have been getting so very much needed love and attention. It's hard to imagine it's only been a week and I have so many left I can't even count. I'm trying to focus on getting through the 8 high dose injections and then celebrate that as a huge accomplishment. For someone who is sensitive to Tylenol and is now a walking pharmacy trust me when I say HUGE accomplishment. But even looking ahead 7 more weeks is really hard too... Remember just waking up is still hard, not sure when that's supposed to end?



Tonight we started our November tradition ( a little late but that's ok) every night at dinner everyone gets to hang on the tree something they are thankful for. It's precious to hear the kids each praying and thanking God for all the big and little things. We have so much to be thankful for this year, perhaps more than any other year we've shared together. Or atleast we have realized we have more to be thankful for than we've noticed before, much of what is always sitting right In front of us that we way too often take for granted. So for the rest of this thanksgiving month we will try to focus on the sweet things, when life is so hard. Try to show our kiddos that even in pain and hard, God is so gracious and we have SO much to thank him for.

What are you thankful for? I find myself these days being thankful for the smallest blessings in life, some of which I don't even think I noticed in my life this time last November. Which in retrospect is kind of pathetic to admit. We always sat around the Thanksgiving table and I was always just like wow I'm thank for for so much, and now I sit here thinking I had no idea what really being thankful meant. Maybe it's less of mentioning it and more of living it out, I don't know. I'm not trying to harp, this is such a hot topic the whole month for everyone. Traditions of thankfulness and noticing all we are grateful for, please Jesus give me eyes to see the blessings everyday and not just the days I'm supposed to be thankful. It's a discipline for sure, its not like I wake up in the morning and am saying, "wow thank you for this" ha. 

Thankful for cancer?

I've thought about this a lot, realized that this whole cancer thing has somewhat, ok totally, changed me. I hate it though too, so many emotions. So I've thought the best way to describe it so that I still hate cancer yet somehow am thankful.   Maybe I've said this before. (I'll probably repeat many things, my doc calls it "chemo" brain, I'm just saying its the new me) ... anyway... So I say that I'm not thankful for Cancer but I am thankful for what cancer has brought into and changed in my life. For most of us, including me, getting cancer is like your worst nightmare. I mean one of our worst possible fears coming true yet SO many people are living this very real life everyday. Everyday someone's doctor is calling them to tell them their fate, and they are crumbling to the ground in utter shock, I've been there. Lives change. Outlook and perspective changes, purpose changes, you change. But I'd be lying to say that even in theses few short (which seem like years) months since cancer entered my body and my life, I've experienced Christ and his peace more openly and freely than ever before. How can I not just be thankful for that... I wouldn't wish hardship and pain on anyone it's just the worst and it's confusing and it's not normal and not like everyone else. I do though, pray that in the midst of this thanksgiving and the craziness of the holidays coming something stops you in your tracks for a moment that makes you really question who you are, who God created you to be, and all you have to be thankful for, I do wish that for everyone I know...

1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in ALL circumstances, for this I'd Gods will for you in Christ Jesus

Psalm 95:2
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song...
Psalm 96:4 for great is the Lord and most worthy of praise...