Where's The Beef!?

  For those of us who remember, there used to be a Wendy's commercial in which an old lady would look into a hamburger and yell, "Where's the beef!?" I'm not sure but I think that since I have been getting well again after a year since my lymphoma diagnosis began I have officially found the beef. You know, when you walk away from a remission report things tend to look pretty darn rosy. Suddenly, the sky is blue, the flowers are in bloom, the birds are singing and your whole outlook is a sense of amazement that can only come from a brush with death. You are a survivor! You should be wearing a t-shirt with a huge S on the front man! Then as time goes by life shows up once again. There's the morning alarm, the drive to anywhere (especially those of us who live in Los Angeles), the noisy neighbor, the cell phones, the long lines. Wait, where the heck did the sky go?! There in which my friends, lies the beef. A general jaded trudge through life's mud puddles with holey wellies.
 
  I didn't set out to find it but I somehow did. I think it sometimes starts with waking up feeling like poop on a stick and ends with me yelling, "Come on!" to some hapless teen driver-in-training who can't possibly hear me. Maybe it's just me but I hate grocery shopping. Oh I like lists, it's just the actual going to the store pushing around my hand-wipe washed cart around the aisles. The putting away is a drag also. Hmm...how long has this been in there? What the heck is it?! I've never even seen that! Well, we'll push it to the back and put some new stuff in. I could go on.

  This week I have a follow up with my oncologist. She will rub down my neck and underarms again to see if I have any lymph bumps. She will ask me how I am doing and tell me I have to have another scan. I have to say, I don't like these visits. It makes me uncomfortable but I am thankful for them. For the cancer patient in remission there is always that looming fear of the unknown.
 
  This visit puts life into perspective. Suddenly that beef went somewhere else. It all seems very small somehow. The alarm is almost welcome, the neighbor isn't so noisy, at least I have people who bother to call me and the kid is just learning how to drive. I figure if I can just walk out of that office with an ok pass for another three months I'm golden.
 
  I don't know. Maybe it's just me and I don't even know if anyone reads this stuff. I think we all need our reminders of how precious and fragile life can be. Right now I have one child serving on a Navy ship in Japan. I have another in Holland teaching. Every time I think about it, I am amazed and thankful that they are having opportunities that I have never had. I had my first at nineteen and have been a mother most all my life and at 45 with finally an empty nest was diagnosed with a Anaplastic T-Cell Non-Hodgekin's Lymphoma. A really long name for a nasty little illness. I am now just learning what it is to have time to do thing's without children. I have my whole life on the horizon and it looks pretty good from here. Hey? Did you just hear that little song bird? I think he was singing the song "Blue Skies."

There's No Place Like Hope

 I have been to two funerals in two weeks. A long time family friend passed away after a long fight with a bad stroke. My family and I attended, tried to console her anguished husband and only son who were left behind. Two weeks later we got the call from her son that his father had been found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot. We made the trek in shock to yet another funeral. Same place, same people.
  

  The prevailing feeling that I got was "no hope". Suicide can be summed up in those two words I think. It took me back to ten months ago. I was in the hospital and just diagnosed with Lymphoma. A great heaviness enveloped me like a dark cloud. Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. I have even thought the unthinkable. I was making my bed when I came home from the hospital. I was really sick. I happened to remember I have a weapon in my house and my mind started going "there." Family and friend's faces floated past my mind. Who would find me? I finally decided that I didn't want to leave them with that mess. And that is what it is, one big mess. You see, suicide is not an answer at all. On the contrary, it is a big question mark. Throw in a big dose of guilt and you get the picture. The survivors are left with no closure, all the time wondering if they could have done more. I watched my friend's face at the funeral. He looked haggard and worn and full of the grief of not losing one but both parents. It was gut wrenching.
  

  So what of hope? I believe it is there if we look, even in the small things. After I was determined to live I started to see it. Hey, I just smiled or laughed at a joke. Hey, I was just able to take one more bite of food or shuffle my monkey slippers a few more steps. Wow, look at that bird outside the window. You know, I just love the taste of coffee ice cream. I enjoy the laughter of my children across the dinner table. My little dog sure is soft and follows me around to lie right next to where I hurt. How do they know? And many, many more.
  

  You know something? Miracles do happen and doctors don't know everything. I am a miracle. I never had to have a bone marrow transplant! 98% of people with Lymphoma do. I am cancer free within a year! I love my short hair so much I keep cutting it! I could list all of the doomsday predictions for my life but why? They were wrong about me and they are wrong about you. No one on this great planet knows how long you will live or how you will respond to treatment. You need to choose life and fight like hell. Prove them wrong and revel in the proverbial jaw drop. Or, "I am amazed at your recovery." A good friend of mine has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and was given gloomy reports. They told her they would probably be unable to operate and that she probably would not make it. Well she did have her surgery and she is making it with flying colors. She came through chemo with hardly any side-effects.
  

  I can say one thing for sure, our Maker identifies with pain. I believe also that he does not condemn those who find themselves so hopeless and grief-stricken that they can see no way out but a self-inflicted death sentence. I think he would say, "You know, I had so much more for you. We could have gotten through it together. I was listening." I also think that that way out is a selfish thing. It says, "There is no hope."  It leaves way too many people in pain.
  

  I am here to click my red Converse high tops and say there is hope. There is someone listening. There are people who care and....there's no place like hope.

Love, Shurie

The High Cost Of Dependency

  Forget about gas! Have you taken a look at the price of prescriptions of late? Pray you never have a life-threatening illness which requires (trust me on this) various scraps of little white scribbled paper. God help you if you don't have the right insurance to cover "some" of it. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had no clue what was in store. Before long I was on a first name basis with local pharmacists. I switched from one to another because some just could not get it right no matter what info they were given. This struggle adds just one more burden to the patient and their hapless family.

  A couple of my readers just might notice that I haven't written in a while. The truth is that I am not here to complain about the high cost of medication but rather the outcome of their use and my personal recovery. I am being as honest as I possibly can be in hopes that I might be able to help one person. This might even be your story. I can only speak for myself and wanted to make sure that I waited so that I went through the recovery process and can speak about it with confidence.

  In the hospital I was given A LOT of medication. They kept pushing me to take more. I don't blame them for this because I just got out of major surgery and had Lymphoma. What I do blame them for and the medical establishment as a whole is their general lack of advice and knowledge of what the body goes through when those medications are stopped "cold turkey" to coin a phrase. Upon leaving the hospital I was told to go home and "rest" after days of taking hard core Percocet. I went through a withdrawal hell like you cannot fathom. I finally went to my oncologist who prescribed for me a little medication called Methadone. After seeing my wide-eyed response ( after all I wasn't a heroine addict) she told me that it was an even-release pain medication and that I would have no problem since it was such a low dose. Six months later and it is time for me to stop taking pain medication. She was wrong.

  I had weaned myself from 10mg to 2.5mg. I was wondering why I felt like a 90 year old woman. The nightmares were full length Steven King epic adventures. I decided to cut the 2.5 all together. Bad Deal. I ended up in a crying heap in my living room with depression and fatigue and a whole host of other glorious side-effects. My husband came home and took one look and told me that we needed to start at square one with the 2.5 and cut down even slower. Who knew that this little pill packed such a wallop! I had become addicted to opiates.

  I don't know if you have noticed lately but prescription dependency is on the rise. It is the new high for high school students and young adults. Addiction in America to Vicodin, Oxycodone, and other opiates is out of control. How do I know? Because I have seen and heard the statistics. The truth is that most addicts are just trying to avoid withdrawal by continuing to use. What makes it tougher is that those with real pain issues need these medications to cope. I don't know what the alternative is. I wish there was one. Doctors just seem to pass out the paper and off you go. The fact is that they have never been through withdrawal, I have. I think that if they have been through the experience then they might think about some alternatives. I'm sure the billion dollar prescription drug industry has NOTHING to do with the current status quo.

  So what happened to yours truly? Well I was sent by my General Practitioner to a pain management doctor who gave me a choice. Did I want to go on another lesser opiate like Vicodin and wean off? Heck no! I told him that I just wanted to get clean of this crap. He laughed and put me on a blood pressure medication patch that is also used for ADHD children and is a non-narcotic called Clonidine 1mg. I told my husband that due to my ADD, if there was anything he needed to get my attention for, the next couple of weeks is go time! So far it is helping take off the edge and I am 13 days free of Methadone. I also researched like a mad woman and found out that it is the number ONE addictive drug to hit the U.S. It is a synthetic form of heroine and has a longer half-life (stays longer in the body) than the real deal. It is one little monster to get rid of. I also have been attending NA meetings to get info and support. Why? Because dependency is dependency and I need help and accountability from other people going through similar circumstances. I have gotten more helpful info from them than the doctors. The drug treatment center laughed in my face. Apparently they only help people with 100mg a day problems. Don't you think it is sad that we have as a country gotten to that stage? We only acknowledge the "BIG" stuff and not the little guy or girl struggling to do the right thing?

  My sincere advice is that if you find yourself in my position GET HELP. Do not try to do it on your own. Get a support system and fight for your life back without the help of substances. Research before you just take anything on a piece of paper. I found out that a lot of the people in meetings started out with legit reasons to take medication. I know I had one but in the end the cost was pretty high. My prayers are with you and if you have any questions, please comment.

For Now, One Day At A Time

The Ai Button

  My husband recently purchased me a much needed new fangled digital camera. I had hassled one too many times with the old one and finally whined enough to warrant a trip to the electronics store. I stood staring at the long table of cameras with various gadgets with the glazed-over look of a non-techie and was immediately lost. The sales guy eventually swaggered over and gave me a tour. I finally settled on one simple camera with automatic everything (and no, I did not need the hyper-zoom so that I can capture half a football field away sounds like a stalker device option). One particular feature that caught my attention was the Ai button. What is this you ask and what does it have to do with illness and recovery? Let me tell you what it does.

  That main trouble I was having with the old camera, besides the fact that it ate batteries like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, is that I couldn't get the focus right. I have to take a lot of close-up shots for ebay and other things that I sell. I kept getting blurry pics no matter how I tried to adjust the dang thing. This is a problem. You can't sell merchandise with blurry photos and look serious. I had to keep pushing DELETE! It drove me crazy and took up time, thus the new purchase. The little gem called the Ai button is located on top of the camera next to the shudder button so that when you push it, it kicks into "Auto Intelligence" and can automatically recognize faces, objects, landscape, etc. It adjusts the lense by itself and presto, perfect picture for me! The best is the close-up option. It recognizes close objects and takes crystal clear pictures.

  This Ai button thing got me thinking about myself. I had been out of focus. I was dwelling on things of no long-term importance. Life became dull and mundane. Even my relationship with God was slipping. I began to ask myself what it was all for. I had recently became an empty-nester with two grown children. I was a parent most of my life starting very young at nineteen years old. What now? Then the Ai button got pushed. I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. We all dread the Big C don't we? It's all around us. It threatens us from across the ocean in a big radiation cloud or lurks in bottled water plastic. Most of us know someone who has had it or have had it ourselves. I can tell you that I have asked the man upstairs that if I get the chance, I would like the first crack at it on Judgement Day. Let me at it! How dare you steal my health, friends, and loved ones?! WHACK!

  You know what? When that button got pushed things came into focus for me. What and who was really important became crystal clear. I automatically recognized faces, objects, landscape. Colors were brighter. Flowers smelled sweeter. Family and friends became precious again. My far away relationship with God got the close-up view that it deserved and became clear again. I don't ask what now anymore. I am enjoying life as it comes one day after the next. To sum it all up....one digital camera about a hundred bucks. The Ai button.....priceless!

The Wait Is Pretty Heavy

  I don't know about you but if "Good things come to those who wait" I am about to get a big lump of coal. I hate to wait. I live in a society that is formed in lines. If you live in the city like I do the only difference from the country is that there is a hundred people waiting ahead of me not five. I go to where my mom lives in the mountains just to go to the DMV (my son calls them the "Gait Keepers" of humanity) because of the miserable lines that stretch out of the building and into the street in my area. And no, I will not tell you where she lives because I do not want to wait behind you! I call it a good day when I breeze through the errands I need to do fairly easily. That means without the lady with the 50 coupons in front of me who can't see without her glasses and is paying in pennies.That means that there is no guy with the bumping stereo racing between cars and flipping me the bird. What can I say? Maybe it is the culture of "get it quick" that I grew up in. Heck, they could solve life-long problems on the Love Boat in a freakin hour! Let's talk about how this all adds up when it comes to a long-term illness shall we?
  When I was told I had lymphoma I had already been sick for at least a couple of months. It suddenly felt like this endless road had stretched out in front of me with no sunset. How long? and how much? were the beginning of most questions in my mind. I felt doomed. Besides waiting, I hate needles. Why mankind has not found a better way to introduce medication I will never know. We put a hunk of metal into space people! Anyway, I was about to get a whole lot of both in one package. What does one like me do in this situation? Two things, curse and cry of course. Did you think I was much more spiritual? Not by a long shot. I didn't have thanking God for the experience first on my list. It was more like "HELP!" I am afraid and don't think I can do this!
  When I look back on it, my illness was short compared to most. It was May of last year that the symptoms really kicked in. It is less than a year and I am in remission and feeling more like myself every day. How did I do it? I clung like a baby monkey to my faith. I tried my best to focus on what I needed to do for that day or minute. I tried to follow to the best of my ability my doctor's orders. I asked for help when I needed it. I pushed myself harder than I have ever done for anything. I wanted to live. I tried to keep my humor. Did I do all of this to perfection? NO! But I got up and prayed and tried again the next day.
  If you think about it we all hate to wait. I see you in my rear view mirror two inches from my bumper! When it comes to life's circumstances sometimes we have no choice. This past month I have been through my mom's knee replacement surgery. She is a trooper. This time I got to be on the other end and help her out. Did I learn anything? You bet. Thank you Lord, it sure feels good to be on the other end.

"Take A Number...... Please!"

  I can be one tough and stubborn broad, just ask my husband. Wanna know how to get me to do anything? Just tell me it can't be done. I will walk all the way to Hawaii to prove to you that it can be done. Take statistics...no really, please take them. Just don't quote to me the numbers for survival of a life-threatening disease, or how my kids are going to not make it if I am a single mom, or divorce rates of people married more than once or the percentage of anything at all. What does it all mean? Absolutely squat! And do you know why? Because I am a human being and not a number or a statistic and neither are you.

  Do me and yourself a big favor today and put down or click off any medical or other information that quotes to you how many of anything live or succeed or move on to greater things. This information is of no value to you whatsoever. I like what one of my all time favorite people said, "I do not file things into my brain that I find useless or of little value. I will then have plenty of room for the pertinent and things I find of value to me." 

-Sherlock Holmes

 Why am I going on this tirade? Because I hate how statistics make people feel. How do you feel when you read them? You are fighting the fight of your life and here comes the latest 98% of people like you_____( fill in the blank). Do you feel discouraged, heavy, depressed? All for what? We as humans can barely get the weather right! Do we think some scientist in white lab gear has a better take? Are these "professionals" the same people who can't seem to give my good friend the right diagnosis after several tries while she sits home and waits to see if she has cancer? Why leave my fate to a bunch of numbers? Next week they will have a new take on how Captain Crunch cereal is to blame for some mad biological epidemic outbreak. Not me babe. 

  I want you to know that you are not a statistic. I want you to know that you are an individual, unique, made in the image of God. I want you to know that you are not a number but a person, worthy of great awe, fearfully and wonderfully made. Every person has their own DNA and way that their body works and responds to disease and treatment. How many times have you heard about somebody who was given days or weeks or months to live only to still be living after the time given them. Why would a doctor even guess? What kind of news is that? He really has NO idea. 

  I would like to encourage you with my story. I was a single mom and my kids made it. I went through a divorce and now am married to a wonderful man. I had a life-threatening aggressive type of cancer and am living. I am not a statistic. I am a 46 year old woman and have a name, a family, a life worth fighting for, a future. Don't quote me your numbers. I find them useless and of little value and need room for more important things like the great Holmes. If you do, you will be talking to my backside as I take a little stroll to the Hawaiian islands.

Blessed Are The Caregivers

"I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."          -Jesus   Matthew 25:26


  I recently read a quote by Ben Stein, "I am not much but I am all I think about." Then I remembered the people who have cared for me through this illness. My husband who stayed with me night after night in the hospital and lifted me out of bed when I needed it only to get up in the morning and go back to work. My mother who crocheted a wardrobe of amazing hats, sat with me day after day watching the Food Networks and drove me to hassle with doctors and pharmacists. My daughter who washed my face and cut my hair tenderly with great smelling products. My son who dutifully watched the clock for my medicine and brought me ice chips. I had friends who visited (and some who didn't), friends who called and sent cards and food. People who prayed that didn't even know me. 
  
  The truth is that care-giving is not limited to even one of these things. It is act of giving care even from afar. I have had people tell me, "I just didn't call because I didn't know what to say" or "I knew some one who recently died and just couldn't deal with you being sick" or "I just can't handle hospitals."  You know what I say to that? GET OVER YOURSELF! This is about the sick person and not you. You know what I would have rather heard, "I am having a really hard time with this but I am calling to say I am thinking about you." If you have a hard time talking, then send a card. If you have a hard time with hospitals, then call the room. You know, who the heck likes hospitals anyway?! Why do people say this? Who goes there on a joy ride? "Hey, I got nothing to do, let's go check out the hospital!" My mom is having knee surgery next week. Am I looking forward to it? No, but you just try and keep me out. 


  People say that I inspire them but you know who inspires me? The friend who I hardly knew who called me EVERY day just to say hi and check in. Some days I couldn't answer the phone and just laid there and smiled at the answering machine. The friend who brought over home-made mac n cheese in a crazy wig so I didn't feel so bad. The friend who commented on every single Facebook update to encourage me. People across the states and close to home who prayed faithfully for me (some who never met me) and introduced themselves later with a smile. The older couple who checked in and came to be with me when I needed them. My boss who kept my job for me and keeps my position flexible. 


  Don't you know that you can be one of these inspirations? I want to follow their example. I have a good friend right now who is fighting pancreatic cancer. I am doing my best to be there and be a comforting presence for her. The caregivers are the true heroes. They push themselves aside and get to work. They push their sleeves up and get in there. They take a chance at being uncomfortable, messy, tired, upset, and generally having to deal with someone who quite frankly is not them self and may be unpleasant as well. I know that pretty much described me. I was too busy fighting to survive and couldn't always give a high five. I cried and complained. Sometimes I was a real pain in the butt.


  I thank God for my caregivers and the fact that they hung in there with me all the way. I only hope that someday people will say about me, that I was one of the ones who really cared. How about you?