BuiltaLife

Offering hope to those on the path behind me

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A Sabbath

10/03/2015 / / 0 Comments

Day 3 – Rest and Relaxation

Yesterday was much better. I took my breaths, the messages were there but not pressuring me and my husband was feeling better.

Better is obviously a relative term. How much better do you feel when you are thinking about what the next step might bring. But yesterday and today (yes, I’m writing this pretty late in the evening) we were able to put that our of our mind.

Today I felt like I found rest, like a Sabbath. We watched a lot of college football (#Go Frogs! Great win today!) and did not even think about what next week will bring.

It Felt good to not worry about the next step.

I’m sure tomorrow the worries will be back, the questions will return as will the fear of what lies ahead.

But today I find comfort in Matthew 6:34

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Do you take time for a Sabbath?

Overwhelmed

10/02/2015 / / 0 Comments

How was the first full day home from the hospital?

In a word:

overwhelming

The first full day home from the hospital and I am already overwhelmed (yes, I keep writing it because there is no other word that completely conveys that feeling).

As I laid in bed last night, asking God to help me stay calm today, I realized that I need a plan to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed on a daily basis.

For those of you just joining in on this journey through the 31 day writing, you may not know that I have stage 4 breast cancer (you can read more about that here). For the last 5 years, actually just a few weeks shy of the actual anniversary of the diagnosis, my husband has been the primary care giver in our household.

Now that my husband has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer also, the tables are flipped. I am overwhelmed with the daily decisions that have to be made. What do we need from the grocery store? What do we eat for lunch or dinner? I have not had to make these decisions on my own for a long time.

Today I have come up with 4 steps I’m taking to keep from having that feeling of running away, or more importantly, not throwing my cell phone against the wall and breaking it into smithereens:

Turn off the sound notifications on my text messages (except for immediate family).

Friends and family are wonderful. They want to check on us. They want to know what they can do to help. But receiving text messages constantly throughout the day makes me think I need to respond to them immediately. I realized that I do not. So except for texts from my daughters, I will not be responding to texts except during certain times. I haven’t decided what those times are yet, but just knowing that has calmed my nerves already today.

Keep a small notebook on the table next to me.

People want to help. They need to help. I get that. But it is overwhelming to have to think about what someone else can do to help you when all you are trying to do is breath and get through the day. I have figured out a few things that need to be done around the house, and will continue to discover more things throughout the upcoming days and weeks. Keeping a notebook of these things will allow me to delegate these tasks to the people who will be able to do them.

Do the mundane.

There is comfort in the mundane. Doing laundry, it has to be done, but it makes me feel like I have control of just a small part of the craziness going on around me. Folding clothes, putting them away, paying the water bill (ok, I admit, I’m the nerd in the family and having control over bills and the checking account is calming to me, maybe not for everyone). These things are not pressing, there is no one asking me to make a decision, they are things that I can do on autopilot.

And finally, today I will remember to breath.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

It’s Day One

10/01/2015 / / 0 Comments

I don’t know if you listen to Christian music, but I do. I was especially listening the last week as I was driving 45 minutes each day to the hospital to visit my husband who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

One of my all time favorite artists is Matthew West. His songs have seen me through some very tough times in my life. This week was no exception. One morning I heard Matthew singing directly to me once again. Day One

My husband has been going to the doctor for almost a year because of a cough that would just not go away.  He would take antibiotics and he would feel better for a few days and then the cough and the lethargy would come roaring back. He had x-rays and blood tests, a CT scan and more. But none of it seemed to reveal what was really going on.

As we are all prone to do, I was pondering how they could have missed what we now know was metastatic tumors in his lungs. Not to mention the tumor that has been growing exponentially in his kidney.

During the car ride, Day One by Matthew West came on the radio. It was like Matthew was sending me a direct message from God. This is day one of the rest of ‘our’ lives. There is no looking back. We cannot dwell on what could have been, we can only focus on where we are headed.

The rearview mirror is off-limits and we are looking forward. Moving in the only direction that will be helpful. The past is just that. Now each day is a new day, and we must make it the best day of our life, for we are not promised tomorrow.

Please join me as I continue to process this new journey that we have embarked on.

Do you have something in your rearview mirror that needs to be released?

Don’t let Worry steal your Future

09/18/2015 / / 2 Comments

Last Sunday the sermon was about worry.  The preacher mentioned that there were studies that indicate that worry is a sign of intelligence. This post on Huffington Post, cites a study that found a relationship between worrying and verbal intelligence.

I admit I have been a worrier in the past. (I’m not trying to suggest that my verbal intelligence is high). But honestly, that was before I was diagnosed with cancer the second time. I guess I didn’t learn my lesson well enough the first time, so maybe I am an anomaly to the intelligence/worry correlation.

In 2010 when I got the news that my cancer had metastasized, I will admit I was worried and scared.

Scared for what that meant for my family. What would happen to them if I wasn’t around. After all, my kids were in middle school and high school. This might be too much for them to handle.

As happens when you get that kind of news, you go straight into fight mode. You find out what the test results are and you talk to you doctors to find out what the next course of action is. (You can read more about how this journey started by reading My Story and following along).

Since I wasn’t able to work during this time around due to physical issues, I felt isolated. Some wonderful friends talked me into joining a bible study at our church to help get me out of the house.

This was when the change started to take place. I participated in a bible study group for several months, and then found another class that was a more in depth study.

The small group (less than 15) and the daily reading and learning slowly began to change my outlook.

I began to understand that I could not change the fact that I have cancer. The best I could do, for me, for my family and for my health was to live life without worrying every day.

Easy?

Continue reading

Surgery, Round 2…A Plan for Chemo

09/17/2015 / / 0 Comments

The world continued around me even though it felt like mine was falling a part.

My children still had to get up and go to school. I still had a job (that one that I just started in August). I had to continue to get up out of bed each morning and figure out how to make it through the day.

In 2003, my girls were 8 and 5, respectively. They did not understand what was going on with mom. They just knew that I was home and that climbing on me was uncomfortable for me, but as any mom will attest, the best medicine is a good snuggle from her kids.

Somehow I made it through the weekend and Wednesday came. It was time to go back to the hospital for round 2 of the lumpectomy. In addition to trying to get clear margins around the tumor, the surgeon was also going to remove some lymph nodes to determine if the cancer had gone beyond the breast. Continue reading

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