I also got to finally see my son, Jonathan, after almost 3.5 months and got to hear all about his travels. What a blessing he has had the opportunity to travel to China and Japan thanks to my Chinese son Alex! I’m so grateful for their brotherly love and concern for each other!
My Healing Journey through Breast Cancer
This is actually my personal journal that I started after my biopsy. I soon realized that as more friends and family members found out about my cancer, it would be much easier to invite them to read my journal and allow them up to date information on my physical, mental, and spiritual condition.
Blog Archive
Monday, November 18, 2024
November 2024
I also got to finally see my son, Jonathan, after almost 3.5 months and got to hear all about his travels. What a blessing he has had the opportunity to travel to China and Japan thanks to my Chinese son Alex! I’m so grateful for their brotherly love and concern for each other!
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Back Home Normalcy
Since returning from almost 2 months in Canada and Michigan, I admit that it is nice to be back home. Home to my warm soft bed and a washing machine, home to all the conveniences of a house, and home to all my friends nearby.
The past few weeks I’ve been hiking a little more on the Buckeye Trail with my friend Liz. On one of our jaunts while hiking next to Caesar Creek we had the rare opportunity of seeing a buck in full rut chasing down a doe. I missed the video of her but 10 seconds after she crossed the path in front of us, this big boy came shamelessly crashing through the woods in hot pursuit. What an amazing thing to see! We considered how God is like this with us…pursuing us to show His love and to give us life! Maybe a stretch but it’s always my goal to find the lesson in everything!
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
October in Michigan
September in Quetico Provençal Park was wild, remote, adventurous and restorative. That’s behind me and now on to October! No question how grateful I am for the increase in physical strength I now have after a month of portaging and paddling!
To begin, after September in Quetico I popped back to Ohio for a easy infusion for my cancer treatment at The James, picked up some delicious, sesame bread from Dan the Baker, then headed to Florida where I seized and savored every second with some family.
October was spent mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for mountain biking, leaf peeping and exploring!! We primarily dispersed camped in John’s old work van since the WonderVan isn’t ready yet. We splurged on a hotel for a couple nights in Marquette just to enjoy a hot shower and real bed!
However, our mode of camping this month meant slinging John’s hammock diagonally inside his work van while I squeezed my sleeping bag and blow up camp pad underneath him to sleep with packing blankets above and below me on the van floor to keep the overnight 36-50° chill at a minimum. Compared to tent camping in the wilderness, this was luxurious mostly because I had my electric Dometic refrigerator and could have fresh, crunchy, organic veggies daily! (Something I really missed while in the Canadian wilderness).
The fall colors were more than spectacular in the UP, however, it was quite overcast during the height of color there in the second week of October up near Munising. It didn’t stop me from saying WOW a million times though. I cannot recall seeing so many vibrant, neon, illuminated colors all at one time with so many maple trees!! We hunted down some big waterfalls like Tequamenon Falls, but as much as I relish taking in the sights and sounds of tumbling water over granite boulders, that one was a bit too touristy.
This is an old lighthouse on Grand Island where the lighthouse keeper, his wife and their 12 children back in the early 1900s resided.
Frost was on the ground this particular morning and the cold snap infused fog over the lakes making for a mystical silence.
Once we started south to the lower part of Michigan we joined a bunch of old fogies on a Soo Locks boat tour which was educational and historically interesting but I didn’t buy a t-shirt saying I was there!
I was especially grateful that the weather cleared to crystal blue during the day and temps warmed up enough so that we could sit out at night and gawk at that super moon, plus I could step outside in the middle of the night to pee and not freeze! The colors were again at peak as we drove a little down the coast around this hilly and beautiful part of the state. The lavender sky greeted us as that moon crested over the horizon! Wow again at God’s creative genius!
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
One Month Living in the Canadian Wilderness
This was literally something we have dreamed about for years! Although we have gone into the wilderness for two weeks at a time previously, we decided that if I had the physical ability and we had the time, we wanted to go in for the entire month of September… So we have been planning and preparing for many months to make this happen.
Finally, the day came and we drove to Crane Lake, Minnesota, and we were picked up by Zup’s Outfitters on Lac Lacroix, who then brought us by boat to the edge of the wilderness where our journey began.
On the morning of September 28th I woke up in a tent next to a massive waterfall in the middle of the wilderness and on September 29th I finally showered with filtered city water vs lake water after a month and had the luxury of sleeping in a soft bed at home. It almost seems like a dream now, but it’s one I’m so grateful to have experienced!
September 30th I had an infusion at The James and the miracles that God continues to do in my life just keep happening every day, but this is a sneak peek of my life in the wilderness in September, 2024.