Rockford Arrival

I made it!!

I made it upstairs this morning to our bedroom after sleeping on my couch to apologize to my gracious hubby. 

I made it out the door by 10 am to drive 6.5 hours to Rockford, Illinois for my son in law and daughter’s next baby shower!

I made it to Rockford without getting sleepy or having any chemo diarrhea while driving. Yay! Side note: another small side effect started today that I noticed in the past where my voice is starting to sound raspy when I talk.

I made it half way through an audiobook that is one of the best books I’ve read in a LONG, LONG time! It’s Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg! Oh if I only heard/read this book 30+ years ago!! Listen free on Hoopla or get it on audible! A must read in my opinion! 

I made it! And I’m grateful. 

Now to bed where I’m hoping the next 2 days will feel more normal and the chemo fatigue will be mitigated by more steroids. 

Sleep Deprivation Got To Me AND God Is Gracious

My night Monday night didn’t end until after 2 am on Tuesday due to those very effective steroids! I know my tossing and turning would have kept John awake so I grabbed my newest silky and lovely Blissy pillowcased feather pillow named Cloud and headed to the living room couch! The beauty of it was having an awake enough feeling that when my Korean daughter, Jumi, was awake on her side of the world, I got to talk and pray with her for about an hour!! I’m so proud of this young, godly woman!

What a gift the steroids were to me last night! Then I hung up and prayed that I would feel sleepy. Thankfully, with the help of this Pandora station called Sleep Sounds of Nature, Relaxing…I got some rest for 4 hours on the couch. 

It’s now 5:15 am on Wednesday and I realized I never finished my blog last night so here’sa quick update. 

Yesterday (Tuesday) felt a lot calmer in my brain from the steroids. Not as much jittery feeling. Although today I’m very aware that my vision is a bit blurred even with my glasses on!! 

I went with a friend to her dental appointment Tuesday morning and got to see some of my favorite former coworkers. Love those smiling faces!!

Then I had the joy of spending my afternoon with a dear friend, Lynn, who allowed me to graciously konk out on her sofa to nap because the 3 hours of sleep finally caught up to me right in the middle of a conversation!

We spent the afternoon together and talked about deep things about life, faith, and just how amazing it is to be aware and present with how God works in us, for us, with us, through us every day! We stood amazed at the Million Little Miracles we’ve both experienced IF we just look! Thank you for sharing your day after your birthday with me! I feel loved, seen and understood by you in a very unique, profound real way that’s different than any friend I have and I thank God for giving you life at the same time I’m here to know you!!

And I’m happy you loved my Pistachio Matcha Latte! 

As for chemo stuff, let’s just say the Imodium is helpful to have on hand. I also may be a little more touchy (if you ask my hubby) due to my lack of sleep. Last night I hit a wall over a simple conversation and my brain shut down, my emotions went unchecked and I failed at healthy communication with the most adoring hubby I know! Thankfully he accepts apologies graciously so when I get up of the couch where I slept, I’ll talk it through and ask for forgiveness. Three hours of sleep was not enough! And I’m very glad my body slept in until 4 am today! 

Last Sunday at church God impressed on me from James chapter 4. Looks like I need to re-read it and remember. Thankfully God is gracious and knows my weaknesses AND doesn’t give up on me but gently nudged me back to Him. 

First Sign of Those Side Effects

My Day: Jittery eyeballs. Espresso-like energy. Thoughts pinging twice as fast as normal. Awareness that my mental processing is different than usual. Metallic taste starting. Memory decline about little things is very apparent. The first couple times I experienced this, it honestly freaked me out and made me kind of cry because I thought I’d never feel like myself again! NOT how I wanted to live my life!

However, now all this feels like a normal chemo brain/steroid jacked up kind of day 3 days post chemo. Thankfully, I now know it will get back to normal in about a week. And even MORE thankfully is that this feeling will only happen once more because after my next infusion I will not have that Taxotere drug and those side effects and no more steroids will be needed. 

All that said, today was a very full and productive day! My To-Do List was a mile long and I accomplished it ALL! From sweet cuddle time with hubby this morning to a few family check in calls, then laundry to baking and cooking, mowing and blowing the grass, shopping for new pillows at 3 stores, returning things to a friend, scheduling several appointments, paying bills, reconciling incorrect medical bills (I’m talking a $17,000 bill!!), calling a store about returning then finding the right sink for the WonderVan, cleaning the kitchen 3 times, going to the bank, UPS and the USPS, having a lovely long video talk with a dear friend for over an hour, reading, praying, vacuuming, helping John with WonderVan planning, writing thank you cards, and blogging…& I’m sure there’s something else but I can just feel the buzzing energy pouring out of my body today as I did all this!!

Since I’m going to Illinois this weekend for my daughter’s Illinois baby shower, I’ve decided to leave a couple days early so that I don’t run into unexpected chemo fatigue.  I’m thinking it won’t be too bad because I’ve talked to my medical oncologist about extending taking the steroids for a couple more days to help with the traveling and visiting. I’m hoping I can easily drive on Wednesday and Sunday for about 6.5 hours each day without the fatigue that sometimes hits me!

I didn’t take any photos today for my blog so I’ll add some from a weekend camping trip from last year when I met up with my former sister in law, Debbie! We went to Land Between The Lakes in Kentucky! We biked, hiked, camped, laughed, and lived life to the fullest! She took several of these photos while there with us. I love this lady and so thankful to call her family and friend for the past 35 years! These are just for fun that I feel like sharing! Enjoy!! I love you DK! You’re a precious gift from God!

This was me showing where I was attempting to ride my mountain bike up a steeper climb than usual. 

These pelicans were flying in right in front of our campsite!

There’s an elk and bison sanctuary in the LBL Park that we drove through and she captured this mama and baby so sweetly!

John and I slept inside the van while Debbie slept in the rooftop tent!

Here she is!! What an amazing woman. I’m so blessed because of her!

The bison and elk refuge! This boy was so close and beautiful!

A Recap and Update from Initial Diagnosis April 2022

I can easily start this post with such a full heart! Here I am, after 4 months since my diagnosis, having had port surgery, two biopsy surgeries, multiple chemo infusions, way more medications than I can imagine, initial struggles with life threatening respiration issues and out of control blood to oxygen change, loss of work and no income for 3 months till disability kicks in, 3 hour drives RT to The James Cancer Center every 3 weeks for the rest of my life, managing minor chemo side effects AND yet… so much beauty has come from this unexpected, crazy adventure! 

(The initial PET scan in April 2022 showing metastatic breast cancer everywhere: lungs, bones, lymph nodes and liver)

(First biopsy)

(Port insertion surgery)

(On oxygen 24/7)

(Second biopsy)

And yet the best way to explain my joyful heart is only to point up! Not that my loving, healing, comforting Heavenly Father is only up, because I know He’s with me, in me, around me & for me. But it’s truly His doing, His gift to me, His miracles literally overflowing in my life! I see His hands touching my life everywhere: people, my body healing, beauty all around me, a faithful, adoring, attentive husband, family and friends supporting me, thousands of prayers, gifts and cards, the songs that deeply and profoundly move me like Gratitude and Million Little Miracles, The Passion Translation of the Bible that makes me LOVE reading His Word again, the increase in my faith in His plans, loss of fear, and I could go on and on!

(So many generous friends giving gifts from their deep wells of love)

Here is a small photo montage of just a very few of these miracles!

(The most faithful and loving hubby!)

(A very hard Mother’s Day with my amazing adult kids)

(Supportive daughter and a very hard goodbye)

again!

(The Passion Translation of one of my promises)

My point in all that is to say that although I sometimes feel kinda weird telling people how awesome I’m doing because it doesn’t really “feel” like I have a health problem anymore,

I was recently reminded in my conversation with God that THAT IS my gift! Regardless of what may or may not be actually happening inside my body, I’ve been gifted with “feeling” great! In fact, I often explain it to people when they ask how this happened, that I truly believe I’m the recipient of a modern day miracle! So instead of feeling anything negative about telling folks how awesome I’m really feeling, I am learning to graciously receive God’s gift and say thank You and I accept this gift! To God be all the glory!

(God IS my healer!)

So what’s happening next? I have another round of chemo on September 16th, 2022. This one will be my typical 3 drugs: Taxotere (the chemo drug), Perjeta and Herceptin (called antibodies, but not true chemo drugs). And thankfully this will also be my last dose of the Taxotere so the worst of the side effects should go away including hair loss. I actually could care less about the hair thing but it is the most obvious outward sign of cancer physically. So in about 2 months my hair will start growing back in. There are pros and cons to that too!! Not having to shave my body or bleach my Italian female mustache has been quite lovely! Maybe TMI for some of you who’ve never had to deal with that, but for those of you who have ever had to do this every month or two, you’ll get a chuckle from it! 

I unfortunately will have these antibody drugs administered IV every 3 weeks for the rest of my life because of being given an advanced metastatic breast cancer diagnosis with two different t types of breast cancer (triple negative and ER+,PR+, HER2-)! That’s a lot to take in but it doesn’t feel as bad as it sounds to me anyway! Praise God for that!

As for my work, I’ve decided that as a dental hygienist it would be foolish to return to an environment where I produce aerosols from people’s disease-ridden mouths that I’d breathe in and around where my more damaged and fragile lungs are desperately healing from life threatening cancer in them. So my husband and I agreed that since we don’t know just how long either of us have on earth, we want to live our lives as fully as we can. So we are building out a Sprinter van to live in and drive around the country in while looking for the best places for Mountain Biking, Wilderness camping, paddling our canoe, visiting beautiful places, seeing family and friends, helping with Special Olympics events, and serving our mighty God wherever He puts us! We won’t be rich monetarily, but we will be rich bring together as long as the Lord allows and so we are both officially retiring when his last staircase is built at the end of this year then off into the great unknown in our WonderVan that John is feverishly building out as our last home. Here’s a sneak peek as to the most recent progress!

(Windows put in last weekend)

(Massive new bumpers and storage boxes with bike rack and vanity plates that say ‘1DERVAN”!

That’s really only scratching the surface of all that’s happened in the past 4 months but it is a decent overview. I have much to look forward to including the coming of my first grand daughter this Fall, celebrating 10 years of marriage to John Wonderly and living life fully each day as I wait and watch to see what my loving God is doing next! My love is deeper, my faith is stronger, my gratitude is in everything, and I don’t take one breath for granted! So yes, I’m thankful for my cancer diagnosis once again!

(My zinnia Garden that brings me much joy!)

(The miracle of my gifted prayer bench with an olive wood cross from Bethlehem from my dearest Tina M)

(Grand child #1 on the way!)

His mercies are new every morning if I only look!

Chemo Day #5

Up early because of steroids…like 4 a.m.! Then headed for Chemo Day #5 at The James. God gave me a beautiful sunrise to start the day! 

I’m so deeply thankful that getting the port accessed, getting the chemo drugs and getting de-ported was truly all painless and rather enjoyable to chat with nurses and Dr Sudheendra before the infusion. I realize more and more just how amazing and unbelievable this all is!! 

I was profoundly moved and saddened this morning at Chemo when a woman sitting next to me shared that she’s having breast surgery in a couple weeks and her husband won’t change his work schedule to help her and her mother is too old to help much and she doesn’t have any dependable friends she’s comfortable asking to help. It made me realize just how very blessed I am having hundreds of people praying for me and dozens who have helped me on this journey. So filled with Gratitude once again. 

Afterwards, I really wanted to hike and I stayed local to hike at Patricia Allyn Park where my bench is located. My new friends, Jodie and Angel Carl (who built me the bench), met me there! Carl walked a foot in front of us to wave a branch so the spider webs would not stick to us. We joked that he was the servant waving and fanning the Cleo-patras! I just love to see God’s handy work once again in bringing amazing people into my life. 

There’s so much more I’m thankful for today but thankfully I’m getting sleepy and can’t write much more… but to name a few, I received a card and gift for my daughter’s baby from cousin LuEllyn and a card from my uncle Frank and multiple hugs and such warm reception from several at John’s hockey league, and an overwhelming response of more than 1,150 responses on a Facebook page called Mountain Biking Ladies as I posted about my phenomenal 3 Days with Brenda! 

Until Next Time, Brenda!

Yet another very full and fun day yesterday with Brenda and LillyMae! Started with a cortadito. 

We read a bit of Practicing God’s Presence and celebrated God’s goodness as we reflected on the wisdom of a man whose knowledge and experience of God still can be read after 400 years!! 

Then Brenda very generously freely gave of her heart and head knowledge yet another full day! She invested in LillyMae and me as our mountain biking coach which included instruction on the fundamentals again, training LillyMae to be an assistant coach, then taking it to the trail at John Bryan Trail System! Of course, my friend and coach from Wisconsin wanted to celebrate the end of the clinic with a debrief over ice cream! 

We ended our night with belly laughter and fellowship that was magical and memorable! And this morning before saying goodbye to my gift from God, Brenda and I went to my bench. Words really don’t do it justice as to how full my heart is! 

Brenda Day #2

Sometimes a very special person enters your life so unexpectedly and you viscerally know it’s not you’re doing but God’s. That’s how it has turned out with Brenda. She’s a mountain biking coach from northern Wisconsin who happened to see something I posted last year and it got us communicating about her ordering name labels from a young friend of mine, LillyMae. That was it. Once the transaction was done, that was the end of our dialogue…until April 2022. After I was diagnosed, I posted something about my diagnosis on a Facebook group that both Brenda and I are part of called Mountain Biking Ladies. Immediately, Brenda contacted me and we talked in depth about what was going on with me. She asked if it would be ok to text me daily and I would reply with 3 things I was grateful that day. She would do the same. Faithfully for 4 months now, she has reached out to me and in those texts we have gotten to know each other better. She then asked if she could come visit me sometime, which of course I said yes!! So on Sunday night, very late, she arrived. We are doing as many adventurous activities as possible. Yesterday was so full that by the time we got home at midnight, I plopped down in bed without thinking about blogging! We spent the day driving 3 hours north to Cuyahoga National Park and we hiked to 3 glorious waterfalls and did a little biking. 

Then today she generously has given me such a gift. She offered to do a clinic on Mountain biking fundamentals for both LillyMae and me all afternoon. We worked hard learning new skills and practicing them! What fun!!!

After I mowed the grass at the shop and at home, this girl is ready for bed!! We are cramming as much into our time together as possible because Friday I have yet another chemo infusion and I want to continue celebrating the ability to do this much activity joyfully and gratefully!!