Day 86 Final Day Of Jackson Vacation

Today is coming to a close as we are packed and ready for a very early morning back home.

We were supposed to go up in my friend's hot air balloon today, but after the balloons were half inflated and everyone was getting excited about going up, Margaret said that the weather coming in unexpectedly looked unsafe to fly, so everyone's trip was canceled. The funny thing was, we saw another double rainbow over the balloons! Others were disappointed, but I was very thankful they are so cautious, especially in light of the fact that just yesterday the worst US history hot air balloon accident killed 16 people. I'm perfectly fine not taking chances. But we did get to help the crew fold up the balloons and then we all went out to breakfast. Afterward, Margaret's uncle, Andy Breffeilh, said that the weather cleared so nicely shortly after the balloons were put away, that he really wanted to get up in the sky. But instead of ballooning, he asked me if I wanted to go up in his motorized glider! A couple hours later, I was flying in a 2 seater glider next to the Tetons. We did not stay up long at all though because he felt like the engine was getting too hot from waiting on the tarmac too long for the commercial jets. Again, I am most grateful for his safety concerns.

It was another hot day here in the Jackson Hole valley and after being outside for hours and on a hot tarmac waiting for our turn to lift off, I admit, I was getting a bit overheated. When we got home, I slept and felt a bit woozy. After hydrating and napping, I was fine. I have to be very careful about staying hydrated and I have enjoyed using my glass water bottle every day along with sleeping with the softest blanket every night that I got from my step daughter, Kasey.

We had a pleasant evening with Linda and Burr and now are packed and ready to head home.

What an amazing 10 days! Playing and resting with friends, realizing potential new work contacts for John, meeting Dr. Mary Neal, and 2 days of double rainbows...it's been a restful time.

I am a little worried that I may not have all the people lined up next week after my chemo treatment, but I trust the Lord will provide exactly what I need.  I also admit that I have some anxiety about Tuesday's treatment. It makes my stomach sick to think of it and how it will make me feel.  I will try not to think about it and distractions do help!

Thank you for all my dear friends who have wished me a great respite and for all who have supported me on this one an only trip I'll see in the next year. It's been a huge blessing on many levels. We take off super early tomorrow morning and will be home in the afternoon.

Day 85 The Miracle of Meeting Dr. Mary Neal

Today I had the privilege of meeting someone who significantly changed my life and I am most thankful. As I mentioned before, she is someone who the folks we are staying with knows, and she wrote a #1 NY Times Best seller book, To Heaven And Back. She graciously was willing to meet with me this morning and gave me an hour and a half of her time. She has talked with thousands of people regarding her near death experience, she has been on Dr. Oz, Oprah, etc and she is the most down to earth, humble, genuine person you'd ever want to meet. I just had to thank her for being willing to share her story as it has impacted me in a way I never really expected. She even brought me a copy of her book, and after we talked and I also shared about Jordan and Liz Pieniasek, she wrote a personal note in the book and we will give it to Liz as she will hopefully be very comforted to read about someone who personally has experienced death, not only herself, but has experienced deep loss when her 18 year old son died.

As a part of our adventure for the day, Burr and Linda own a white water raft and Burr has been a professional white water guide for years as a young man, so they took us on a long river ride down the Snake River! It was wild, wavy, and lots of fun. We laughed so hard when the boat dove down into the river and splashed us..no drenched us! Then when we came up and were laughing with the thrill of it all, I jokingly said that the wave was so big, it took my hair right off! Gotta laugh at this crazy situation I'm in, bald and all.

Then tonight, we had another gift from God. As we were making dinner, we heard a little rain drop sound on the roof. We went outside and noticed a rainbow starting across the mountain behind the river and in the next 20 minutes, it formed the most vivid colorful rainbow, in fact, we got a double rainbow and the entire arch stretched across the sky right in front of our eyes. It was magnificent! Such a promise from God that all His promises are true.

Heading off to bed as we will be getting up very early for a surprise hot air balloon ride.

Day 84 Answer to So Many Prayers & Wildlife Galore

Today and yesterday were awesome in many, many ways.

First, I was having a conversation with our friends out here and Burr shared with me about a woman in Jackson, WY who is an avid kayaker and had the most amazing thing happen to her many years ago.  So after some details of her and her son's death, I looked her up on Google because what he shared about her was unbelievable! There were several Youtube videos about her and when I watched a particular video, I would say God definitely supernaturally used her life's story and near death experience to help me understand a completely different context of my breast cancer, of my sweet friend, Jordan Pieniasek's death, and the critical nature of sharing that video with every single person that reads my blog and Facebook page. Her name is Mary Neal. If you are reading this, I would ask each person to take an hour out of their lives and invest in understanding God, illness, life and death in a whole new way.  It rocked my world and I consider this the greatest gift I have received to date. I would love to share it with you, too.  After watching this twice now, I have been also blessed with the gift of being able to meet with Mary Neal personally tomorrow. She knows Burr and Linda from church and Burr has taught her other children in school, so he simply called her and asked if she would be willing to meet with us so I could share how impacted my life has been because she was willing to share her experience.  Please take the time to watch this: https://youtu.be/fHXW1erHMtg.

Next, today the wildfires in the area are causing some real issues with smoke completely impeding the view of the mountains, so we laid low in the morning and went for an afternoon activity instead. Thankfully, by late afternoon, it cleared enough to enjoy some scenery. The first activity was going to a raptor rescue center where we saw bald eagles, a great grey owl, peregrine falcon, and golden eagle. Driving past some forest land, we saw a herd of elk. Then tonight while were were sitting on our friend's deck eating dinner, we witnessed an osprey with a trout in its talons being chased by a bald eagle, chased by a blackbird. They all went around the house and over the Snake River in their back yard for 3-4 minutes until the bald eagle won and got the fish from the osprey. Amazing to watch God's creation in action like that!

I am thankful that I am feeling so great now! I am fully aware how tired I get with minimal activity from being so sedentary in the past 6 weeks! But I feel wonderful, finally!

Lastly, I am wondering if any local friends are interested in hanging out with me to Tricia-sit for a few hours next week while John is working and I am recovering from my next chemo session? Please let me know if you are at all interested. I'm pretty boring, but want to be sure I have someone to just sit with should I need help.

Day 82 and Day 83 Low Key Still But Feeling Really Good

I went to bed yesterday realizing that I did not even think of blogging about anything because I really had nothing too concerning regarding cancer to report. PTL! However, I did have another very uneventful day, which was lovely.

I stayed at our friend's house the entire day but felt good. I realized that I had more dairy when we first got here than I usually have and that may have been a part of my tummy upset because 2 days ago I decided to lay off the dairy and noticed how much better I felt. Then yesterday morning we made Chugwater Chili and of course, I put a big dollop of sour cream on it. Within 5 minutes I felt unwell and needed to lay down. After an hour's nap, I woke up and was better. Hmmm. I definitely think it's the dairy, so I will lay off until my GI is better.

Linda and I went through John's laptop's photos of our trip to Quetico in 2015 and China in 2013 as our afternoon entertainment.

John came home after another long day meeting with builders and architects and wow! he had a hugely successful day! Once builder even gave him a set of blueprints to made a bid on a staircase that they are doing right now! Another builder texted him after his presentation and told him how impressed everyone at their senior staff meeting was with him and his professionalism and they can't wait to work with him. This is a huge answer to prayer! Now we just need to let things unfold.

In the evening, John grilled us all dinner and then we retired to their campfire area 10 feet away from the Snake River and we talked and sipped peppermint tea and listened to the river's flow. How beautiful, once again!

Today, I think I should be feeling well enough to go out on a little adventure. While John continues to meet with more builders and project managers in Wilson, WY, Burr, Linda, and I are going in to town to take the chair lift up Snow King Mountain and walk around a little bit.

One really exciting gift I just received news about is my other friend here in Jackson, Margaret Breffeilh whom I used to work with in Chicago at a dental office, IL, got ahold of me and we will get together this Sunday!  The treat is this...she owns her own hot air balloon and is part owner of the only hot air balloon company in Jackson...she offered to take John and I up on a ride Sunday morning! I decided I'm not going to tell John, but just say we are meeting Margaret early Sunday (6:15 a.m.) for breakfast because she has to be somewhere. Then I can't wait to see his face when I tell him she is taking us up in a hot air balloon! God is so good to us!

Day 81 Peaceful Day and Still Recovering from the Chemo (sad face)

Thank you to all my friends and family who sent me private and Facebook messages encouraging me from yesterday's upset. I am humbled by your kindness and love and even one who went above and beyond to make a second huge donation to my www.gofundme.com/triciawonderly account! Lee Doll is a patient of mine and has generously gifted me again. Please take a minute and look her up on Facebook 'Lee Doll Ministries'. She has a huge God story to tell and I hope everyone gets a minute to know her story.

Starting out this morning at 2 a.m., I woke to the most brilliant moon shining into our bedroom. The air here at night is a cool 45 degrees and the Snake River flows 75 yards from the house and our bedroom looks directly on it, so when the light of the moon is as radiant as it gets here, it's something to behold! I do have to sleep with a hat on because we sleep with the window cracked and 45 degrees makes for goose bumps on my scalp! Thankfully, it warms up to 80s in the day.

Also, I need to always keep a snack next to my bed, as I wake up starving and if I don't feed the monster, I get chemo brain and nausea pretty fast.

When we woke up, John left for the day to meet with more builders and architects in Jackson and had a very successful day! Praise God...He was even asked by one of the largest home builders in town to do a presentation at 7 a.m. to all their senior partners and project managers to talk about what John Wonderly Architectural Woodworking is all about. He said that they have looked at his website: www.wonderlywoodworking.com and are fascinated by his work! This was such great news!

I, on the other hand, couldn't really go anywhere all day as I had dumb chemo brain feeling off and on throughout the day. But I pressed through and Linda and I did do a really interesting Bible study for almost 2 hours. One of the side effects of this chemo that is pretty consistent but I forgot to mention is the taste of metal in my mouth most of the time.

Finally, I felt well enough to go to the grocery store and we got dinner and came home to grill out. The sunny 75 degree evening was delicious to sit outside and watch the hummingbirds dive bomb each other as they fight for a sip of the nectar Linda makes.

All in all, an uneventful day, which is exactly what I needed. I will say that I did expect to feel better by now on this trip, but it's better to be here feeling a little chemo brain than sitting in Ohio without John feeling a little chemo brain. No regrets in coming out here! This place is stunning.  Hopefully, by the end of the week, I will feel well enough to float down the river in an inflatable or take the tram to the top of the Tetons and look out onto the valley.

Again, thank you dearest loved ones for your encouragement and support!

Day 80 Response to yesterday's anonymous comment

I received an anonymous comment from day 78's blog and after answering it in the comment section, I was told it was too long to insert as a reply to that comment, so I am making that comment part of my blog for today.

Before I copy and paste my reply, I wanted to let those of you who follow my blog to know that I'm still laying low at our friend's house. I do feel well enough today to eat mostly normally, and I haven't had to nap most of the day away like the previous few day from feeling sheer exhaustion. I am very thankful for that. I also called my oncologist and let him know about my incident at the ER on Saturday and see what they wanted me to do. Seems they are not concerned I need to do anything drastic so long as I am not bleeding a lot! As for John, he is actually working out here in Jackson and meeting with many builders and architects all week to see if he can get connected here to increase his business.

Yesterday, Burr took John fishing in their boat. Our friend's house backs up to the Snake River, so they slipped out the backyard into paradise! Although the fishing was unsuccessful, John expressed how thankful he was that Burr offered to take him out. It is such a gift to see John have a time to relax and play a little. Taking care of me and working to provide financially without my help has caused a lot of stress on him and it brings me great joy to see him have some fun with friends.

Now, for the comment somebody made to my post yesterday, I had to really think long and hard how I, and if I wanted to reply. My first response was that that person was quite ballsy to throw a question like that out anonymously on my blog. But I don't know who this person is. They may not know me at all and I'm not sure why they think they needed to ask, as if they are the blog police, but I realized it would be a great opportunity to be totally honest about my vacation and even more, to show just how amazing God is acting in my life. So for that person, here is my reply.

Dear Anonymous,

This personal blog of mine is intended for my friends and family to understand the details of my day to day life as I walk through this journey of breast cancer. I really don't understand why anyone would pose such an indicting question unless you don't know me and feel like you have something to prove to the world, or you yourself would do such a dishonest thing and felt convicted personally in your own sinful dishonesty that you would even think that of me.

Admittedly, your sarcasm and anonymity are a bit unappreciated. Your lack of knowledge of the details of my personal situation is also evident.  I assume you don't know me well, either, otherwise you would not have asked, but since you put it out there, I would love to answer your question because it will shed light on God's goodness, despite your questioning my integrity. If you feel it is necessary to have more details than what I provide for your personal inquisitive satisfaction, I will joyfully provide that and you may personally email me to gain whatever more information you would like. I operate as a straight shooter and with honesty and integrity, and hopefully, next time, you might be more trusting and ask less insensitive questions. But for you, I will gladly oblige.

As I stated in several other blog posts, this vacation to visit and stay with friends who live in Jackson, was planned a long, long time ago, and I purchased and paid for the tickets in April, 2016. These tickets were already totally paid for with my budgeted vacation money I set aside when I was working full time and did not have any knowledge of having cancer. So when I got a diagnosis in May, I actually inquired with the airline about getting a refund or credit for these tickets to see what my options were as there was no guarantee that I could travel. Because I did not get trip insurance, something I'll never do again, I would have lost the money I paid for these if I did not use them. Even getting credit, in part, for them would not have been something I would have been able to utilize due to the fact that this next year I will be enduring chemo, surgeries and radiation. The restrictions on credit for unused tickets limited me to using them by April, 2017, one year from time of purchase. This was something I did not see happening.  So, it was my hope that during my first 8 weeks of chemotherapy, when I potentially have a 7 day window of feeling good between chemo treatments, I would feel well enough to still travel on a vacation I had planned long before my cancer diagnosis!

Now you might be saying that Jackson is a very expensive place to travel to for vacation, even if the tickets were paid for beforehand, and if I was someone else, you might have been right. But we are blessed to have friends who live there, picked us up at the airport, let us use their car, and we stay for free at their house, not to mention eat healthy home cooked meals at their house, which they have graciously provided as a gift to us! So I would never think of using 'other people's gifted money' for a rental car, dining out, hotels, or entertainment! Isn't that great! Therefore,since all this was given to us, I decided that since I will be suffering with all the pain, discomfort, and side effects of cancer treatment for the next year (obviously something you have no sympathy to understand), and I had the tickets already, and everything we will be doing will be at no cost to us, AND we will have the refreshing opportunity to heal for the one week in that 10 day period I will feel well in the next many months, I decided to accept the gift from my Heavenly Father and enjoy His beautiful creation in the Tetons, be loved on by my Christ-loving friends who offer us a respite for 10 days, and not even waste my own money I used to pay for our tickets many months ago. See how God works?! He does indeed take care of me, as you mentioned in your anonymous comment. Hopefully, you now see how I responsibly used my own money and accepted the gift of loving friends who understand the healing power of trying to live life as normally as possible when my days are often filled with feeling pretty awful.

As for the gracious money my friends and family have given to me to help pay for my "bare necessities", it was something I asked people to only do it if God put it on their heart to do as I will, indeed, have no income as a dental hygienist for a year. I would never want one penny of anyone's money if they questioned my integrity on how I used it. God will bless those who have given, as He has blessed me! For this I am so thankful! So you see, I will accept the loving gifts of those who choose to give to me because Jesus put it on their heart to take care of all my needs, whether it be prayer, money, a turban to cover my bald head, a home cooked meal to ease my burden at home, or a free healing vacation in Jackson, WY. All these are gift from a Heavenly Father who lavishes His love on me abundantly and I am not ashamed to accept His gifts. Thank you for helping me glorify His Goodness and giving me a platform to show how He takes care of His children!

Day 79 Still Laying Low and A Quick Visit To The ER

We are still very low key here. Most of yesterday and today my energy is quite low so I nap a lot & eat every 2-3 hours to keep from feeling nauseated.  We sat around and talked with Burr and Linda as our main activity. I was a bit more tired than I imagined, but at least I don't have a headache and I actually feel decent.

Unfortunately, we had a little scare yesterday afternoon that landed me in the emergency room for 2 hours but according to the blood work they drew, I am actually ok. Here is where having cancer gets gross but as I've said before, it is my reality. Read on if you want but it's a gross thing that happened.

So cancer tends to cause GI changes in most people as it kills the fast dividing cells. For me, thankfully, I have not experienced vomiting that many do. I, however, have struggled with needing to go to the bathroom 3-5 times a day! This gets a little rough on one's bottom for a few reasons and I've come to realize that my new normal means there will be a little blood present when I wipe clean. I remember asking the oncology nurse if it was a problem and she assured my that so long as it is on the paper only and not in the toilet, it's not a concern. Well, yesterday I had a huge scare when I looked in the toilet and it was bright red in the entire bowl! I called my doctor's office immediately in Cincinnati and they said I needed to get to the emergency room because my platelets could be dangerously low and I could be in trouble if I didn't have it checked.

So the adventure of our day now included going to the Jackson, WY emergency room. Thankfully, they said my platelets were stable and it didn't concern them so long as it didn't persist and I didn't lose more than 1 cup of blood. Not that I'm sitting there measuring, but I think it was much less than that. So I was released and we carried on as planned.

As we were sitting around the campfire at their house right next to the Snake River and gazing at the billions of stars as we recited poetry and told stories, I was very thankful we were here. It was a good night.

Today John and I enjoyed their hot tub at 6 am and I've been pretty tired all day. We all did a bible study together instead of going to their church. I'm much better off not being around crowds.

John just left to purchase a fishing license and I woke from another nap. I really hope my energy is better by Monday or Tuesday so we can play a little while we are here. But at least I can rest while seeing the mountains and river and stars and being in the company of dear friends.