CLUB SAMMICH CAFE©: There is life with cancer...

I am off for sleep

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:36:07 GMT

Tomorrow we will be driving in Detroit for a visit to the Ultra-sound Dept at Henry Ford Hospital Main. Already both of us are apprehensive about it.
I know its not much of a test. Easy in fact. But every test comes with thing that go with it. So we will wait and see what happens. I know Hubby just wants this done so we can get on with getting it over with. I just want this test done so they get him to the right doctors to get it done and done right. Sighs.

Anyways tomorrow will tell the tale I guess.

Son is responding nicely to the Antibiotics. Plus he is getting the money back cause this happened due to his work. So he is glad of that and so are we. He also said the pain meds did work well to .

So I was pretty glad of that. Thank Goodness to.

I am off to bed early tonight. Hopefully that will help with things tomorrow. getting a jump on rest lol Well I can try anyways.

Take care everyone Have a great night Hugs and Prayers ..Always Hope

Sighs...

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:00:26 GMT

Yesterday was a pretty weird day. I never got a chance to get back on and write. We did make that trip to the clinic. To get things taken care of .
We got there with a 2 o'clock appointment. Wrong!! Husband was seeing our Primary Doc and Son the P.A. Since he was so busy.
So Hubby got in and finished before Son was seen. First two patients of the afternoon were admits. So the PA was already over an hour behind when we got there.
Husband either had a cyst there over the radial nerve or an aneurysm of of the radial nerve. So we were sent to the hospital across the street for a ultra sound asp. Wrong we got there and there was no one on staff to do a skeletal muscular ultrasound. So we waited to they could find out exactly to see exactly where we would have to go.
Oh course its never easy....So Thursday we have to head down to Henry Ford Main for this ultrasound.
If its cyst we already know who the surgeon will be. If its an aneurysm that means vascular surgery. The chances are good its a cyst. However thats not a good thing either with where its located. But would be a better scenerio.

We hurried back to make it just in time for our Son's appointment. Sure enough the Cipro did not do the trick and the finger needed to be lanced. YUK!! I was glad Hubby was there cause I do those types of things to well. He was given a shot then they went to work on it. He was very sore and they gave him pain meds. Darvocet which he never took. And the clincher was the new antibiotic, Levaqor(sp), 97.oo for 7 pills. Even with our insurance, the same. YIKES!

I will say today he is still swollen but the redness is subsiding and thats positive. Thank Goodness.

So we are regrouping and trying to set up my appointments around all of this. I have the bone density thing on Friday. To bad I didn't make it for yesterday. lol I could of got it done with. As long as we were stuck there.

So Thursday will tell the tale. ON how the rest of the week pans out.
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Today, we worked on getting our Japanese Mullberry tree trimmed. Its growing wildly. If you have ever seen one it looks like an umbrella tree kinda. It very old and if you go under it you can see all the old stems that are dried out and need to be clipped out. Up underneath there is so much dry would there would be enough kindling for bon fires for the summer. We trimmed a lot of that out. and some of the older dry branches out to. Then had to get out the ladder and remove it from where it was growing in to the gutter. on the one side. Making sure it was away from the house. So that was a really big job. Four bags later. Hubby was done. But still we need to talk to someone at a nursery because we have one area that its growing over the neighbors driveway. When trimmed its fine. We just want to know how to get up there and cut the bigger branches and not kill the tree. It seems it would make sense if some of the dead pieces were removed up top that the limbs that are coming out and down would rest better and the tree would just look better. I dunno about it but, Its such a beautiful tree. and the berries are awesome that I don't want to damage it. Nor does Hubby. Plus we priced them and you do not even want to know what this tree costs to replace it. Amazing.

He finished up the the front yard. Just feeling it had to be done just in case he does not want to have be worried about doing it all later in the week. Nor do I . De stressing with everything that has to be done.

Anyways I am off for some sleep I am really tired. Hugs and Prayers Hope.

Ohhh..geesh!!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:33:13 GMT

My mom always says *Its a great life if you don't weaken.* Like my mom life is always throwing punches so you punch back. I won't get in to things with me. But today will be interesting. Hubby is going to the doctors. I don't know but he has some sort of lump...on the inside of his wrist. I have no clue, cyst or whatever it is. I also know he something on his thumb that needs addressing to. So this appointment will get us the referral to the hand guy if anything. I don't think the primary doc can do much with either at this point.
Then round two. Son took that trip for his job a about a week and half back . Came back with an infection in the finger. He works for a Robotics Firm helping repair and fix robots. So he is working with hot grease that breeds bacteria. Oh joy! So he has been on Cipro and finished it so. But his finger is still sore red and inflammed. So he will be down the hall getting a recheck and problay something minor done to release the pressure and infection in that finger.
I told the other Son..don't think about it!! He just laughed.

So that will be my day. I was up bright and early working on getting this one rechecked and making sure he had collected his voice messages.

Mondays are so darned busy ...sigh!!

I figured I would go back to bed...but now the guys are outside cutting the lawn next door. So I am up for good.
Pretty day here in Michigan. Can't be to bad out there as my AC has not clicked on since about 1 am.
So I am off to enjoy whatever the day brings. Hopefully I will not be pulling my hair out by this afternoon.lol
Think I will head out to the patio and have a ice tea and regroup for a bit.
Have a great day.
Hugs and Prayers Hope

Something to make us think.

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:47:15 GMT

I am not in to politics. I don't like to really get in to it. But I did admire Tony Snow. For other reasons other then politics.
I know its this a bit long but sometimes somethings hit me and are pretty moving testimonials.
This one of those reads. always Hope

TONY SNOW'S TESTIMONY

This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow,
President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer.
Commentator and broadaster Tony Snow
announced that he had colon cancer in 2005.
Following surgery and chemo-thrapy,
Snow joined the Bush Administration in April, 2006, as press secretary.

Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy.

Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 3, but has resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue 'other interests.' It needs little intro . . . it speaks for itself. Snow lost the fight on July 12, 2008.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer.&nbs p;
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will.
Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,'

Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations. The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions:
Why me?
Why must people suffer?
Why can't someone else get sick?
We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves
often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths began to take shape.
Our maladies define a central feature of our existence:
We are fallen.
We are imperfect.
Our bodies give out.

But, despite this, - or because of it, -God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval
between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings;
you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death,
but into life - and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on fa ith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an institution that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise.
We want lives of simple, predictable ease, - smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant pleasures of wisdom and joy we w ould not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'.
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces. The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away.
Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God,
closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived,
an inexplicable shudder of excitement as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us ;the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.
Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of cruicifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us,
that we acquired purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy.

A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'.
Most o f us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live.
They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of life.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He restrained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'
H is gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity
- filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can, in the throes of sickness, point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose:
Do we believe, or do we not?
Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations?
Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, He throws reminders in our way.
Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things,
and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know:
Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation,
to lift us up, - to speak of us! This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminious and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou are mindful of him?
We don't know much, but we know this:
No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.'

T. Snow

Yes my head is full of things to do.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:44:48 GMT

Yes my head is full of the to do list! I have to laugh cause that is a good thing..thats life I guess. Having things to do keeps my head busy. Busy is good :) Last night I was thinking what if I lose my sense of humor. I would be seriously screwed. I hate that word but if fits.
I can't imagine life with out a sense of humor or a smile. Getting really mad is great once in a while. But to be like that just cause life isn't perfect as it should be. Well life isn't at all perfect and it never has been. It can be close to it. But I don't think it ever stays that way.

People are looking for a perfect this that and the other thing. I am here to say life is what we make of it. Its never perfect cause its ever changing day to day. If I had perfect I wouldn't know how to handle it. People want more this more that and I am just happy and thankful for what I do have.
I realize it can all be taken away in a heartbeat. Life is pretty precious folks. I would prefer precious any day over perfect.

I am off. Daylights a burning and I don't want to miss a second of it.

Hugs and Prayers, Always Hope