Yesterday Amanda, Norma, and I took a little trip to Evansville…Amanda needed art supplies, Norma had a few errands to run and I was along just to get out of the house and soak up some sunshine… 

Here we are at McDonalds enjoying some ice cream before our last stop of the day…
Here I am sporting my blonde wig..
I have to say that I like it MUCH better than the reddish/brown one…I could not believe how much cooler it was than wearing a scarf or a hat…I wore it our whole trip and it didn’t bother me too much…so I think I might wear this and wait until I can see the wig person before attempting the darker one again…

Also yesterday was  a pretty good mail day…I got a great pen pal letter from Robin, a funny card and puzzle from a swap-bot friend who has taken it upon herself to be a chemo angel to me (THANK YOU sara!) 

and

I got a big box of hats one of my former co-workers Julie made for me…
She sent some hats, and scarves (one I turned into a headband and wore yesterday with my wig) and a couple of headband things…I’m not surprised because Julie is a super thoughtful, genuine person and I am lucky to call her friend even though we live so far apart

In true Julie fashion there was a funny surprise waiting for me in the box…she had taken all the hats to work and had my former coworkers put them on and she made this FUN collage…

I can just hear her loud wonderful laugh as she put this together…isn’t it great? I will treasure it…
Today is my fourth chemo treatment so I am exactly halfway done…

Break out the piñata!

…I had an appointment with Dr. M today and he said my numbers looked great and that I am doing extraordinarily well with the treatments…he commented on how much smaller my face looks and how I now have a neck…who would have thought I’d be thankful for my neck?

Dr. M has ordered two CT Scans before my next chemo I am assuming to assess how things are progressing and shrinking…so hopefully in three weeks I will have some concrete idea of how all this treatment is working…

Mom just left after bringing me a yummy fish sandwich from McDonalds for lunch…I have about another hour to go and I will be out of here! 

Later, blog friends…YOU ROCK!
SusanD said...Hey April, The wig looks fabulous. I can't believe you still have eyebrows and eyelashes. Mine were so gone. The early birthday necklace is gorgeous. Love the colors. Your friends (former co-workers) did an amazing job on their little gift of support to you. Glad to hear you are doing well. Blessings, SusanD

SusanD said...Oh....and if you're looking for a different wig, here's a website I used. The Amore and Noriko brands are great. They look natural, especially the gradient colors. The have monthly specials so you can buy good quality wigs at reasonable prices. Hope this helps you. Blessings, SusanD

http://www.acewigs.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?keyword=sale

Joyce said...The necklace is beautiful! What nice friends you have! I like the blonde wig on you, and the journal pages are cool. I mailed your journal yesterday.

4smartmonkeys said...The wig looks great!!!
Lovely necklace, happy early bday!!
And your friend that sent the hats/scarves is so sweet, the collage is super fun!
Hooray for half way:)

kati said...love the wig! it looks great.
 
Monday morning I got off work at 7am came home and made myself stay awake until 10am because I was going to a seminar called “Look Good Feel Better” at the cancer center…
It was fun, we got a bag full of donated make-up items…there was someone there who went through the proper ways to put on make-up…I was the youngest one by far and it was fun to watch the older women try to figure out how to use the make-up…
Picture


Doesn’t this wig look amazing on her? it looks so real, she is as bald as I am and with that on you would never tell…I did not find a wig that looked that natural on me…also her eyebrows are drawn on because she has lost her eyebrows (something I am not looking forward too, and hoping doesn’t happen)

here I am beautified!
After being all made up it was time for some fun trying on wigs…first I did red…
I don’t like this picture AT ALL and have decided that I am going to wait until I can take the wigs to a wig shop and have them trimmed to better fit my style and can be taught how to put them on better before I go out in them…I will feel more secure. The wig shop is not open until the 29th so it will be a little bit before I can get in to do that…until then it will be all bald all the time :)
Robin said...Another great post.... I think the red wig looks fab! 

I love the challenge posts that you are sharing! Great job!

Mindy Jones said...YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GET A TATTOO while you are able to without hair being in the way! :) that would be rad. :)

 
Can I get a WOOT! WOOT!
I got the info today that I have been approved for Medicaid…back dated all the way to January 1st 2010…I’m not sure I can explain what a weight this has lifted off of me…I feel like I can breathe and in my head move on to more important things…
The CRAZY amount of money we have spent on prescriptions the past six months will be reimbursed, minus the small co-pay for each…once I have documentation it will be between 4 and 8 weeks before we get it from each pharmacy…
*
it will be a huge blessing, there is one doctor I’ve seen that does not take Medicaid so I will be able to pay them off and use the rest to give to mom for living expenses…I have been unable to contribute the past couple of pay periods…
*
Having had a hard time finding positive things to be thankful for, as of late, and knowing that this is a mind frame that I desperately want to change…starting today, with any post, I am going to TRY to find 5 things to be thankful for or that make me happy…
*
#1. Approval of Medicaid
#2. I made waffles for breakfast
#3. I have more energy today than expected (yea! for being able to do laundry, dishes, and even a run to the library and post office)
#4. I anticipate being able to work the complete seven night work week the next week I work…it just happens to fall at the right time between chemo and being sick from chemo…this is a big improvement from the 2 days I worked two times ago and the 4 days I worked the last work week
#5. I got some beautiful souvenirs from Slovenia in the mail…a glass angel, really nice lace, crocheted bell, a milk chocolate bar, postcards, and a super cute wooden manikin figure…
Letters Mingle Souls said...Woot! Woot! This is awesome news! Yahoo! 

Here's 5 things I'm grateful for today...

1. Baby hugs from my grandson, Sy.
2. Happy Mail
3. Sunshine and lower humidity in my area. (Summertime is not my friend.)
4. Flowers 
5. Friendships with you and Blair. 

All the best to you!
~R

Joyce said...God is in control! Yay!

Glenna Normyle said...YAY Congrats April I do know what it is like to wait for Medicaid here in NH. I had no medical and seven surgeries in the past 3 years. I am a cancer survivor since Nov 2006 I had a rare muscle cancer. It is so great to meet you today. I am postively happy that you are here for me to write to you. I got you as a Swap Bot partner so I am checking out your blog. God is great and remember you are never alone he is always there with you. Your blog is really nice. My blog is at www.glennasgarden.blogspot.com. This is Glenna (glennasgarden) My shop www.gnormyle.etsy.com I hope I get you as partner again! Not a day goes by that I am not grateful for my life and I thank God every morning when I wake up.

Anonymous said...Yay!!!!!!!!! You can also be thankful that Kenzie prays that God will make Auntie April all better.
Love you!
 
It is Sunday, and I had my 3rd chemo treatment on Friday…3 down 5 to go…ALMOST halfway…physically I am bone tired, and just a little sick…mentally I am in a much better place than I was earlier this week…Thank God…while feeling is sometimes hard and has been a lot painful, it is the only way to get to the other side…
  I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
                                -Mother Teresa

This week has been tough…anxiety high…I miss my hair…energy drained… resentful/bitter/numb…hard to find a positive…let satan win, kind of week…which resulted in…

Thursday morning making my first “call for help”…after my third ‘breakdown’ of the week, I asked if my pastor’s wife could come over and just sit with me…she did…she came into my dark bedroom, and sat next to my bed and was just there…I really needed it…I should have made a call like that sooner, but I haven’t, it is scary, it is vulnerable …

I own having the destructive habit of silent expectations…the worst being, if my needs are not met by the people in my life that say they love me it means that I am not worthy of having those needs met…

I feel that I am pretty open about what I need in my life…and don’t feel like it takes much to meet those needs…because they are simple, they are basic, and I refuse to believe they are needs that can only be met by finding a husband and making my own family…

The the past few months I have felt pretty alone…yes, I have gotten an AMAZING amount of cards from family, friends, and new Swapbot friends…and our financial needs were met in the beginning beyond what I could have ever imagined…so don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, and a lot of what I am going to write about it is talking to myself

People are really good at triage…Oh, you have cancer, here is some money, here is a card, here is a hug…but as what naturally happens people have their own lives to get back to…people have jobs, people move, people serve in other areas of their lives, people have…whatever…but when I get less than one phone call a week asking how I am, or someone who ‘loves’ me hasn’t bothered to come and see me, or someone hasn’t offered to come and sit with me during my 7hrs of chemo, or to come hang out with me in the days after when I am SO tired I can do nothing but sit and watch T.V, and need someone to motivate me to take a walk around the block…I feel alone…

And what I am talking about is not just when we forget a widow’s pain 6 months after she loses her husband…or a mother’s heart ache after losing her child, or the needs of someone who is homebound because of an illness they didn’t ask for…I’m talking about…

In general…we don’t do good a living in community…the community that is so clearly marked out for us in the New Testament…I believe that a lot of the heartache and silent longings of our hearts could be healed by us living in community…dinners together, sharing life together, having each other in our homes, laughing together so that we can feel safe to cry together…forgetting the world and encouraging each other in our relationships with Christ…cause really what good are we to the world if we can’t live with our eyes open to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ? How are we really going to be able to see the needs of those around us that need Him? I’m a pretty firm believer in the fact that we need to be filled up before we can pour out, if we aren’t then what we are pouring out isn’t going to satisfy…who around you looks empty? I may be spending this week at home, in bed, or on the couch, too tired to do much, but I want to challenge myself to find someone I can pour into...it may be as little as sending my grandmother a card and a picture, but I want to challenge myself to more...

The young adults and teens of the church are blessing my mom this summer with having a schedule for someone to come over and mow the lawn once a week…our lives are stressful (which can be exhausting) with my being sick and not being able to work full time and how physical her job already is, I can see the stress this has put on her life…and I have seen how this simple act of these generous people giving up a hour and a half of their week has lightened her load, filled her…it is a noticeable difference…

I have a friend from college…she and her husband just had their first child…he has severe medical diagnoses and it is unknown how long he will survive…they have know of this since pretty early in her pregnancy…this has given her a lot of time to wrestle with God, and her feelings…recently in a note on facebook she has some things to say that reflected well how I was feeling… and with her permission I am sharing part of those thoughts here…(I am putting in bold the parts that spoke to me the loudest)

That my heart may sing to you and not be silent. 
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.” Psalm 30:12


The Devil likes to make us believe we are alone in our pain, that how we feel is what is real. One thing I have learned and am always relearning is that my feelings do not determine my reality.


Feeling in a place that is unreachable is not the same as being in a place that is unreachable. I am not alone.


I will only be alone and unreachable because I am the one not reaching. And I am learning to reach. All the time, God has been waiting for me to realize something very important and take his hand to begin something. Life doesn’t begin again when this is “over”. First because it will never end. Our lives will never be the same. We will always be parents who have lost a child. But the question is becoming, why do I want it to be over? Why am I in such a hurry to not hurt anymore?


Because hurting, well, hurts? Who wouldn’t want to get the heck out of that like greased lightening? But What if running away from the suffering, the hurting isn’t the point?


Psalm 30 has become one of my favorite Psalms of late.  Verse 11 in particular: 
“You turned my wailing into dancing; 
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy”


I discovered the other day, thanks Henri Nouwen that I have been reading it all wrong. Even though somewhere I knew my understanding was off, my heart tricked me into thinking it was saying “when my mourning ends, if I can just get through this rough patch, then I will dance”.


Grieving and joy, mourning and dancing, I am being shown, are not mutually exclusive. I believe it is God’s deep desire to dance with us while we grieve. To teach us how He can use the suffering in our lives to create something in us, and perhaps even among us, which powerful and beautiful. And the good times, can really be only be good, when woven when these hard times. These times of hurt in our lives are not just something to get over and through and try not to think about. No. I am learning to stop waiting for life to begin when we can “move one”. I am learning to live fully right now. To smell, to touch, to breathe in every moment of this time with our son even though sometimes it hurts more than I can describe.


I am learning to reach for my Father’s hand and let him teach me the steps.”
 


Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
                   –Helen Keller
Joyce said...April, you are going through so much and need lots of hugs and lifting up but girl, you are the one touching me! Your faith is so strong.

Letters Mingle Souls said...Such a great post... again, lots to think about. You inspire me to think and challenge myself, as well. Thank you.

Much love and big hugs to you! 

~R

Heather said...Hi, this is Heather, supermommy49 from Swap-Bot. I drew your name in the "Check Out My Blog!" Swap. 

I wasn't sure what to expect. But wow. You are an amazing and strong woman. I commend you for being brave enough to put your journey out there. I will be back :-)