Living Beyond Cancer: New Life New Love

I know what I am painting! Honestly, the sketch has been finished for several days. I haven't had the time to paint but it's on the calendar for tomorrow.

I am painting a butterfly. I chose a butterfly for several different reasons. I think butterflies are beautiful but more than that they represent metamorphosis! I am grateful that in this life we are able to continually become. We become taller, fatter, smarter, older and hopefully wiser, among other things. Butterflies, as you know, begin as caterpillars, which for me are similar to worms, (Yuck). After they wrap themselves in a cocoon for several days they emerge as colorful, beautiful, fluttering butterflies. I feel like my cancer journey has been much like the process a butterfly goes through. I was a nice lady before cancer but not all that I could be for sure. Don't get me wrong, I have a long way to go! But I am earning my wings!

Life is not meant to be easy. We must stretch and grow and when we are stuck we seem to attract challenge that will help us break free. I know I had many chances to change, to become the woman I wanted to be and yet, a wall of fear the size of the Great Wall of China was in my way! I created the thought, the plans, the bricks and carefully built the wall one brick at a time thinking that I could protect myself from failure, from grief, from challenges, and from pain. Now I know that I cannot build a wall long enough or high enough to protect myself from myself. I am not a caterpillar! Not anymore!

Chemotherapy is a mean drug! I have to say that I am grateful for these therapies that can shrink cancer or get rid of it altogether. I know many people who have had great success with the treatments, however, not without a great deal of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual suffering. When I began my treatments, soon after my surgery, I was given 2 of the most potent treatments that exist. The treatments lasted 4 hours, once a week at the cancer center and then a pump was attached to my pic line that I took home with me so that one of the medications could continue to invade my veins for another 2 days! When I was finished with that dose I went back to the clinic to get the pump removed. I live about an hour and a half away from the cancer center that I go to so that was a crazy time. Unfortunately, I had a very bad reaction to these chemo treatments. All of my soft tissues began to swell and blister. My lips blew up like little balloons, the tissue around the inside of my eyes was sore, and inside my intestines were blistered and swollen. I didn't know this at the time but the lesions in my intestines would just about kill me, literally! I also had an infection called C Diff and that had weakened my intestines before the chemotherapy was even started. To make a long story short, when my intestines blistered and lesioned poisonous fluids seeped out of the bowels and I became septic which means that my blood stream was being poisoned. I was so close to death that the hospital in my hometown called in life flight and I went for a helicopter ride to the hospital in St. George where I was admitted to the ICU for 3 days.

I was in shock and so cold. The pain was intense and I remember thinking that I wished I could die! I thought of my family and how I couldn't let go just yet because I hadn't seen them and wouldn't leave until I could say goodbye. At this point, I experienced one of the greatest tender mercies of my life! When I felt like I couldn't take another minute of the pain, the shaking, and the bowel issues I literally felt my spirit separate from my body and float just above it. I saw light all around me and felt peace, love, and freedom from the physical pain I had been in for days. A voice quietly suggested that I had a choice to make. I could choose to stay in my body or I could let go. I remember thinking about how wonderful it was not to be in pain. I remember thinking about how easy it would be to slip through to the other side...and then...I thought about my family again! I couldn't leave them yet! I still have work to do here on the earth. I remember telling the voice, "I choose hard!!!!! I will stay!" I stayed in the hospital for another week recovering. Needless to say, I was also started on a different chemotherapy treatment!

Life is precious my friends! It is hard! I believe we knew that it would be a difficult journey. We couldn't have known how hard, but I know that it is worth every single challenge we endure!

So life has its hard times as we well know, but look at this face! Meet my beautiful new granddaughter Tyree Brooke! Joy of joys! Watching my handsome son and his beautiful wife with this little doll fills my heart to overflowing! This is their first child and she is one blessed little girl! This is the reason I haven't painted or posted lately! Just living life!