Whirlwind week as we get ready for our trip to Mexico

Hi everyone! It's been several days since I last updated and that is because of all our busyness surrounding the holidays. We had a great Christmas, with lots of family members creating and serving a wonderful holiday meal at our house. Everyone pitched in to cook, serve, and then clean up the meal. I cannot thank you enough if you were one of the angels who pitched in! The food was wonderful and it was so thoughtful for everyone to come to my house so I didn't have to travel.

Since then we have painted and rearranged the kids rooms to go with their new bed things they received for Christmas. Their rooms had never been changed and were looking a bit outdated and not at all what they wanted. I have wanted to do this for them for a long time. I had a lot of help with this too--and it turned out wonderful! I still have a number of things I want to do with furniture, wall hangings, and those sorts of things, but time will take care of that. I'm also looking forward to making what has always been just our "playroom" into an organized den with a toy area, TV area, and a workspace and storage for my scrapbooking things. That, I guess, will need to wait just a bit longer until I am stronger.

Now that Christmas, the room decorating, and the new year are behind us, it's time to really start putting some thought and preparation into our trip to Mexico. This is what I really want to focus on in today's blog. I know many of you are as anxious as I am about all this, and many of you have questions. If you will respond to this post with comments, or call me, I will be happy to answer anything you'd like. Chances are someone else is wondering the same thing.

For now, the plan is that we leave Wednesday. Our flight is in the evening; 5:25 or something like that. We will be busy all day packing and doing last minute things. We will arrive there in San Diego around 9:30 that evening and will get a ride to the Hampton Inn, where we will stay until the next morning. A shuttle from the Oasis of Hope hospital will meet us at 8:30 a.m. and will take us to get our temporary visas and then on to the hospital. I will start my tests and consultations right away. I assume treatment will begin right away as well. We will be there at the clinic until the 15th, then we fly home on the 16th.

As far as I am concerned, this all just can't happen soon enough. I have some very strong feelings regarding this trip. First of all, I feel that since I haven't been using any treatment at all for the last 2 weeks, my health is decreasing fast. I am really having more pain and discomfort. Maybe it's in my head, but it is clear to me that the cancer is putting up a pretty big fight of it's own. My body is certaininly declining, which is the cause of the weight loss. No matter what or how I eat, I continue to lose weight. I am SO ready to undergo treatment!

Not doing damage to the body and the immune system is very important to this clinic. I should not have to suffer a lot of discomfort or side effects for these treatments. Most of the treatments sound like they are given intraveinously; probably through my port. I am not looking forward to being stuck, having a CT scan, and so on. But I am very ready to get healthy.

Another one of my strong feelings is regarding my recovery. I know I have tried many things, and that many of my friends and family are trusting me to do what's best, but don't necessarily understand what I'm doing. To those people, I want to say this: I have allowed God to lead me all along in this journey, and this is no different. I feel like this is the right thing to do. I awoke one morning recently feeling so full of joy I wanted to burst. I felt like telling the world! I had nothing to attribute it to except that I feel like my return to full health is just around the corner. When I think about it, I'm so excited. I'm going to be well! I'm going to plant a garden this summer, and take my kids to do fun things. I'm going to vacation at the beach again, and return to teaching the kids I love. I'm going to put on weight and look healthy. I feel it.

Now, that said, (and this is coming from the rational part of my brain ,which would like equal time here) I do realize that we do not know God's plan for any of us. I'm going to sound like a complete idiot if I'm wrong. I know that statistically, and according to my "conventional" doctors, my illness is terminal and we can only ease my pain and attempt to prolong my life as much as possible. My head is asking me to be aware that cancer often doesn't have a happy ending. So I have faced that. I know where I am going IF I die. On a day-to-day basis, however, I plan to go with the hope and the joy of complete healing.

I guess I'd better get with doing some things that need to be done, so that's it for today. Please keep praying for me. I know God has great things ahead for all of us.