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 Their rooms had never been changed and were looking a bit outdated and not at all what they wanted.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.

A New Idea Takes Hold

Welcome to any of you who decided to come and take a look. Though I've never done this type of journaling before, I'm sure that if so many other people out there can do this, so can I. What started yesterday as an offhanded comment, "...maybe I'll just start a blog, and then anyone who wants to know what is going on with me can check in and read about it..." , was actually pretty well received by several friends and family members, and I was encouraged to give "blogging" a try. Though I don't know what kinds of things I will be writing about, I plan to use this blog to keep anyone who is interested up-to-date on the diet effort and weight gain results (none yet, need a scale!), doctor visits, test results, Mexico trip plans, recent health decisions, how I'm feeling, and those types of things, along with how the family is holding up under all this.

It is my understanding that readers can post comments and questions, so I welcome people's feedback. This might turn out to be kind of fun!

So I guess I need some information to start things off. It's Sunday, and I taught Sunday school as usual, but I did not stay for church today since I couldn't get anyone else up and around with me this morning. Also, I needed to get back home so I could eat. I'm not kidding, this eating business is SO HARD! You would think that consuming 2000 calories a day would not be a big deal, but when most of what I'm eating is supposed to be vegetables and lean proteins, it requires a bunch of food. Turns out that a serving (1/2 cup) of broccoli only contains about 20 calories. Same for most of the other veggies. It sure doesn't add up very quickly! Last night at 8:00 I was forcing down a piece of whole-grain toast with a tablespoon of almond butter (similar to peanut butter, which I'm not allowed right now) to push my day's count over the 2000 mark. I made it, but I was stuffed! I'm determined to try to eat more food, earlier, today to avoid the late-evening cramming.

I begin each day with a notebook and a pen, plotting out what to eat and when so I can be sure I get it all. Then as the day goes on I check things off my list. In 3 days it's getting a little easier to eat all the food, so my stomach may be stretching back out a little. It must have really shunk this fall. Food still doesn't interest me all that much, but maybe that will come. I try not to worry about what I will eat tomorrow. I'm taking this one day at a time. Someday this will be easy.

Some of you may not know yet, but after next Friday, I plan to take a leave-of-absence from work. My WONDERFUL school district is trying to cover my absence with donated sick days so that I don't have to lose pay, and both the students and faculty have been very supportive of my decision. My doctors feel like I am just expending way too much energy, so I need to mostly stay home and rest, allowing my immune system to do its job. I've finally agreed to comply.

On the third of January Mike and I will fly to San Diego, where we will drive to Tiajuana, Mexico and be admitted for a 12-day stay in one of the alternative cancer clinics there. We have chosen Oasis of Hope (www.oasisofhope.com), which looks perfect for our needs. Family members will keep the kids while we are gone, and we will go again 2 more times for 6 days each. We have high expectations for great results! We should be returning on January 16. I plan to keep in touch by email while I'm gone, and if this blog is not a total flop, I will try to keep it updated with news, test results, and what they are doing to me down there. But someone's going to have to let me know they've been here, so it isn't all a wasted effort! Well, that's probably enough for one day. I'll probably have more to say by tomorrow! So, until then, blessings to you all!