CHOOSE: LITTLE PINK PAD

Cancer Center.

Choose the little pink pad. Sounds simple enough.

But.....how do you choose the Pink Pad without also choosing anxiety, dread for the procedure without fear of the outcome?

So....how does one choose reality of a hard place moment without exacerbating the situation with negative emotions? Here's my list.

• Battle those fearful thoughts with the Sword of the Spirit. (Ephesians 6:17)
• Know that the spirit of fear is not from God. (2 Timothy 1:7)
• Remember God’s goodness in a past cancer journey or difficulty and tell others. (Psalm 145:4)
• Recall God’s omnipresent promise. (Isaiah 41:10)

Give up the “what if it’s cancer” tremors and exchange it for “even if it’s cancer,” I know God can use it for good. (Move from “what if” to “even if” thinking---a tip I learned from Carol Kent)

Choosing the little Pink Pad was something to lead me to results I had no control over so........"when I am afraid," it's wise to put my trust in the hands of the One who is truly in control. (Psalm 56:3)

SABBATH SNAPSHOTS: HOPE

8/11/13

WHAT? No snapshot and this is Sunday. The entry advertises a photo, so where is it?

Due to a transfer snafu, the picture of hope will be different for each of you.

Imagine, if you will, a door wreath at Jones Clinic at the entry to the “chemo area.” See in your mind boa-type wisps of a feathery pink. Note embellishment of “pink breast cancer awareness” ribbons. Visualize words of encouragement & hope written in black on thin white ribbon.  There’s your picture.

A picture of hope.

Actually, over the last 12 months, I have seen faces of the Jones Clinic clientele who are pictures of hope themselves.  There’s nothing like the diagnosis of a terminal illness to increase one’s hope for life. An extension of life. 

I’ve also witnessed kind, caring, but honest nurses. I applaud each of the similarly encouraging patients, who are all on the same side of the cancer struggle. 

All are hopeful. Hopeful not only for themselves but for each other as well.

The patients I see most often are all a picture of Psalm 33:20-22.

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.

Picture that in your thoughts until I find the original snapshot of hope.

SUFFERING....interrupting my plans

12/11/12 Suffering that's physical, but temporary---so what's the BIG deal, Dotsy? Too tired and weak to get out of bed. Too miserable to sleep.  Fever. Chills. Head ache. Sore throat. Cough. Yet, I know that in the scheme of things, my malady is minor.  But… right now it feels like MINOR in all caps! It’s interrupting my plans. Plans to be with friends in celebration and plans to be with other friends in the midst of their suffering. “Worthy plans,”are they not?

I have just had a fun, refreshing Austin, TX, trip with chums---it's our 23rd annual, and that was followed by a glorious visit to Doris' farm, not a sweeter place on earth for soul restoration. So, truly I should have NO complaints. Get over yourself, Dots!

One of my blog readers has chronic, severe headaches and she continues to find God's grace in every aspect of her 3-year search for answers.  This year I even had the privilege of transporting a “spiritual giant” to chemo and I NEVER hear her complain though I'm sure chemo was not originally her plan.

Another dear friend just emailed encouraging words because she, too, is now going to have the privilege of being there for a neighbor/friend as she starts her chemo journey. She’s where I want to be once again. Tonight I learned that sweet J.H.’s lymph node results were not what we had all hoped for. We had prayed “God’s best” for her. So….this must be part of His plan. But….my plan is to be there for her. His plan is that I will wait until I am healthy. I just need to trust His plan.

In fellow cancer sojourner, Michèle Phoenix’s, song, “You Are” (about her MAC cancer journey) she wrote,

"That this journey I follow with its joy and its sorrow,

is a gift I embrace 'cause it flows from Your grace.

I will trust in Your goodness in my season of weakness 

'cause it is what it is---but I know that You are who You are!"

 I have learned these last few years that it is in the classroom of suffering, (whether spiritual or physical---with ranges from minor to terminal), that the Lord teaches us life lessons. Lessons that build trust. Trust in Him, not self.

We're not doubting that God will do the best for us, we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. -CS Lewis

So, my plan tonight, in my semi-drug-induced state, is to head to bed with Romans 12:12 in my heart and on my lips and to pray for the aforementioned folks in the midst of their “hard place,” that they might be “joyful in hope, patient in affliction and fervent in prayer.” Maybe I need to add myself to that plan!

SABBATH SNAPSHOT: Faces of Thanksgiving

1/29/12 Celebrating my "new" face with Dr. Louis Carter, a compassionate man of God and world renowned plastic surgeon, who just this year received the Surgical Humanitarian Award.

Dr. Carter is THE doctor who spearheaded the search for my "team" to do my surgery when Memphis doctors and others declared me "beyond" them. I was unknown to him----but God.........brought him to Memphis---via Africa, Hawaii, Houston, TX & Chattanooga "for such a time" in my life. After a twisty, circuitous path, he found my team in Dallas, TX.

That path was "SEEING GOD'S HAND" in such a way that it still takes my breath and makes me smile at the same time. I will be forever grateful!

September 13, a "Medicare" birthday

9/13/11 You know you are old when.....your birthday cards look like these or have messages that say, "a (medicare) birthday is a good time to remember that potbellies can be kind of cute."Another one welcomed me to the "wonder years--- "....wonder where my glasses are, wonder where I parked my car, wonder why I bought bok choy, wonder why everything hurts, wonder if I locked the door,"----you get the idea.

Misery and aging both seem to love company--some one else who understands. So.....it's fun to laugh together and celebrate God's grace in giving us another birthday.

Daddy always said that he thanked the good Lord for every day he gave him. He truly saw each day as a gift. In part, aging brings about that realization of the gift that life truly is, especially as one reflects on loss of friends, who will never celebrate another birthday.

With my MAC (cancer) diagnosis in "09, I, and my friends, made special efforts to get together and share "time" and other gifts of caring. Today 3 of those very friends are no longer living and I realize how important those gifts of encouragement were. It's time for me to give back to folks of God's choosing. So....I've asked the Lord to guide me through the next year in giving gifts each day to those He brings to mind or puts in my path. (The fearful part of me wanted to give self an out and put week, not day) It might be food, notes or prayers, a visit or donation or the wrapped variety---but I want it to come from Him.

I hesitated to write this because it's sort of like standing up at church when the leader asks those who are "willing" to pray, support or go to literally take their stand by getting up out of the pew. It's putting yourself under scrutiny----holding self accountable, as those who see your "stand" will be judging your actions. Though in my case, I think anonymity will also play a part because a "glory hog" is not needed. It has to be His work. To God be the glory.

Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. (I Thessalonians 5:24)

GIGI'S GIFT

6/23/10 Ever the pragmatic one, Mother, aka Gigi to her grands, gave me (9 years ago) a gift for Josh, if and when he married, because she knew she wouldn’t be around for his special day. His would be the only grandchild’s wedding she would miss. Her gift (can’t tell b/c Megan reads the blog) even included her personalized recipe card for chocolate chess pie. Though somewhat incomplete---she cooked by feel---it had all the ingredients listed boldly, though in her cancer weak hand, and at the bottom was written---“Josh likes this.”
Gigi--- a tall, striking, very “ungrandmotherly” looking lady. She didn’t smell mothbally either, like so many grandmothers do---just ask her grandaughters who loved to get into Gigi’s make-up and the fancy bottles of perfume on her gold filigree tray.

Josh has always had a special relationship with his Gigi even when she treatened to “skin him alive” for running down the driveway as a 4 year old. He had always declared that if he ever married, (and that was a BIG IF) Gigi was the only one he was going to invite to the wedding and it was going to be in Las Vegas because he thought his Gigi would like a glittery place.

I guess Las Vegas lost its luster after Mother died because the wedding will be in Brooklyn, his and Megan’s “beloved borough.” I do regret that Mother never met Megan. She would have liked her and would have loved shopping in New York with her. She would have loved her Valentino’s too. Mother believed in stepping out in style (unlike her daughter) and the adorable PINK wedding shoes would have been right up her “fashion alley.” She would probably also threaten to “skin Josh alive” if he didn’t treat his bride/wife like a lady. Nestled in the ribbon of the package is a silver ice scoop because Josh loved Gig’s “sweet tea.” Always sweetened while warm and then chilled and served in glassware (no Tupperware for her.) with lots of ice. LOTS of ice, another Gigi rule. Hence, the scoop.

I’ll probably cry when I give it to them because Gig’s gift came at great cost---bought years ago as she suffered in her final stages of cancer. Her desire was for Josh to know that she wanted at least her gift to be at the wedding and then used throughout his marriage.

The Cancer Dance

5/11/10 Nancy Gibbs essay for this week’s TIME magazine offered food for thought.

“Cancer hands you red-hot shoes and makes you dance with death everyday for the rest of your life. So, the question is, Who gets to lead? And what can the rest of us learn from watching?”

For sometime now, this blogger has been asking others to consider, along with her, these very same questions. These questions aren’t cancer specific. It’s just that cancer or other catastrophic diseases can bring such questions to the forefront of our thinking.

Certainly in those first weeks after my diagnosis, I worked on getting my affairs in order with lawyers and living wills, info in files and letters to kids. But more than that, I wanted assurance. Assurance that, in the event of my death, my friends would “take on my absence” from my family by filling in the gaps of my life for them. My kids know me (sometimes better than I know myself) but I wanted my “grands” to know personal things about their “Shug.”
My dear friend, Pam, has taken hold of this idea. She has a “cupcake” party each summer for her friends and their grandchildren. We are all introduced by our granny names. It’s a casual way of initiating our “grands” to each other and to us, the grandmas. It’s an unspoken assurance that we’ll be there to carry on those values, that we all hold dear, to each other’s grands if one of us passes away. A passing on of the traditions and the values, which we have shared, through the years.

In my "dance", I have asked the Lord to lead and have tried to share with others what I’m learning. What I am learning is the importance of relationships---a vertical relationship with the Lord that extends horizontally to my family and friends. A community of faith. A fellowship of friends who are committed to going the distance with each other even when one is wearing “red-hot cancer shoes.”

Shoulda-woulda-coulda……..

3/11/10 .....Larry’s favorite saying about my rearview mirror perspective of life. I have a tendency to second-guess every thing I do. I really have a big “if only” problem called disappointment. Ex. I should have bought those silver spoons in Rome---I’ll never have another chance. Sometimes I can backtrack, with Larry’s prodding, but not always. Regrets. Life can be full of them, from chances missed to miscues in relationships.

Today, as I begin “MAC-tracking” (retracing my MAC cancer event from diagnosis to multiple surgeries and healing) of last year, I realize I have no regrets. None. There’s nothing that I “shoulda” done or “woulda” done or “coulda” done differently. Why? It was out of my hands. What mercy, what grace, what relief, what unadulterated joy there is in that!

I’m in Texas meeting with doctors---hopefully for the last time. Should I have opted for two more surgeries, could the clear margins have been a mistake, would I change anything? All done deals. Moot points---not relevant in God’s plan for me. Everything was bathed in prayer even before the original diagnosis. So…..no regrets.

These past 12 months have been a blessing---my meager vocabulary cannot begin to express my heart. This week as I’ve been preparing to return, I’ve felt filled with emotion almost to the point of tears. I felt as if I were going home. I’ve already hugged the little Texans as they headed out the door to school. Later, I’ll visit doctors; I’ll drive by the hospital; I’ll see Mary Flo. So why these deep intense feelings? Claudia Parlow says she and Terry feel it every time they return to Shepherd Center. Her answer, “The feelings come because that’s where you met God face to face.”

As Thomas Purifoy said about his marriage and his time with his wife, Susan even as she suffered and died with cancer, “No Regrets, Mate.” I concur----there are “no regrets” when you’re right smack dab in the middle of God’s will for your life!

GLORY BUMPS

“GLORY BUMPS”
11/8/09 Glory bumps……………an ljj e-mail informed me of this pithy term---2 short words with a big connotation. It’s similar to the goose bumpy feeling that one gets when reading a Hallmark card or a story that touches the heart. But “glory bumps” are more than that. Glory bumps are precipitated by an awareness of a “God thing” --- those incidences in our lives with a spiritual connection. God incidences--not coincidences! Glory bumps might result from seeing a miracle or a moving of God’s hand or just from experiencing the grand sense of LIFE that is beyond our comprehension/understanding.

That term, “Glory bumps,” has given me “pause to ponder” today. I have had more than my share of glory bumps these past 11 months. Here are a few of the earthly unexplainable incidences that come to mind and keep me all “a shiver” to the depths of my being.

MAC GLORY BUMPS

1. Michèle---a fellow MAC cancer survivor found by “my” Molly’s tireless “google” search before I even knew much more that the name of my very rare cancer---certainly not the extent of it. Meeting her stateside was a lifetime of glory bumps—one giganic glory bump in and of itself.

2. The Ridleys---Mary Flo and Dave who opened their home and their hearts to me in Dallas before God even completely secured my team there. (Thanks to Sally Klinke, a 1st Evan friend, and her “best friend” connection to Kari S. at Park Cities Pres in Dallas, who knows Mary Flo very well) The Ridleys continued to open their home for each subsequent surgery and for my bevy of nurses that accompanied me. I now call them friends---dear, dear friends.

3. My Team---only God leading Dr. Louis Carter from Africa and Dr. George Burruss from Memphis to a team in Dallas that went full circle from an original recommendation from Dr. Jay Burns (son Buddy’s friend in Dallas) to UT Medical, to Methodist Germantown, to St. Louis, Houston, Dallas Southwestern, and back to Dallas Baylor and Dr. Richard Ha at Dallas Plastic Surgery Institute, office of Dr. Fritz Barton, Dr. Rod Rohrich, (friends of Dr. Carter) and their colleague, Dr. Burns---Buddy’s friend! What a full circle---one that truly reflects the hand of God!

4. Jesus Calling---the little devotional book by Sarah Young that has kept so many of my family, friends, and cyberspace acquaintances on the “same page.” My family tried, unsuccessfully, to find info about this special author on-line, but to no avail. But God………..through a forwarded e-mail from friend, Beth, located her for me. We have since been in touch (from Memphis to Nashville to Overland, KS and to Perth, Australia) Sarah has become a prayer partner and encourager. I hope I have become the same for her.

5. dotsydetails.blogspot.com---Last January, I didn’t even know what a blog was ---but God…………has used it as a way to connect with so-o-o many folks, both known and unknown to me. The blog has allowed others to view “my Dance” with all my missteps and challenges and to learn with me along the way.

6. Prayer---from the first one I prayed on January 10, 2009 after reading the Jesus Calling entry from that day. “Lord, if it doesn’t matter for eternity, may the storm that’s coming into my life not be cancer.” (It was very much cancer--a very rare cancer--so I knew it mattered.)

• Jeff White, pastor at Park Cities Presbyterian in Dallas, during staff prayer time “chose” my name and realized that he in fact, knew that name because Larry Liles had been his racquetball coach at UM. I now know what it feels like to be “be lifted up in prayer”---like a calm after the “glory bumps.”

• Surgery Day prayers at First Evan

• My name above Dr. Albritton's desk to remind him to pray.
  

• Muslim student telling me that she had never seen faith like mine.

• Worldwide prayer warriors---it would take pages to explain the breadth and depth.

• Brother Buddy and Charlotte being baptized Easter '09---it has mattered for eternity and that’s all that really matters.

7. Connections and Reconnections---distant family, my 4th grade teacher, life long friends, high school chums, college roomies, Rawls Hall folks, Pi Phis, former students (and their parents and grandparents) HHS faculty and staff, 42 years of education colleagues and new cyberspace acquaintances-----to name a few.

8. BEST possible outcomes for each surgery. The first prognosis was so grim that Larry asked the docs about tattooing me so that he would know for sure that he would be taking home his wife. I am indeed a “walking miracle” as Ann E. dubbed me. “The most astonishing thing about miracles is that they do happen.” G.K. Chesterton

9. Insurance coming through at just the right time on several occasions-----11th hour took on new meaning!

10. “Puddle Experiences”---a result of too many glory bumps at once—which reduce me to tears! The surprise from friends who lined the end of my street in March with balloons and posters to send me off on the first surgical part of my MAC journey, immediately comes to mind.

GLORY BUMPS, INDEED!!

MY REMINDERS OF GOD’S GOODNESS! I TREASURE EACH ONE OF THEM---THOUGH THE NUMBERS ARE TOO HIGH TO COUNT!

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Strawless in Dallas

11/3/09 The call came from the doctor’s office late yesterday afternoon---food allowed albeit with restrictions. Soft foods are best. Eat others with caution and care because remaining mouth stitches have not dissolved. Continue to swish and spit with antibacterial rinse but bottom teeth may be carefully brushed with my tiny “Elmo” toothbrush and “sensitive” gel. All of this was good news and Mary Flo prepared some luscious Yukon gold mashed potatoes, “Neiman Marcus style,” in celebration. Delish!

Today we have to go to pick up a prescription “redo” in Allen, TX where Buddy and Day live so we plan to take them to lunch. Larry and I have become consumed with all the available options! We have planned to treat loved ones to lunch---God is directing our steps. A great idea came---simply lunch, with a simple Memphis connection.

Recently, my friend Katherine and I went to the movie, “Julie and Julia.” There were some life lessons in that movie as a young Julie sought to cook her way through Julia Child’s, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, (524 recipes) in one year and to “blog” about her culinary adventure. Her first attempt, “Potage Parmentier,” had been described by Julia as “simplicity itself to make.” Simplicity! Isn’t that what we all crave? Don’t we all need to pare down---not just in cooking and eating, but in life? What is essential?

Sometimes less is better. Too many options can weigh us down. I can wear myself out trying to decide what is best. Simplicity of “straw dining” has had its benefits. Potato-leek soup from Short Stop in Snider Plaza was one—it must have been made the Julia Child way with heavy cream. It went easily through my straw, tasted yummy and filled my tummy. Nothing else was needed.

Paring down keeps life simpler and that can be a good thing. Sometimes there’s way too much on my plate. Today I desire only God’s requisite essentials for my life.

“He has told you, O man, what is good.: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)

Essentials. Simply put. All I need for today!