Cancer SUCKS!

   You would figure with as long as cancer has been around they would have found a cure for it. Cancer has taken so many wonderful people in my life. It is the one thing that makes me feel weak and powerless. I can get through most stuff, fix most things, but when it comes to cancer I fall like a house of cards.

   This time cancer is taking one of the most caring, loving, Christian woman I know. She is a leader of our 5th and 6th grade youth at my church. When my son meet her, he just feel in love. She took him in and cared for him like he was one of her own. That is how she thinks of all the children in our church.
   Last Friday they told her she had Pancreatic Cancer, her first words were "What a Bummer" She takes everything with a light heart and just accepts it. How many people in your life can do that when faced with news of cancer. So they went in yesterday to remove the tumor and found out that it was more complex than they thought. There were things they were not able to see on the CT scans and reports that showed up in real life. What looked like a tumor that was manageable in size, turned out to be large and wrapped around the artery and other organs. It was too dangerous to take any of it out at that point. In addition, they found more tumors in her liver that were hidden by the previously seen tumor. So when she woke up and her husband told her the news instead of crying or screaming she called him a doofus head for worrying. She goes back in for a follow up with the Dr next Friday, but at this point they are giving her 3-6 months to live.
    I can only hope that if I ever had to face the news that she has, that I will look at it like she has. At a time like this how can you not wonder how God could let this happen to such a wonderful woman. How could he take such a strong positive influence in the church away from our children! I know that it is not his doing, or his will but it just seems as though he could have stepped in and made these tumors managable not terminal. I know that this will bring our children closer together in their faith because of knowing Mrs Charlene, but what about the ones that will never know such a bright, shining example of Christian love and faith.
   And how do I explain this to my son? How do I tell him? Do I tell him?

~truly saddened

Sadness

Today one of my close friends, Red, is having to make the most difficult choice that any child ever has to make. She has to turn off the ventilator that is supporting her mom's life. This brings back some very hard memories for me of my dad. While we didn't have to turn off his vent it was still hard hearing from over 900miles away that my dad had passed. He fought for over 8yrs to stay with us. He was alive to see my nieces and nephews be born, to see me graduate from high school, and to see me get married and have a baby of my own. He was in and out of the hospital so much of my life that I became numb to it and just accepted it as how things were. I cherish those years with him. The last time I saw him was a week before he passed. He was put in the hospital for the last time and never came out. I told him when I had to fly back to bring my son home because he was getting sick and the hubby was ETSing out of the military(so we also had to pack up), and that I would see him in a week when I moved back home and he could get to see his grandson anytime he wanted. Little did I know that would be the last conversation that I would have with him. I got the call a few days later that he had taken a turn for the worse and his organs had began to shut down on him and he just went to sleep and never woke back up. He had changed his orders to a DNR and was ready to begin his journey with God. He knew that it was his last time in that hospital.
20 months later I had to watch my mother die from cancer. I got to sit with her during the day at the hospital in her last few days. The morphine pretty much kept her out of it and she would talk to other relatives that had long since passed. But the hardest part was standing there with all our family watching her take her last breathe. With my dad it was one of those expected things since he had been sick for so many years, but with my mom it took all of a month for her Cancer to come back and the chemo to rip through her body and take her life.
Red's mom, Kitty, has esophageal cancer. Kitty was the funniest little Irish woman I have ever known. She will be sadly missed. I'm glad that I was able hang out with her a little over a year ago when they had to run from Hurricane Ike. She could make us all laugh no matter what was going on. It's comforting that Kitty will be surrounded by loved ones as she passes from this life to the next. God Speed Kitty! We will miss you!