Being REAL~

This particular post is one that I admit I've been working on for about a week and a half, now.
When I first began this entry, I was in the midst of a Wednesday and a week where everything around me (and the poisons surging THROUGH me) were putting me in pretty down spirits.
I thought about just erasing the entry as of a few days ago, but after yesterdays news from my doctor and then coming back and re-reading what I had started on this post, a deeper moral was born and so, I felt it important to share.

THE START TO THE ORIGINAL:
With how 'inspiring' I've apparently been to many of you, I apologize if this post is somewhat unexpected from me. But hey, I committed to being REAL and RAW when I started sharing this journey with you all, so that's just what this is~

R.E.A.L.

Some of you have asked me, in passing, what things have changed the most for me since discovering we're on this journey--and I suppose that's a fair question, since everybody has different circumstances that are individual to them.
In my best efforts to answer that question, I find myself thinking hard on what 'used to be' vs. what's 'currently' and these are just some of the real, most prominent daily-life changes I come up with... (though certainly not limited to)

Being that I'm a mom of young children, I'd have to say one of the most challenging aspects of this 'hike' has been explaining each step to my curious, innocent and rather worried young sons. Especially on Wednesdays (48-hrs after drug infusions), my little men are left worried and rather rattled that their mommy is far less energetic and smiley than all other days. Having parents (a 'Monga' and 'Nana' be at our complete rescue on the hard days is amazing and believe me, I do NOT take it for granted. Though, when I'm being completely honest, I still have to admit that HAVING to take advantage of that quite so much as we've had to recently isn't always easy. Being away from the boys (especially the week of our household stomach-flu bout) for days on end is a challenge...a struggle...I'm learning more and more through this journey what a natural therapy my children are for me---albeit I know I should be concentrating my Higher Sources of therapy---but those little faces and giggles are definitely some kind of medicine of their own.

My role as a wife has also experienced some change. The 'used to's' involved me working a few days of the week, coming home, tending to the house, cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner...pretty much wearing the roll of working-mom and stay-at-home mom in the same, busy day.

Now, on my 'good days,' my roll feels a lot more relaxed...lackadaisicle if you will...which is a scenario I have developed a sort of love/hate relationship, with. As for my 'bad days?' Ha! My lack of productiveness in ANYTHING and energy FOR anything would've made my 'used to be' persona roll her eyes in disgust, I'm sure. But when I ask myself why that would be the case, I am reminding that it is my own, self pride that would take issue. Dishes in the sink? How disgusting. Laundry piling? How appauling. Beds not made and rooms not perfectly tidied while I, instead, just sit around in lounge-clothes, computer in lap, pillow behind head (no..no bon-bons, they make me feel sick to my stomach when I already feel sick to my stomach, ha)... but certainly every other aspect of the lazy-woman caricature in place....my 'used to be' wife-role would've sat guilty...embarrassed.

This next part may be, quite simply waaaay too much information for some of you, so spare yourself and skip this next paragraph if you must, but it's still part of what some of you ask me, and I'm still gonna be real about giving you some answers, so here goes.

Side-affects of the chemo:
Many of you know that I get weekly infusions, but I also take DAILY chemo, too--what they are attesting has made for the great strides in the tumor's shrinkage----outside of my honest faith in the sheer amount of prayer coverage I've received!! But my daily chemo gives me some of the loveliest of side-affects, namely, in the 'bowel department.' :-P Nick-named the 'trots' drug, my daily Neratinib has given me an unwelcome glimpse into my dear grandma KiKi's later-life bowel issues and at the young age of 33, I've been forced to develop a great sense of appreciation for regularly functioning digestive systems.
Let's just put it this way... one of my newest 'mantras' has become my grandma's adopted joke of a phrase 'I don't think I'm going to make it!'---oy. Really?! I'm barely 33, peeps...yet I have a very deepened sympathy for elderly folks with this problem now, that's for sure! And as is always the case with any scenario in our lives--there is good to be sought, and the good I would share with you all in my case is--though maybe shocking--
APPRECIATE YOUR POOP. 
Next bathroom trip you make after your morning coffee to drop that normal, solid healthy offering, think of me--and tell your intestines that you appreciate it's normalcy in producing that as you flush 'er down. That is all~ ;)

As far as specific 'difficult days' go...Wednesdays are HARD. Arguably the hardest.
Gray expressed his obscure concerns again last Wednesday as he was leaving with Monga...saying something like 'I hope you don't have cancer too bad today, mom.'
As we get further and further along in the weeks of this journey, patterns reveal themselves.
By Monday night, I can feel I've received poisonous drugs. By Tuesday, they are causing me all sorts of hot-flashes, all times of the day. But the steroids are still at work so the fatigue hasn't fully hit.
In fact, other than the dull headache that tends to creep in, I am pretty pumped with artificial energy, ha!
Todays plan is laundry, cookie-baking, homeschooling of the youngest---PRODUCTIVITY! ;)

Yep, that's the drugs talking.

By the time Wednesday creeps around, however, I go from cruising on a straight-stretch at 70mph to realizing I'm driving without the lights on and----BAM!!! Didn't see THAT brick wall.
Oops.
My doc told me yesterday that 'crash' is partially the drugs having killed so much and partially the 'high' exiting my system.
Bummer of a crossroad. But that's just how it goes. :-P So, we deal.

Dad often takes the boys for me on Wednesday and though I miss them terribly and find myself at times wanting them near me, anyway, it gives me the option of hibernating my Wednesday away.
Do I feel guilt in that, too? OF COURSE.
Sorry. I'm human.
But when you crash that hard, hibernating through it is sometimes the very best thing one can do. What I find on Wednesdays is that I don't always FEEL like the I know the 'cure' I need, which I am learning means that, once again, living for and IN THE MOMENT is my only option. Moment by moment, what I'm going to do about *insert scenario here.* I will say, no matter what, it is even HAVING OPTIONS that is the true blessing when Wednesday hits!!

There are soooo many night's of the week that I fall asleep and have dreams that seem so vivid and sooooo REAL--dreams where we're not doing this, where our 5-yr-plan is still in progress and we'll still making positive strides and meeting goals for bigger goals. It's hard feeling so out of control of that stuff right now. With every medical bill received and me not working much and Aaron feeling the pressures just to pay the monthly salary with none ever left to make other strides with important things...it can just all get so overwhelming.
There is just soooo much stress on ALL LEVELS of our lives that this journey can and will (if we let it) get heavier and harder to make. The emotional stresses. The mental stresses. The fiscal stresses.
The physical stresses. Even the spiritual warfares.


BUT, I know God is STILL at hard work! Where 'everything' has changed, NOTHING has changed.
In a lot of ways--and I know I've said this before--the change that has truly occurred is the change of heart---the realization *how many TIMES do we have to go through this, right?!! Sorry, God* that WE are not in control. WE NEVER WERE.
We can all choose to live life, making plans, laying plans...taking our comforts in things and circumstances---setting 5-yr plans and celebrating joyfully in the moments where all the strides we needed to make to have that plan work out 'just as we planned it'
are what we count on to make us happy. That project you desperately want to get completed, or that 'dream house' with 'just enough bedrooms and bathrooms, over-looking that property that you desperately want to save up enough of a down-payment for...if only you could make those come true, THEN you'll be happy.

Sorry folks.
That kind of circumstantial happiness is not true joy.
Go for it. Do it. Find it. Accomplish it.You'll be happy.

For a while.

But then there will be something else. THERE ALWAYS IS.
If we just have ONE more baby, that will complete us. If we just sign on to pay 50-grand on this last new car, that's the last one we'll need to do that on. It will make us happy cause it's PERFECT for our circumstances.

The problem with this is CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE. 
The bible tells us to embrace change...welcome our trials and tribulations with JOY.
Huh?! Joy?
Oh, so that means I'm supposed to seek joyful circumstances. I got it now.

NO.

WRONG AGAIN.

I wrote about this in a 'Circumstantial Joy' entry a number of posts back. And I remember even then that saying it meant something different than what it does to me today. Why?
Because God is STILL CHANGING ME. 
As should be the case...MY circumstances are molding and changing me...my heart is splayed *as mom says* open right now, I'm weak and I'm stripped down;
JUST WHERE HE WANTS ME TO BE.

Today, as I say this to you, I AM joy-filled. I'm not just 'choosing' joy... I've BEGGED for joy in my prayer with Him.
But it's not MY joy that I want...and it's not MY OWN that He has granted me.

When God tells us to find joy in all circumstances, all trials and tribulations what He is saying to us is find me!!! Him!!

Find. Him. !!!!!!!!!
HE IS JOY.

Joy during this time of the year is not at tree farms, it's not in decorating the best christmas goodies--out-doing everyone in your neighborhood on your lights, having the most presents under the tree or even the prettiest decorated tree. It's not your children's faces Christmas morning, it's not even in all the gatherings you go to or hold in your festively done-up abode.
Those are joyous/happy circumstances. But they are not Joy, alone.

My prayer for all of us, especially for myself in my Wednesday moments when the poisons surging through my brain and body act as Satan's allies to remove my Joy, is that we all Seek and Find God. And in turn, Find. Joy.
Today. Tomorrow. Christmas. The New Year. The month's after that. And after that. Whatever time we all have left, here, to seek, find, revel, thrive and CELEBRATE in it.

Meet Christ... and Claim Him.

CLAIM. JOY. ~