A new day.

I woke up at 3am.  I couldn't sleep, so I came downstairs and lay down on the sofa with the window open.  The fresh air felt refreshing.  As the sun came up and the sounds of the very early birds was a calm I needed.  I put in a not so great night of sleep.  Yesterday I planted flowers.  Something I have not been able to do for many years.  I've been pulling weeds for over a week, doing a little bit at a time, as I need to be careful not to overdo.  I do not want to have back pain.  I do not want to have neck pain.  I do not want to hurt.  I find that although I am so grateful that my life seems to be moving into a new normal, I still get discouraged with my limited physical self.  God has been very good to me.  I am alive, and every beautiful morning is a new day.  A new start.  But I still have those days when for some reason or another I feel sad.  I suppose this will be a problem for the rest of my life.  I think, no I know, God understands, and I look to him to help me through these days.  I think I am feeling a bit down today because, while blogging yesterday, I wrote about my ministry, and how it has been the biggest regret of my life that I quit the one thing that truly brought me joy. And that I was able to share that joy.  I feel that I have let myself down, and my church community.
     When I made the decision that I could no longer work for a priest that had squashed my spirit, I expected that Dan would support me.  I don't think he did.  My emotions were very much at the surface.  There was a raw edge that threatened to strangle me.  I think Dan was more worried about the monthly check we would no longer receive.  In fact, when Fr. invited him to dinner a few months later, as a thank you for the monthly socials he  coordinated, I was extremely hurt that he would go. Alone.  I was not invited.  At first he said he didn't really want to go, but in the end, he went.  It felt like a slap in my face.  I felt that he should have stood by me and make it known that  Fr. had hurt me.  Dan never wants to upset the apple cart.  And I cannot count the number of times he has hurt me because he doesn't want to hurt someone else.  Whether I was right or wrong, as my husband, I expected him to defend me, as his wife, and to acknowledge the wrong that had been done to me.  I know he agrees with me to this day that what Fr. did to me was wrong.  I know this.  But it still hurts.  It felt like Fr. was trying to put a wedge between us.  He had never asked either one of us to dinner.  He never reached out in that way, and to now extend this invitation seemed a purpose driven action.  It hurt then.  It hurts now.
     Yesterday was a "social" morning.  I did not go to mass because I had taken some medication and didn't feel up to it.  Dan came home and said that Fr. had told him how good it was that I was looking so good, and that I had started coming to church again.  I am curious as to why he told Dan, and hasn't mentioned it to me on any given Sunday.  For the 4 years I have been trying to forgive and move on, some days the old hurt feelings return.  I suppose I will struggle with this for some time to come yet. 
     Struggles.  My life has been one struggle after another.  I haven't really said too much about my cancer.  I have chronic meyloid leukemia, CML.  When I started this blog, I intended to chronicle  my battle with cancer, but I seem to have meandered from that.  I have such a long history of bad health, that my  life, both physical and mental still remains complicated.
     One of those life altering moments, when your world shifts has happened to me more than once.  But no more so then when I was told I had cancer.  Things stopped moving and seemed to be a slow motion film happening outside my body.  When a roomful of nurses walked into my hospital room to break the news, I was, at first confused.  No one said I had cancer, and for a moment I didn't realize what was happening. Then one of the nurses I have known for years hugged me, with tears in her eyes, saying she had a brother, or friend, or, someone, who had leukemia and was doing fine.  As soon as she said leukemia I remember exactly that moment.  I had leukemia.  I had cancer. Blood rushed in my ears.  The people in the room seemed to freeze.  I could see them, but the world tilted and I couldn't hear anything.  Then another nurse said Dan would be there in a few minutes, and I was being discharged from the hospital but I would need to see Dr. Sood, the oncologist in his office the following day for a bone biopsy.  I remember leaving the room in wheelchair.  I had been ill, and in the hospital for over 2 weeks.  They had mentioned Leukemia, but kept telling me that there was really only a small chance that it was that.  So much for those small chances and small percentages.  Here I was again.  I could not absorb it.  It took weeks to even acknowledge it.  It.  It was a thing.  And it was inside my body, moving in my blood, and growing in my bone marrow.  I cannot say it terrified me.  I am not sure how I would describe it.
     I could not absorb the fact.  I cried.  I was sad.  I mourned.  My life would never be the same.  I had been through the "never being the same" before.  But this was different.  This was life altering.  There was before I had cancer, and there was after I had cancer.  I am living in the now I have cancer life.  It is not so bad now.
     My condition is chronic.  There is no cure, but it is treatable I was told.  I would start on a chemo medication that would fight the mutated white blood cells.  Many people have been on this medication and the survival rate is very high.  There were, however some side effects.
     Taking a pill is different then  receiving chemo intravenously.   I didn't lose my hair.  I didn't feel deathly sick.  But as my body adjusted to the medication I was often vomiting, I gained weight, and I was so very tired.  I had edema, so I now had to take Lasix.  
     In the last three years, I have gained 40 pounds.  This past February, I resolved to lose the extra weight.  While the other side effects have pretty much gone away, the water weight remains a problem, adding to the weight problem.  I began slowly, not depriving myself of any food.  As I bought smarter and ate fresher, I noticed the pounds starting to come off, and my ever present craving for sugar now seems to be satisfied with fresh fruit instead of fresh donuts (although I cheated this morning and had a donut).  I started drinking more water.
    As of today, I have lost 22 pounds.  I feel better.  Lighter.  In body and in spirit.  I think it was in March that something odd happened.  I realized I was a survivor.
     I have been thinking of myself as a "victim", questioning God all the time, wondering why all these physical things have plagued me.  And one day, I woke up and realized, that while I have endured much, I have survived.  I am a survivor.  I cannot tell you why this suddenly hit me.  It just did.  And for the past few months now, every day seems to be a joy.  My mood has, for the most part lifted from a daily complaint of the day's hurts, and aches and pains, to  praise to God for each new day.  I have more energy.  I want to do more.  God has doubly blessed me.  He decided perhaps that I needed all the challenges I have experienced, have brought me through to this feeling that I now have.  Will it last? Some days it feels like euphoria.  And I question whether it will last or not.  I still fear it will go away, and depression will once again overtake me.  It is like that big black hole is at the side of me, waiting to plunge me back into its blackness.  I am able to keep it at bay right now.  I feel, for the most part, good.  I pray that God will keep me in this good place, and help me to continue to see each new day as a fresh beginning.
     Every day is a good day.  I don't nap during the day anymore.  I don't cry as much.  God is guiding me in this new life that I have been given.  I have a peace now, that I never knew I had.  I pray you too may have this peace.
Barb