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Goodmorning.

Anyone there?

Since no one is out there anymore, I guess I can come on in and ramble around in here. . . And no one will notice.

Oh geez.  It’s dusty in here.  I haven’t been around in  . . . forever.  Did you know that your mind gets this dusty if you don’t show up once and a while to air things out?   It’s dusty in here.

I found out something in the middle of the night last night. . . Peanut Butter and Jelly does not taste good on rye bread.  Not in the middle of the night.  Of course, now that I know that it doesn’t taste good at 1:00 in the morning, I doubt that I will give it a shot in the light of day.  I am not sure I am sharing this to keep you from PBJ&R disappointment or to let you know that I was wandering around the house again last night.

“Where is Teresa?  Is she ok?  Please come to the screen and let us know what is going on!”

“Teresa is fine.  But she is wandering around the house in the middle of the night making bad choices with regards to the combination of bread and toppings.  This makes her tired in the middle of the day (at which time she would know that PBJ&R would not be a good combination if she were not fast asleep on the couch.)”

I know.  I KNOW.   I left you in the middle of a conversation and fell asleep for a week.  Don’t feel bad.  I did it to my family too.  I won’t go back to that conversation, if you don’t mind.  Let me just give you a quick run down of the rest of the week after Chemo and move on to what I really want to say. . . The first part of the week, my mom and sister and husband kept an eye on me all day long.  It wasn’t until the middle of the night, though, that I would run out of Thiamine and start to wander off the written path.  In the morning I would ask Dan “What happened last night?”  and he would give me that look  . . .and I would wander off to the couch to wonder what the look covered.  You see, there was white room. . .and every night I was trying to find the RIGHT white room. . .so that I could exit that reality and come through to the real day.   Now that all that stuff they pumped me with has filtered itself out of my system, I can firmly and completely know and report that I read and watch entirely too much Science Fiction.

OK.  That being said, I want to do a commercial for the supplement Vitamin B1, aka Thiamine.    If Thiamine can overcome the toxic effects of something as strong and poisonous as Ifosfamide, what can a little B1 do for your everyday junk?  Please, don’t take my word though.  Do some research and find out about this natural substance for yourself.   I also want to tell you that when my eyes started to get floaters or shooters this week, I took a B1 and they cleared up for me.  And I haven’t had anymore white room moments.

“SO where have you been then?”

Well . . . It was CHRISTMAS!   How much extra time did you have this past week?

Sorry sorry.

‘Tis the Season. . . Was it as crazy for you as normal?   We had a wonderful Christmas.  The little ones were spoiled rotten!  Many, many people made sure of that.    When people reach out to touch your children, it’s hard to know how to say enough thanks.   I did a great deal of crying over their joy.  There was my Angel and her crew who made an early delivery for Santa.  And there was a whole community that picked us up and carried us through the holiday on their shoulders.  And there was a family that added my children to their list and didn’t even know the whole story.  There was a prayer group that dug into Christmas Joy to bless us beyond belief.   It goes on and on.  I couldn’t possibly name them all.  Our Christmas was wonderful.  We learn the true meaning of Love.

I also did a great deal of crying over missing my eldest child.  That bungee cord attached to my heart is stretched about as tight as it can be.  One of these moments, I get the feeling that my nineteen year old adult/child will come smashing into my chest as the elastic connecting her to me finally wins out over geography.

“So where have you been? I called . . .”

I haven’t been talking on the phone either.   I have a great deal of people thinking that I no longer have a phone. Or maybe a hand to hold it up. Bad.   It would take every minute I have for the rest of the month and on into the next to return all the phone calls I need to make.   I have some people calling other people leaving messages like, “You don’t know me, but I understand you know Teresa. . .”

“So where’s my Christmas Card?’

I am a terrible, awful person.   But I am going to change my ways.   I have to get back on track.   I need to start writing again.  And I mean really “writing.”    This drivel that I have been putting out for the past couple months has to stop.  And it has pretty much, hasn’t it.  That is the heart of where I have been.  I have been so disappointed in the way I have been writing lately, that I just couldn’t do it anymore.   My mother says, “Just end it.  It’s ok.”  “But Mom, I can’t end it. . .  That would mean … And I’m NOT ENDING IT!”  haha   I just have to go back to writing for me.

So look for that.   But I am not promising that I will be writing everyday.   I am still a Cancer Patient.  Lol  The CHEMO stage is so much harder than the surgical stage of this story.

OK.  That being said.  What is next for me on the schedule for Moffitt?   On Jan 3rd, I go in for Lab work and a Chest CT.  This is the 3 week mark that should start a new chemo round. Instead they are running tests.  This is an important event.  We are looking for either a reduction in the spots -size or number- in my lungs or NO GROWTH at all.   If there is any growth, it means that the protocol did not work.   They do not want to keep giving me chemo that has potentially damaging side effects if it is not stopping the cancer from growing.   In that case, they will have to come up with something else. . .   If the scan shows progress, I can continue with the treatment for 4 more rounds at most.   I will never get more than 6 cycles of this Chemo.  Never.   The risk of damage to the rest of the body is too great.

This is an important test.  I am cramming for this test.  I am cramming the WORD into my heart and mind.   I am planning for a miracle.  I already put in the paperwork!

I am praying hard.

No wonder I am wandering the nights trying to find a white room serving Peanut Butter and Jelly on Rye. . .

I heard something cool this morning:  Faith laughs at impossibilities.