Discovering me

Spending time in solitude provides precious time in which to think. For days and days I've been pondering the many things I've experienced in my life and how they've made me into the person I am today. I've been through an awful lot. As I think back over my past, I find comfort. My life has been filled with both good and bad. Some of the things I chose and some of them were chosen for me, but in each instance, I've grown and changed. I've finally begun to discover who I really am. It's taken 57 years for me to get a glimpse of myself and begin to understand who I really am, but I am thankful. Some people spend their entire lives trying to figure out who they are and never quite make it. After experiencing many life lessons, I have realized I am resilient and brave but only through the power of Christ.

There's a wonderful quote that A.A. Milne used in his classic book, "Winnie the Pooh," that I love. Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh are sitting on a branch in the evening when Christopher Robin begins to talk to Pooh and he tells him, "always remember, you're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, & smarter than you think." I love that quote. Christopher Robin and Pooh are dear friends and have always been there for each other. A. A. Milne captured the essence of growing up in his book, "Winnie the Pooh," with such sweetness and such truth. That little quotation has helped me get through this year of cancer. I've had to constantly remind myself that I was braver than I believed, that I was stronger than I seemed and that I was smarter than I thought. Sometimes I did a pretty good job of convincing myself and other times, not so much. My family and friends have been wonderful supporters and they've picked up the slack when I had a hard time believing in myself. When my belief in what I could do wasn't strong enough, they cheered me on with their encouragement and helped me through some very difficult times. But there's another quotation that has meant even more to me than A. A. Milne's quotation. "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 (The New International Version of the Holy Bible). For most of my life, this verse has been my rock. No matter how challenging a situation, no matter how difficult it was, I knew I would be able to not only get through it, but rise above it with Christ's strength.

Bravery was never a quality I felt I possessed. To be ready to face danger or pain without reservation, that is what it means to be brave. I've always thought myself to be quite fearful and even though I had faith in God, sometimes, I failed to trust Him completely. Every year God gives me a word to focus on and this year, the word has been TRUST. I've always struggled in this area of my life, whether with people, relationships, or with God. I never had a brave trust in Him. I'm sure He knew my limitations of trust were partly based on my constant need to control things in my life. But as I learned to release my grip on control, He began to show me I could trust Him completely in ALL things. I didn't have to be afraid any longer. 

It's hard for me to admit that I had a problem trusting, but I did. Let me give you a silly example of my inability to trust. My husband and I travel to Texas every other year to visit one of my daughters. We usually take turns driving because it's such a long trip. When I drive, he'll fall asleep at some point. He will rest so well that he begins to snore loudly. But when he's driving, I never can fall asleep, even though I'm exhausted and want to close my eyes so very much. I just can't do it! I've always been afraid that if I wasn't helping him watch the road, we might have an accident or he might not see the turn off he needed to make, so I stayed awake. I never realized until a few years ago that even my need to stay awake was a control issue. God had to teach me that lesson. 

When you have cancer or any other major illness in your life, there's little you can control. I've had to learn to release control of any and everything in my life to my loving, Heavenly Father. Although, I know Him well and know His character through constant study and reading of His Word, it wasn't easy. He had to pry my fingers off of my own life and teach me that I was never really in control anyway, even though I thought I was! 

Not only was I fearful of giving my complete trust, I also worried a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. For some reason, I thought that my worrying would make things better. One day, God taught me a valuable lesson about worrying. It was almost as if I could hear His voice speaking to my heart as I was in the midst of worrying about an issue with one of my children. What I heard Him speak to me was this, "Bonnie, don't you trust me? I am trustworthy. When you worry, you are telling me that you don't believe I can take care of the things that concern you. This breaks my heart. I do not want you to bear the burden of worry. It is not yours to bear, but Mine. You will never experience complete freedom until you learn to let go and trust me completely." That did it. I never knew that God never intended for me to carry the burden of worry so I let it go. Worrying never changed the outcome of anything anyway, so why waste that energy doing it? 

Cancer has taught me to trust God completely. It has taught me that I am braver than I thought especially when I had no option other than to be brave. I've found that I have more courage than I ever dreamed I possessed and I am proud of that. Cancer has shown me that I am tenacious and resilient. It's helped me discover many things about myself that I never realized were true. Most of all, it's helped me realize that I really can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength. Without His strength, I would be a shattered and broken woman without hope. I'm so thankful that I have Jesus to cling to especially when life gives me an unexpected challenge. 

©bonnie annis all rights reserved

"Many people wrongly exclude fear from the definition of courage, believing that courage is the absence of fear. Every time such people feel afraid, they assume that they aren't courageous. The reality, though, is that courage is fearful. When we are acting courageously, we are, most typically, very afraid. But we don't allow the fear we're carrying to stop us. Instead, we press on. This is the signature feature of courage: to carry on despite being fearful. Fear, thus, is an essential element in the definition of courage. You can't be courageous unless you are afraid." ~Bill Treasurer

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong in the broken places." Ernest Hemingway
 

You're braver than you think video clip

Tamoxifen (Nolvadex) has been used for over 40 years to treat breast cancers that are hormone-receptor positive. Hormone receptor-positive breast cancers need the hormone estrogen (and/or progesterone) to grow.   - See more at: http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/Tamoxifen.html#sthash.ksVzeH6w.dpuf

Tamoxifen (Nolvadex) has been used for over 40 years to treat breast cancers that are hormone-receptor positive. Hormone receptor-positive breast cancers need the hormone estrogen (and/or progesterone) to grow.   - See more at: http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/Tamoxifen.html#sthash.ksVzeH6w.dpuf

What I learned from my 30 day Facebook Fast

It’s been about 30 days since I began my Facebook fast. It was an interesting and very revealing self-imposed challenge. I thought I’d share with you some of the things I learned from my time away:

For some time, I’ve been feeling the need to separate myself from my time on social media. God kept whispering in my ear, “you’re spending more time on Facebook than you are with Me” and He was right! I was. I admit it. I was a total Facebook addict. Almost every day since we moved away from our old home, Facebook became my first love. I had no friends here and since my surgery, I’d felt so isolated and alone. Spending time on Facebook was my way of staying connected. Every morning, I’d get up, get showered and dressed, fix my breakfast and walk into my office. I’d sit down at my computer and pour over the news feed catching up on all of my “friends” lives. Looking at their photos, I felt connected and a part of what was going on with them. Many of my friends were distant relatives or old high school buddies and Facebook was a way to stay in touch. 

The first week of my challenge, I found myself having to fight the urge to pull up Facebook on my computer or cell phone. I wanted so badly to know what was going on in the lives of my friends and family. I had a huge FOMO (fear of missing out). It took a lot of willpower to resist the urge to cheat, but I did it. I began to focus spending more time reading my Bible. I’d always read it and had a devotional every day, but I began to dig in a little deeper and spend a lot more time doing Greek and Hebrew word studies. 

The second week of my challenge was still difficult. While I was feeling totally socially deprived, as I had in the first week of the challenge, I continually felt drawn to the computer with a desire to check in. It was like a magnet…whenever I went into my office, it was as if my computer was pulling me over to it. I fought against it and found other things to keep me busy making it through the second week. My time with the Lord was becoming longer and longer. I stopped watching the clock and just spent as much time as I needed with Him each day. As I began to draw closer to Him, He began to draw closer to me. I was embarrassed at how much time I’d been wasting on Facebook each day and had to confess it and ask for forgiveness.  

The third week, I barely thought about Facebook at all. I had found lots of empty free time in my schedule now that I wasn’t focusing on checking my Facebook page several times a day. I began completing craft projects I’d had on hold and I began some new ones. I even decided to learn some new jewelry making techniques and have fallen in love with Kumihimo (Japanese braiding).

My fourth week away, I never thought about Facebook at all! I was perfectly content with all the free time I had and enjoyed filling it up with things I love. Occasionally, my husband would share something he’d read on Facebook but I didn’t really absorb it. I just shook my head and said, “oh really?”

So what did I learn from my challenge to leave Facebook for 30 days?

I learned that Facebook is a time thief, if you let it, it will steal precious minutes from your day.

I was dumbfounded by the amount of time I found in my days after leaving Facebook. I was also amazed at how quickly time slips away while you sit in front of the computer going through the newsfeed. One minute it would be 9:00 a.m. and then the next time I’d check the clock it was noon! Time just seemed to slip away so effortlessly.

     Facebook communication is a lot of white noise.

When I dropped Facebook, I noticed that the volume of communication in my life dropped significantly. But even so, I didn’t really feel a drop in the level of significant and meaningful communication. What I seemed to lose was mostly a lot static noise. 

Generally speaking, communicating via Facebook is a shallow experience. You read streams of brief messages from a variety of people, but the messages don’t contain much depth. Most are trivial and mundane. Some are clever or witty. Very little of the information you digest on Facebook is memorable and life-changing. Facebook can still give you a feeling of being connected but the long-term benefits are negligible.

Facebook essentially gives you the emotional sense that you’re doing something worthwhile (i.e. connecting with people), but when you step back and look at your actions and results from a more objective perspective, it becomes clear that you’re really just spinning your wheels and doing nothing.

Consequently, when I left Facebook, I let go of a lot of trivial communication, but I didn't have the sense that anything truly valuable had been lost. In fact, when I got back on Facebook after my thirty day absence, I didn’t have a single desire to scroll back through the news feed to catch up on what I’d missed!

      Impulse sharing comes with a price, think before you post.

In the weeks after quitting Facebook, I still felt the urge to share certain things with my online “friends”. I’d have a clever thought and feel, I should post this. Or I’d take a really cool photo and think, I ought to share this. In the past I’d have shared those tidbits out of habit. Then I’d check back in later and read through a few dozen comments people left. And there would be a little emotional reward in having that sense of connection.

But without the option to impulse-share during the past 30 days, I allowed those feelings to come and go without acting on them. I noticed that there was a consequence to sharing in real-time. I wasn’t being very present in the moment. While things were happening around me, I was off thinking about my online friends and what I might wish to share with them.

When I stopped acting on the desire to impulse-share, I become more present in what I was doing at the moment. Instead of being distracted by thoughts of connecting with people at a distance, I did a better job of connecting with the people right in front of me. I felt more immersed in my experiences. It was a subtle change at first, but it felt good!

Even after 30 days, the desire to impulse-share is still there, but it’s growing fainter, replaced by a growing desire to “be in the here and now,” fully present in what’s going on in front of me. I still like sharing, but it’s better to do so thoughtfully instead of impulsively.

     Friends lose their individuality and become part of a collective.

Facebook compacts so much communication into a single stream, and this can have a depersonalizing effect. As I continued to use Facebook, I gradually began thinking of my online friends as a network, a stream, or a big blob, as opposed to valuing each person as a unique individual.

When I’d post a status update, who was the intended recipient? Which friend was I updating? In truth I wasn’t sharing with anyone in particular. I was simply sharing with the collective. If I posted something on a friend’s wall, I wasn’t just communicating with that friend. I was communicating with their friends too.

One thing that surprised me was just how few of my Facebook friends I actually missed when I left the service. It was difficult to think of my old Facebook friends as individuals. They were all just part of the collective whole. When I unplugged from the collective, it wasn’t like I’d lost any individual friends. Dropping Facebook wasn’t at all like disconnecting from hundreds of individual friends. I didn’t miss anyone in particular because my Facebook experience was like connecting with a collective. I noticed the absence of the collective when I left, but I didn’t miss it per se.

The exception is that if I knew specific Facebook friends from real life, meaning that we’d met in person and had at least one good conversation together, then I could still see them as individuals. But I don’t need Facebook to stay in touch with those people anyway, so I didn’t feel like I was losing any of these connections by dropping Facebook.

      Facebook creates a false and unsatisfying sense of socializing.

I’m somewhere between an introvert and an extrovert. As a child I was very extroverted. I enjoyed being with others and around others. As I aged, however, I gradually became more introverted. After my breast cancer surgery, I became extremely introverted. I avoided face to face social contact as much as possible because my self esteem was at the lowest point ever.

It’s said that you’re an introvert if you recharge your batteries while being alone, and you’re an extrovert if you recharge in the company of others. Being active on Facebook had the effect of filling my social bucket. But it was essentially a false fill, like drinking salt water instead of fresh water. Instead of providing a real sense of connection that satisfies, it made me think I was out there being social, but I’d still be “hungry” afterwards. Facebook activity could never recharge my batteries in the way that face to face interaction could. But since I avoided face to face connections now, it helped me stay in touch. 

Facebook is computer interaction, not human interaction.
The reality of using Facebook is that you’re just typing and viewing insignificant bits of information on a digital device. You can call it social networking, but it’s not really a social experience if you’re actually alone sitting at a computer. Real socialization is face to face. A virtual ***hug*** isn’t a real hug. A smiley face icon isn’t a real smile. All you’re doing is pushing buttons. It's not reality.

A friend isn’t necessarily a “friend”.
I can be friendly with people from all walks of life, but when it comes to which people are most compatible as my long-term friends, the Facebook pool isn’t a good fit for the kinds of lasting friendships I really wish to cultivate.

Most of my Facebook “friends” wouldn’t have been very compatible as in-person friends. We wouldn’t have had enough in common to develop a particularly deep friendship, and the interactions would have been too unbalanced. So it seems odd to refer to them as friends in the same way I’d refer to my in-person friends. It would be much better to refer to them as acquaintances.

Facebook is ruled by addicts.
This is probably obvious, but the Facebook “friends” that you’ll interact with most frequently will tend to be those who are the most addicted. They post more status updates and comments because they spend a lot of time glued to Facebook. So you end up giving the most attention to those who are the greatest addicts.

Facebook is lazy socialization.
Social networking makes it easy to become socially lazy. With a few clicks, you can delude yourself into thinking you have an active social life. But is that the real story? Are you enjoying some intelligent face time with these friends? Or are you merely exchanging witty banter? Do you deeply value these friendships? Are you having the social experiences you desire? Or are you just wasting time clicking and typing and telling yourself you’re being social? What else could you be doing instead of social networking?

It’s a good idea to pause and take a look at your social results. Has social networking transformed your life for the better? Has it helped bring empowering relationships, valuable contacts, and intelligent mentors into your life? Or does it leave you drifting in a sea of social drifters?

I found that spending more time on Facebook didn’t produce much value for me socially. I did make some interesting contacts now and then, but it wasn’t worth the time spent.
     
It was definitely worth it to step away for 30 days!
If you have any doubts about your own Facebook usage, I highly recommend you try a 30-day Facebook fast. It’s easy to do this because Facebook lets you (temporarily or permanently) deactivate your account without deleting your data. So if you decide you want to go back to using it later, you can always log back in again, and everything can be restored with a few clicks, including your wall, photos, etc. As for the how-to, all you do is login to your Facebook account, and click Account -> Account Settings. Then at the bottom of that page, click “deactivate.” Follow the instructions from there. This won’t delete your data, but it will take your profile offline. You’ll become invisible on the service. To restore it later, just login again and click a similar link to bring it back.

If you really want to stay in touch with certain people from Facebook who don’t already have an alternate means of contacting you, you can send them a private message before you deactivate your account to let them know how to reach you during your hiatus.

I’m so thankful I did this challenge. In my case it was obvious within a few days that the benefits I got from using it weren’t worth the effort, but there were other subtleties I didn’t notice until weeks later.

The 30 day fast helped me realize that my time is valuable and precious to me. It also helped me realize I needed to re-prioritize things in my life and instead of spending hours and hours a day on the internet, I needed to shift my focus to living in the here and now. I needed to concentrate more on my spiritual life and less on the social media network.

When I signed back in, for the first time in 30 days, the post I placed on my wall was a tad bit facetious. I said, “I’m back! Did I miss anything?” I knew when I posted it that I hadn’t really missed anything important. Sure I may have missed seeing some cute photos or quippy posts but other than that, I’m sure there was nothing major that I’d missed.

Now that I’ve refocused, I’ll check my Facebook page once or maybe twice a day but I surely won’t sit in front of my computer for hours on end scrolling through the news feed. I can’t believe I ever did that in the first place, but like I said before, right after surgery I became extremely introverted. I had no social interaction at all other than with my husband and my children so Facebook did fill a void for me.

It’s funny, but somehow I feel as if I’ve taken my life back. I feel empowered that I can choose to keep things in my life private instead of sharing every little detail on Facebook. Now, when I’m out shooting, I don’t take a photo and think immediately, “oooh, I have to post this!” And when I travel, I don’t have to tell all of my Facebook friends where I’m going and what I’m doing. In the past, I would have shared the information in a sort of braggadocios way…”hey guys, look where I am! Look what I’m doing! Aren’t you jealous???” (Well, I never really used those words but in essence, that’s what my posts were saying.

It amazes me that so many people spend so much time on Facebook every day. What did they do before Mark Zuckerberg had the idea to create Facebook back in 2004? How did Facebook become such a phenomenon? Will people ever tire of it? Will something new come along to take its place? Why do we feel such a need to snoop into other people’s lives? Why do we feel a need to keep up with the Joneses? Why do we feel let down if no one comments on our posts?

There are so many Facebook addicts out there, are you one of them? Would you admit it to anyone other than yourself? How does it make you feel to know you give Facebook so much power over your life? Could you break away from it for a period of thirty days and have the will power not to check it even once? I challenge you to consider taking a break. You may not want to do a full thirty days, but how about a week? Could you handle 7 days without Facebook? Try it and be amazed at what you find out about yourself during your sabbatical. I did it and I’m so glad I did.

Another one gets ready to go home...

In an earlier post, I mentioned a very courageous woman I've met over the internet. Her name is Kara Tippetts and she is a wonderful woman of faith who is in the very last stage of her battle with breast cancer. Every day I check her blog to find out the latest news. Can you believe she's been posting throughout her entire journey? Even when she's been extremely weak and barely able to type, she does it because she wants her followers to be informed. She wants them to stay current on her struggles and she wants them, most of all, to understand her faith.

Kara, when she was first diagnosed, wrote a book about her journey called The Hardest Peace. I thought the title of her book was rather interesting...just the concept of peace being hard caught my attention. I bought and read her book right after I was diagnosed and I was so blessed by reading it. Kara used examples of her faith brilliantly as she wove the story of God's love through her life. I won't share the details of the story with you because you'll want to read it for yourself.

The reason I'm writing this blog post about Kara again is because her story is so close to my heart. Without sounding morbid, I can't help but put myself in her shoes. One day, and only the Lord knows when, I'll be at the point of death...I only hope I can finish as well as Kara will.

Kara with her husband Jason sharing a tender moment

The one lesson I've learned from following Kara's story is this...nothing but love matters. That sounds so simple doesn't it? And really it is simple! Over and over and over the main theme of the Bible is love. As Christians, our lives should so focus on love that nothing else is important. I think Jesus feels the same way otherwise, why would He have emphasized love so much? "…37And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38"This is the great and foremost commandment. 39"The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'…" (Matthew 22:37-39)

As Kara's life nears the end, her one last wish is to be able to go to the beach with her family. She and I are alike in our love of the beach. It would also be my last wish. I feel the most close to God when I'm on the beach looking out at the water. Just the vast expanse of the sea overwhelms me. Just knowing that God, in His omnipotent power, not only created the sea but set boundaries to contain it amazes me. He is so much more than we can fathom!

Will you join with me in praying that Kara is able to have her last wish? I'm sure it will be a huge undertaking to have the medical equipment transported over such a distance and it will be a great challenge to work out the logistics for her family. I hope she is able to bask in the sunshine as she looks out at the rolling waves of the sea and feel the glorious presence of her Savior's love. I hope her family will savor every last minute of time they have to spend with Kara and that precious memories are formed.

Kara and her family at the beach before she got so sick

Life is so short, even 60 or 70 years seems to flash by in the blink of an eye...and we are reminded we are nothing but a vapor that disappears. "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." James 4:14

Let love be the most important thing in your life. It really is all that matters. 

©bonnie annis all rights reserved

A week in the life...

It's almost the end of January and it's been a little over six months since my surgery. It doesn't seem like it's been that long,  and I even had to double check the calendar to confirm the reality of that fact. During the past six months, I've been through an awful lot and I continue to have daily trials. It may seem like all I do on this blog is complain, but believe me, that's not my intention. Cancer is tough and that's a huge understatement. Hopefully, you'll allow me to share my difficulties without being judgmental. My purpose in sharing is to give you, the reader, a very clear and realistic picture of what life as a victim of cancer is really like. If you weren't interested, you wouldn't be reading my blog, now would you? So let me tell you what the past few days have been like for me.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday:
These were pretty rough days all around. Tamoxifen has been totally messing with my mind, my body and my spirit. The side effects continue to be a challenge. My main problem is being unable to sleep. Sleeping pills, both prescribed and natural, work for an hour or two and then don't. I toss and turn all night long and have started sleeping in the guest room so I won't disturb my husband. As I lay in bed trying to sleep, I start sweating profusely...night sweats, another side effect of the medication. I change clothes several times a night because of them.

During the day, I have hot flashes. They sneak up on me when I least expect it. For example, Monday I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. I was feeling perfectly fine one minute and the next, I felt like Mt. Vesuvius had erupted inside my body. I was so hot, I had to take off my shirt and start fanning myself. I am a cold natured person. I rarely ever get warm because I have no thyroid gland to regulate my body temperature like normal people do. Sure, I take synthetic thyroid replacement hormones, but even they don't keep my body temp at normal. My normal temp is 97.1 or lower while most normal people register a lovely 98.6. So when I get a hot flash, I mean it's HOT. The hot flashes come and go, thank goodness they don't stick around for more than about thirty minutes at a time.

I had several emotional meltdowns. Poor Phil! He tried so hard to comfort me and he is so sweet! He would look over at me and see the tears welling up in my eyes and immediately come over to hug me and tell me everything was going to be okay. The meltdowns start out small and then escalate. I don't have to be thinking about anything in particular and the tears just start flowing. I'm sure it's the medication because I'm normally a happy go lucky person. Feelings of hopelessness and despair overcome me and I feel like I'm losing it. I tell Phil I can't take it any more and that I'm going to stop taking the Tamoxifen. I don't like feeling out of control.

I also don't like the yeast infection that has suddenly appeared...another medication side effect. Tamoxifen messes with your body's Estrogen levels and that throws everything else out of whack. So I began drinking Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar and got some over the counter meds from the drugstore that should help fix the problem.

Thursday:
I call my oncologist's office to tell them Tamoxifen is messing me up big time. While I'm talking to the nurse, I burst into tears. She consoles me and tells me it's going to be okay. She says she'll talk to the doctor and call me back. Later that afternoon, I get the callback. The nurse tells me that my doc wants me to stop taking Tamoxifen. I didn't dare tell her I already did! She says we'll discuss new medications at my appointment next week. I hang up the phone relieved that I now have official approval to stop Tamoxifen.

By Thursday evening, I'm starting to feel normal again...well, when I say normal, I mean pretty much my usual self B.C. (before cancer). I enjoy the evening without any meltdowns, hot flashes, or night sweats. The yeast infection is still here and is very bothersome (another side effect of the medication) but I can handle that.

Friday:
I'm feeling much better and wonder if it is possible to not take any more medication. I want to ask my oncologist if this is a possibility, but I know the answer before I even ask the question. He'll tell me that we want to be sure and keep the cancer from recurring and in order to do that, I need to take medication.  It sucks! I don't want to have to take medication for the next 5 to 10 years but I have no choice.

Although I'm feeling better physically, I don't feel great. I still have to deal with the lymphedema and now the yeast infection. There's no way to describe the discomfort I feel other than to do a little rant here so be prepared... I'm so sick and tired of having fat arms! My arms are so swollen that I can't wear hardly anything in my closet. My arms swell up and get so tight it feels like my skin is going to burst wide open and there's not a thing I can do about it other than wear the compression sleeves. So now, I have fat, swollen, hurting arms and a crotch that feels like it's on fire. But I really do feel better. At least I'm not crying about it! At least the emotional meltdowns are over! Now I just want to hit something!!!

And to top it off, I feel forgotten. There I said it. I didn't want to have a pity party here but I'm having a tiny one anyway. When I first was diagnosed, people I hadn't seen or talked to in years called or sent cards to let me know they were so sorry to hear my news. I felt so loved and cared about. For the past few months, not a single card or call have come in. I still need encouragement, even if it has been 6 months since my surgery. I am still struggling and I guess I will be for some time. Cancer is the gift that keeps on giving, as one of my fellow survivors says. You can't just forget about it and move on. It's always with you and the thoughts of recurrence are always in the back of your mind. No matter how hard you try, it's always there reminding you of its presence.

So you see, it's still a daily challenge. Oh yes, I'm thankful that I'm alive and I'm thankful every morning I wake up and see another day. I am so very grateful that I'm still here...but cancer is not easy...definitely not easy. But I keep fighting, it's all I have left and I won't give up even if I feel like I have no fight left in me...

©bonnie annis all rights reserved

What to do, what to do???

The Cancer saga continues and in today's episode, there's a dilemma. The dilemma is one that demands my utmost attention. Now what exactly is the dilemma you wonder? I can almost see you sitting on the edge of your seat, biting your nails thinking what is it? What is it? Well....let me tell you about my dilemma.

Before Christmas, the Oncologist started me on Arimidex, which is a fairly new cancer drug. It's listed as an aromatase inhibitor and is the preferred drug of choice for women who are post menopausal. I'm an obedient patient and I took the medication as instructed. I even endured weeks of funky side effects but then, after being as compliant as I could be, I'd had all I could stand. I contacted the doctor's office and told him Arimidex was definitely not for me. After explaining all of my symptoms to the doctor, he instructed me to go off the medication until December 27. Being the good girl that I am, I did exactly as I was told.

For most of the month of December, I felt normal...well, as normal as you can feel when you've experienced the trauma of breast cancer, surgery, and radiation...but I felt pretty much like myself. Oh, now and then I had some emotional challenges and shed tons of unexpected and unexplained tears, but I made it through the holidays pretty much unscathed.

On December 27, being the obedient one, I began taking Tamoxifen as the doctor ordered. The first few days, I only had a slight headache and thought, "hey, this isn't going to be so bad afterall!" As the days went by, the side effects increased. First it was insomnia, then hot flashes and night sweats, then it was an inability to think straight, and then depression. The symptoms kept compounding and getting worse.

Two days ago, I experienced another side effect from Tamoxifen...the dreaded yeast infection. Sorry. I know that's TMI (too much information) but I'm just trying to keep it real here. Any woman who's had a yeast infection knows it is NOT something minor. A yeast infection is enough to drive a sane person onto the brink of insanity. So...this compliant woman...this unusually obedient person...MOI...became very upset and frustrated. Back and forth, I argued with myself. Should I or should I not continue taking the Tamoxifen? After much deliberation and prayer, I have decided to stop taking Tamoxifen. Now hold on a minute! Don't get your panties in a wad! I did weigh out the options and yes, I have called the doctor and told him everything...in fact, I'm waiting for a callback from his office as I type. And no...the yeast infection wasn't what made me make my decision, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak.

I don't know if my decision not to continue taking Tamoxifen is the perfect one, but I do know it's the right one for me. I can't keep going night after night with no sleep. I can't live my life in a state of drugged stupor where I can't even focus on mundane things. I won't trade my quality of life for my quantity of life...in fact, I know that nothing is going to detract one single minute of one single day from the specific amount of time God has allotted to me.

You might think I'm crazy, but I have a big faith. I know God is able to keep cancer cells from spreading throughout my body. I know He can completely heal me in an instant if He so chooses. I have a proven track record of His past answers to prayers for healing. I'm continuing to seek His will on this and if He guides me into trying another medication or type of treatment, I will obey. First and foremost, I always want to follow after my Savior. After all, He's the one who created me and He is the one who holds the minutes, hours, and days of my life in the palm of His hand. Who better to trust than Him?

Hope and renewal

Oh what a gloriously beautiful day! It's so nice and warm and sunny. It's been cold and dreary for such a long time now and I've gotten so very tired of Winter. Sometimes, it seems like it will last forever. As I think about the seasons, I can't help but think about my life. Spring was when I was full of youth. Summer found me just a little older and beginning to blossom. Autumn brought wisdom and even more years of life...and now, on the tail end of Autumn, I stare straight into the eyes of Winter...the Winter of my life. Winter - the last season.

Today, we've been given a little taste of Spring. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and there's a hint of anticipation in the air. For days and days we've had nothing but overcast skies and gloominess. Though the sun is shining, it's a facade. Winter is still very present and Winter, even though not always welcomed, is necessary. Beneath the cold and frozen ground lie plants and animals suspended in time. But wait! Something is happening...things changing. Things are being revitalized, renewed, and restored. It's a time of preparation.

Winter is the time of year when plants cease growing and lie dormant. The trees, naked and bare, stand like sentries keeping watch. Flowers have sloughed off their petals and leaves. They look like barren, lifeless twigs. Though they look dead, they are still very much alive. They soak up sunlight but don't expend any energy growing...they wait. Animals rest, too. Some hibernate and others merely slow down. They focus on doing whatever is necessary to survive. Winter.

When the weather turned cold, I brought my plants in so they wouldn't freeze. They've been sitting on my kitchen table for several months now. Every morning, I make sure to open the blinds early so they can soak up every drop of sunlight that shines in my window. The days are short now and sunlight is vital for them. Today, since it's close to 70 degrees, I think they'll enjoy being outside. As I carry them, I look down at their leaves. They've seemed a little droopy and limp lately. Their color is lacking. As I get closer to the door, it almost seems they're perking up...how do they know warm air and sunshine are coming?

I sit my plants on the porch and walk out into the day. It feels so refreshing! The air is cool and breezy. Glancing over my shoulder, I see my rose bushes. The blooms, long faded since last Summer, have died. All that remains are thorny shafts. At first look, I wonder if they are completely dead. Could the cold weather have killed them? Taking my pruning shears in hand, I snip off a third of one branch and look. The core is green! It's still alive! I'm so thankful and begin carefully shaping and pruning. The pruning will encourage new growth to sprout in the next few months. I can hardly wait to see my roses full and lush again.

In the Winter of my life, I too have slowed down. I find myself thinking more and doing less. Perhaps I need to take this time to rest. Perhaps my body is in the process of restoration and renewal too. I think the Winter of my life is a good time to be still and reflect on what God's done over the years. It's also a time to focus on healing both spiritually and physically.

Sometimes Winters are hard, but no matter how hard they seem, one thing is true...Spring will come again! The world may look dead and lifeless right now but soon, it's going to come alive again. It will soon be teaming with life. The sun will shine strong and brilliant again. Things will grow. The days will be warm and sweet. There is a time and a purpose for everything and as Winter fades, a season of hope springs forth. I cling to that hope, do you?

©bonnie annis all rights reserved

This girl is on FIRE!

Ah. Alicia Keys...love her...love the uniqueness of her songs. One in particular speaks to me lately, "Girl on Fire." (You can listen to it here.) But instead of being all cool and together like the woman Alicia sings about in her song, I am literally on FIRE (well, not literally...there aren't flames shooting from my fingertips or anything, but I feel like I'm about to burst into flames!) Oh, Tamoxifen! What are you doing to me??? You are evil and I hate you! One minute I'm cool and the next minute I'm stripping off my clothes, dripping wet with sweat. You are torturing me! The point is, I’ve already been through menopause. I hated the hot flashes then and I hate them now. But when my Oncologist said I'd experience some side effects with Tamoxifen, I had no idea I'd feel like I was in the midst of menopause all over again!

As cancer treatments go, Tamoxifen is a breeze, but a breeze that blows hot . . . like the Santa Ana winds. Compared to the pain and discomfort of surgery and radiation, a few hot flashes here and there are nothing to complain about. (For the sake of accuracy though, I will say that Tamoxifen does have other side-effects that are much more serious than hot flashes, some of which I am already experiencing. And then there are the ones that are much more rare, like blood clots, which I hope I never experience!)

Some people think that tamoxifen puts you into menopause, but that's not true. It simply causes menopause-like symptoms, such as hot flashes. It does reduce the production of estrogen, but does not stop it entirely. Tamoxifen is usually used for women who are pre-menopausal and aromatase inhibitors are usually used for post menopausal women. In my case, Arimidex, the aromatase inhibitor I was started on, was not tolerable at all so the doctor switched me to the old standby, Tamoxifen.

The first time I had a hot flash, I thought I was spontaneously combusting. I still feel that way even today. Taking off my shirt becomes imperative. When the hot flashes occur at night, as they usually do, stripping off my shirt is not a problem since I am at home and Phil has always enjoyed abrupt displays of semi-nudity. But in this case, these displays are nothing other than an attempt at cooling down. They are not an invitation to touch me! When my skin is so hot you could flash-fry bacon on my stomach, it’s best not to cuddle up to me or attempt an even friskier move. No, it would be best to just sympathize with me and murmur something appropriate and innocuous like “oh, you poor thing! Are you having another one?” and then back away slowly, avoiding eye contact. Do not touch! I repeat, do not touch!

Some hot flashes are strong enough to wake me up at night. One moment I’m dozing comfortably, burrowed under the covers like a normal person, and the next I feel as if someone has plugged me into an electrical socket. All of a sudden, I’m scrambling to get free of the sheets and blankets. After I cool down, I pull the covers back up . . . until the next flash comes along. This cycle continues all through the night and by morning, the bedclothes are twisted and gnarled, half on the bed, half on the floor. Poor Phil! He hasn't been sleeping well lately. I wonder why?

About a month ago, when temperatures first dropped below freezing at night, we were in bed. He looked over at me with covers pulled up to his chin as the ceiling fan was whirring overhead. There was a questioning look in his eyes that seemed to say, “Are we EVER going to be able to turn on the heat again?” As I locked eyes with him, I squinted, with the don't EVEN GO THERE look. As I turned over, I whispered, "just think of all the money we're saving on the heating bill!" Of course, he didn't hear me because he had already dug in and was fast asleep.

©bonnie annis all rights reserved