December 12, 2015

Hi Everyone.  I hope you are all doing well and getting into the Christmas Spirit.  Christmas will be here before we know it and the mad rush will soon be over.  It's a special time of year and sometimes it's forgotten why we even have Christmas.  So, keep Christ in your hearts as you go about your busy day(s) and be thankful for all the blessings in your life.  I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Again, I would like to thank everyone for the phone calls, flowers, texts and emails.  They absolutely lift my spirits!  My health at this point in time is great.  I still have some residual lingering effects of the Xeloda such as still lightly shedding skin and it comes and goes.  No rhyme or reason why it's doing this.  I noticed a few days ago that my feet no longer hurt and my fingers also felt 'normal'!  I didn't notice it until the next day because I had gotten used to having pain.  Weird, I know.  My new meds still have not given me any side effects that I can tell.  Mouth sores are a common problem for the first 6 weeks after beginning taking them.  There is a steroid mouthwash that I use to swish around in my mouth and it's working because I haven't had any mouth sores.  Sometimes the top of my tongue seems 'rough'

but never sore.  I have prayed and prayed and prayed that this medicine will beat the cancer back and I will know for sure after I have CT scans done in January.  I am also praying for friends and family that are having health problems.  Some are in constant pain and others have intermittent pain, mobility issues, etc.  The list goes on and on.  Some have had very serious surgeries and have made remarkable recoveries.  They never gave up and kept on fighting to get better.  Giving up is easy but the end result of doing nothing means dying and I am nowhere close to wanting to die.  I have to admit that when I was going through all the pain Xeloda caused me, my mind went to a dark place.  I cried out to God to please stop the pain and he did.  I could feel the pain subsiding and I would get some relief but it would come back and I would pray again and the same thing happened.  I was finally able to go to sleep during one of the lulls in the pain.  God didn't give up on me and I didn't give up on him.  During that time I thought about people who commit suicide.  I never understood how anyone would want to kill themselves.  That window of pain that I experienced gave me the answer.  If the rest of my life meant I was going to have to live with the pain I had, I couldn't and wouldn't do it.  I wouldn't kill myself, ever, but I would stop taking the medication that caused all the pain.  So, me, understanding that there are millions of people who live with constant physical pain and some live with crippling emotional pain gave me the answer as to why someone would commit suicide.  We all have our limits on what we can endure and those poor souls had lost the will to continue on with what they were dealing with.  It made me sad then and makes me sad now to think about those people.  I always try to be kind to strangers I meet and try to remember that I have no idea what they are going through at any moment in time and things they may be dealing with.  Maybe a kind word, look or gesture is all they need to get them through another day.

Sorry to get so heavy there at the end but that's my memories from that small window of time in my life.  May you all be blessed with all you need and have a safe and wonderful Christmas.

I love you all,

Glenda