This Up Next: 6-Month Mammo Check

Next Friday is my first mammogram on the left side since my diagnosis and treatment. I am not overly worried something will be found. I had the surgeries, they came back clear. I had the radiation, "rads" to us insiders, and I'm on the protective hormones now for the last 5 months. I feel well insulated from the narrow possibility that there are more microcalcifications like what they found a year ago. Yes, there is a smidgen of a chance there is some area that all these treatments somehow skipped over, but I am choosing to believe chances of that are slim.

The appointment brings up discomfort in that it reminds me of and puts me back in that place and time when I was "fighting cancer". Going into the office to meet with the oncologists is an entrance back into that club. I am okay with it while I'm there. I'm so incredibly lucky that my history was a quick and easy one, but as I look around there, it is also a reminder of how badly it could've gone or what else could happen.

I will go through this follow-up check, and the next one, and the next one. I also plan to continue to do what I can to live a great life in the meantime. I will go to exciting places, laugh a lot with my family and friends, and make plans for new experiences and adventures.

Every six months I will step back into that club, and silently give thanks I am only there for a moment, no matter what happens.

Be a Victor, not a Victim

I'm a natural crabbypants. I have written of my negative streak before. It's a little cloud that hovers above me often. Its not that I'm unhappy with my life, I'm not. I completely love so many things I have. I get sappy and emotional with all the blessings I have. Two super great kids, a stable job, hobbies I love that have kept me healthy, an education no one can take away from me, a great guy, and a boatload of awesome friends. My Sinatra is the perfect ying to my yang, and luckily he usually gets me smiling with his cheerfulness when I'm feeling less than enthusiastic.

But at times my temper and my moods will wipe away all the sunshine and butterflies that may be dancing around me. I distress, I fret, I assume the worst. I can physically make myself sick with worry.

I must stop this. It will eventually negate all the lovely happy joys I do have and what a waste that would be.

Today I happened upon the new book by Joel Osteen:

He's the smiley televangelist from Houston's Lakewood Church. This "church" is nondenominational, and huge. I mean they bought the arena where as a teenager I saw Bon Jovi play-- The Summit, for their home base, but he travels all over the country spreading his positivity. I actually went to Lakewood Church years ago before it was in the Summit, when my oldest was a baby. My ex-husband's parents were members so there we were, singing and swaying in the pep rally, and Joel's dad John laid his hands on and blessed my Lil Lady when she was only 6 months old. So I've watched Joel's progress and success ever since.

Anyway, his website popped up on Facebook today and right in the nick of time I get this little quote:

Energize your life!

God has created you to be a victor, not a victim. Jumpstart your day by celebrating the very best that God has for you! These daily inspirations will help you grow in your relationship with the Lord and equip you to be everything God intends you to be.

So of course I'm an Amazon.com junkie and I bought his daily devotional book. And a few others of his older ones. The new Every Day A Friday book isn't out yet, but if I like his others, I will get it. I am happiest on Fridays, as a matter of fact.

I'm not super pious but soon this month Lent will begin for us Catholics, so I buckle down and search for ways to reflect each day during the forty-day season. I don't get to Mass very often so the few quiet minutes I have at the end of my days are devoted to thanking my lucky stars (that's God) and trying to see the not so ideal things happening to me as chances for me to be everything God wants me to be.

So the new plan is to walk into His open arms when I'm feeling low, so He can carry me in those hard times.

So I said to the Lord, "Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”
The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints,
my child, is when I carried you.”