anchored with hope

It started with the little white pill.  I was down to my last lopressor pills, on a Sunday.  And we simply didn't call a refill in on time.  So I took a half that morning and night to get by.  It was Monday night, as I went to take my handful of vitamins and several tiny pills.  And one of them felt like it slipped out of my palm and went down into the sink… and I envisioned it had gone right down the drain.

At first glance, I saw nothing.  So what would I do if I didn't ever see it?  How would I know which one fell?  Which one I should take?  Here I had missed that lopressor pill, and badly needed to take it for my heart rate to be on an even keel. Panic set in quickly.  So I sent up a quick "help, please."

 As I bent over to see the sink more closely, I was astonished to see, somehow a little white pill had stuck to the side of the sink and was waiting like a gift for me to rescue.

Holy canoli!  It felt like someone was watching out for me in the tiniest of ways.

I notice these small moments so much more often.  They feel so big to me.

The next morning I hurried off to infusion at Roger Maris.  As I registered at the front desk, my friend Cathy, beckoned me over to her registration spot.  She handed me a little box saying, "we all have one, and I thought you should have one to wear too."

Inside was a dainty silver necklace with the word hope scrolled into the chain, along with a silver cancer ribbon- to me signifying all cancers.  (I draped it over the canvas in my top photo.)

I was so touched.

I quickly sat down and worked the clasp loose and then closed it around my neck.

Shortly, I heard my name being called and I was walked back to infusion.

I was settled in quickly and had my blood drawn right from my port.  It was slick.

But after checking, my nurse Toni, said I wouldn't get tumor marker results until the next day.

So I sat and waited for my iv bag of herceptin to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

The pharmacy was all backed up, it would be awhile.

So I journaled.  I read.  I wrote.

An hour later, my drug had finally arrived.

And then in the midst of everything, my nurse reappeared with a single sheet of paper.

"Apparently, they were wrong.  Here are your tumor markers."

I'm barely focused on what she is saying, as she smiles and hands me the sheet.

My tumor markers went DOWN.

My tumor markers went from 42 to 32!

They'd been slowly climbing each week, and then, wham.

And suddenly I wanted to see Dr. Panwalkar in the worst way!  If anyone would high five me, or hug me in a knowing way- it would be him.

Its the tiniest victory.

It simply means, the Arimidex must be holding the tumors in check at least.  We still won't know, until I have a scan a few weeks after surgery.

But it feels like "more time."  It feels like gift.  It feels like grace.

I even make it to baseball to watch Colton play later that night.

I come home to prepare a special gift for a special woman.

One of the first breast cancer survivors to come into my life- my friend Steph.

Who just so happened to become Colton's teacher this year.

How lucky are we? 

I found this book mark in the cities and it spoke to me of her.  We put a bunch of goodies in a bag for her and hope she can feel how grateful and blessed both Colton and I have been by her presence in our lives!  

Finally, I crashed last night but had to read just a few pages.  I am still dog-earing and highlighting and re-reading my Cold Tangerines. And there it was.  All that I have felt, and slowly been discovering. 

Here is what she so brilliantly summed up for me:

Shauna Niequist is speaking of writing:  "What writing teaches me, over and over, is that God is waiting to be found everywhere, in the darkest corners of our lives, the dead ends and bad neighborhoods we wake up in, and in the simplest, lightest, most singular luminous moments. He's hiding like a child, in quite obvious and visible places, because he wants to be found.  The miracle is, that he dwells in both… the light… and the darkness."

I could just keep going on- its all so worthy.   Her words keep rhythm with the strumming of my heart, and the evenness of my breath and I am sleeping soundly in no time.