Living Life By The Ocean

This has been a rough week.  No sugar coating, no pretending.   This cancer journey is an overwhelming experience. As the months have gone by, dealing with the increasing physical needs of our life is challenging. Home and garden maintenance has been managed by our son who takes on so much to help but it's time I learn what needs to be done and to make a plan to take over. Our master bath has been gutted and remodelled this week and as with any reno, it causes angst and upset. Lots of dust, extra people in your bedroom, crap everywhere and the crap you actually need is under other crap and inaccessible. Power tools are going strong and every noise seems magnified. I've been taught well by my boss at work to have a spreadsheet for each task in life and being organized helps me manage what needs to be done.  Now if I could muster up the energy to create a spreadsheet. 😉  I know as the home repair and garden maintenance needs arise, I'll meet them and do my best. ...

I recently read a story about a young woman who suddenly collapsed and was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumour. After her successful surgery and recovery, she likened it to living in black and white before her surgery and all of a sudden, she was living in colour now that she was well. Facing mortality is life changing. A year ago we were preparing to go to Ireland to celebrate our 30th anniversary. Sam was planning his Christmas light show and life was bursting with all the colours of love and joy.  These days I see more of a flat, one dimensional scenery.  It truly feels as if I have become colour blind over the last few months.   How to find colour again and get my groove back. --  these are my ramblings: ACKNOWLEDGE Remembering where I've come from these past few months and to see the way our family has been sustained is encouraging.  Remembering God's faithfulness to us and His provisions reminds me that we are on track and that our story is stil...

It seems unfathomable that life can change so quickly, but I suppose I am living proof that it can happen. Looking back over the past 8 months and 7 days, I survived a swim through shark-infested waters and although the cancer shark is still circling, we are working through all of the decisions and emotions that come with a cancer diagnosis.     One of the hardest emotions to manage these days is the feeling of isolation.  Before cancer, we had such a rich life of friends, dinners out, serving at our church, and Sam's greatest love, his Rotary club.  He was an assistant governor over the Rotary Clubs on the Sunshine Coast and his days were filled with looking forward to traveling to the club meetings, and taking on the duties of that position with such joy.  He loved going to Seattle to training meetings and seeing new members come into the club with the intent of showing them about Service Above Self.  Although I wasn't a Rotary club member, I loved...

Welcome Friday!  If Friday Had a Face, I would Kiss it.    Now, that is one of my favorite sayings. Most of us have words we live by:  Be the Type of Person You Want to Meet; When You Can't Change the Direction of the Wind, Adjust your Sails... you know the uplifting, positive crap spewed out over the internet.   People who say them mean well, and the words make perfect sense, but they are just words.  Real life words are:  Don't Tip the Milk Cup or It Will Spill; Don't take the helium mermaid balloon outside and let go, because it will fly upward (which is what my perfect grandson did today).  Now those are real words of wisdom.  Spillage/clean up and the loss of a balloon are real life disappointments.  Life does not consist of positive, life-coach rhetoric words.  Some days are filled with tears, disbelief, troubles and raw pain, and it's okay to admit you are overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, frustrated and downright in...

This week we celebrated 31 years married!  What fun it is thinking about our wedding day in 1986 at the Riverwalk Restaurant, just a small, 50 people, get together with mostly my friends and our families.  We were married at noon and had a luncheon.  A few days later we flew to Vancouver to have a look at where we were destined to begin married life.   Several years ago I thought it would be fun to dress up in our wedding clothes and do pictures....styles have definitely changed for the better.  2015 I began to think about what good friends we have been through the years.  The one man that "gets me" has been so much fun to live with, to raise our kids together, to travel with, to build our businesses and lives together.  I contend the reason our marriage worked -- even with everything against us -- was because we were first friends.  We have polar opposite personalities, political views, were raised in opposite sides of North America...

Dealing with all that life hurled at me this week should have left me floundering on the ground in pain and grief...but I'm still standing and doing remarkably well. There are a couple of reasons for that:  my girlfriend from way, way back, my go-to girl and bestie who moved away 3 years ago drove 4+ hours to come be with me this weekend. She never ceases to amaze me with her generosity and total understanding of how I'm feeling--probably because she faced a Cancer diagnosis with a loved one not so long ago. We are kindred spirits, and we ate together, hugged and she reminded me she would always be here for me. I feel refreshed and energized to face tomorrow! Tomorrow is the Ride for Pancreatic Cancer, the Glotman-Simpson Cypress Mountain challenge, and 100% of the monies raised go toward research and treatment for pancreatic cancer. Today we met our goal and I am ecstatic, grateful, humbled and a zillion more emotions that our friends would donate out of love for Sam. Our ...

When I began writing about our Cancer journey, I knew deep in my soul that it would be unpredictable, that things could get better ... healing could happen ... Or it might not. In real life, some days are sunny days, some are stormy, and some are rainbow days--the beauty after the storm. I write to remind myself of my feelings on given days and to reassure my kids and their families that we are ok, that we trust God for His plan to be worked out in our family.  Through our illness, I have been reminded (not surprised) at how strong our three kids are--I no longer think of them as "kids."  They are strong, resilient, attentive, empathetic, always on the phone to me asking to help, generous and self-sacrificing adults.  They are everything and more we have raised them to be. They are my biggest cheerleaders and my go-to people on not-so-good days. They consistently show no  judgment,.,.just love toward me. This week was a hard week. We finalized the sale on our ...

Today I heard a story about James Doohan --he played the character Scotty in the original Star Trek tv series.  He told about receiving a letter from a young lady who was a fan talking about committing suicide. He immediately called her and invited her to a Star Trek convention and she came and he talked with her and reassured her that her life had meaning and value.  She left still feeling despondent but he didn't give up. Over the course of the next couple of years, she attended 18 more conventions and then suddenly they lost touch. She did not contact him and he feared the worst. Eight years later he received a letter from that same young lady, who was now a married woman with a Masters degree in Engineering telling James how he had helped save her life and because of his words of encouragement over and over, she began to realize suicide was not the answer.  James Doohan didn't give up. He was relentless in continuing to let this young woman know how much value her li...

You might think this post is about becoming vegan or changing our diet...but the real change I'm proposing comes from within. This was a week filled with challenges. We spent one full day at hospital getting hydration and support.  The heat zaps a person with a serious illness and staying on top of increased pain and dehydration is difficult. I am still dealing with the wind down and sale of our businesses which seemed to consume far too much of my brain space this week.  I had a little talk with a support person assigned to me and she said that my feelings are understandable, especially in light of the fact I haven't been sleeping for weeks, maybe months. Her comment that: Sleep Deprivation is a Form of Torture really hit home and actually I felt justified in being overwhelmed today.  Maybe the fact that I need to even justify my feelings is part of the problem. 😊 So, where does the milk come in:  tonight I ran out to grab dinner to bring home and just on a wh...