Healing By A Village

I am such a goober. I was laying in bed last night talking to Danny, when I realized that I didn't come up with the idea of finding cancer survivors. In fact, it was from a book that was given to me by a fellow brain cancer fighter, Jude. In the book (The Story Of Two: Fighting Serious Illness with an Attitude and an Advocate) was a story of a man who went to great lengths to survive his metastasized malignant melanoma. When I read that book, I realized that I should find more success stories. Without Jude's gift, who knows how long it would have taken me to figure out I could learn endless tricks from other cancer survivors. That's another wonderful thing about this blog, it has connected me with so many people that I never would have known. With my new friends, they bring with them knowledge, support, ideas, books, videos, doctor recommendations, researchers, and insurmountable hope. I'm so grateful for you! All of you.

Growing up in Friday Harbor, I was raised by a village. Now, I'm being healed by a village. Great things happen when great minds come together with a common cause. I can't thank all of you enough for helping me fight this. If you ever come across doctors, books, stories, treatments, research, please continue to send it my direction. I can't promise I'll try every outlet, and sometimes things fall through the cracks and I forget to follow through, but I'm working as hard as I can to explore each avenue. Thank you for continuing to help me stay up to date, and energized. This is quite a big challenge to take on, but like I've said in the past, I'm up for this - I can do it.

On another note, I want to share the late, but still exciting news of our friends Matt and AJ. Matt is Mr Movember, you might remember him from previous blogs. Anyway, during this crazy hectic month, Matt and AJ not only took on fundraising for my medical bills, but at the same time, their family grew! They welcomed twins. Here are a few photos that I stole from their Facebook pages :) Congrats you guys! And, welcome to the crazy world, Hazel and Owen.

Empowering Books

I feel like a chicken with its' head cut off. I think it's pretty normal to go a bit crazy after a bad sickness, and I'm no exception. After 10 days of laying in bed, I went nuts yesterday and conquered too much. It was just so nice to be able to get up and goof around. I've not only started back up on my artemisinin pills, I also laced up and jogged the lake too. While I was jogging, I swung by the Green Lake Library to get a long over due library card (pun intended). While there I randomly picked up two amazing books.

About two weeks ago I realized that people survive cancer all the time, beating the odds and surprising doctors. It's something that I knew, peripherally, but somehow it hadn't completely sunk in, the concept just wasn't quite tangible. I started to think about it though, the other day. I wondered how people are doing it, how are they outsmarting their cancer? Ever since this diagnosis, I've been trying to find my way, slowly figuring out the way to win. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has looked to survivors for guidance. The first book I picked up at the library is called, Cancer: 50 Essential Things To Do, by Greg Anderson. This book, although I'm only a few pages deep, has completely changed my life. The author was diagnosed with a nasty metastasized lung cancer and given only 30 days to live. Crazy, huh. Anyway, Greg was pretty upset for a few days, but then he realized that people beat cancer all the time, and it became his mission to listen to other survivors, trying to figure out the common threads of action. I recommend it to anyone fighting cancer, and also for anyone in the inner circle of support. It's so well written, so real, and truly, it's an inspiration, a motivation, and I just can't say enough about it.

The other book I found is called, Brain Surgeon, A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles, by Keith Black, MD. It's a neurosurgeon, his life story, his surgeries and his perspective on things. A sentence in his book, in one instant, helped me realize that my brain is elegant (a word that I never would have used to describe my brain, yet fits perfectly). He is completely fascinated by the brain, and as he speaks about tumors and the brain, he helps me fall in love with the big grey squiggles upstairs. 


Both books are empowering and positive. I'm so grateful that I can read again. I still can't conquer books the way I used to, but hey, reading is reading no matter how slow. The recovery from the brain tumor is recent enough that I can imagine life without being able to read. I remember the frustration of not understanding the concepts written on paper. I remember the lack of understanding with dialog and accents. I'm SO HAPPY to be able to read and understand written word. I will never take that for granted again. It's amazing how much reading energizes my soul and catapults me to a whole new mental state. Once you read something, you're a changed person. You've evolved. I love evolving.