Just Lazy...

No, I haven't died or experienced anything too physically dramatic in the last month or so....just lazy, I guess, when it comes to updating this blog!!!! I have however had many thoughts that I wanted to "air out" here, but just haven't took the time to begin typing.

Physically, I am about the same...I wake up with my bones and joints stiff and hurting. I get up some mornings at 4 or 5 a.m. to take a hot shower to relieve the discomfort until my medication takes effect. I have days where I spend the whole day freezing but sweating profusely, those days I am pretty miserable. I still run a low grade fever from time to time, for no explained reason. My swallowing has seemed to have slightly improved over the last few months. I am able to swallow some breads now where I wasn't previously able to. Yeah!!! I love and had missed eating bread!!!! My face and ears still hurt some days more than others, I have begun to think that may be related to how much I talk on any given day!!! The chronic fatigue is my biggest complaint. I just have no energy most days, where as pre-cancer, I could have worked circles around a much younger person, now I feel like a thirtyish, (heehee), woman trapped in an 85 year olds body, that becomes disheartening on some days when my mind is working harder than my body can even think about!!!

I would like to be able to blog that my life feels like all sun and roses since my cancer is in remission right now, but if I am to be honest, that is just not the case. Several things have transpired over the last year or so that have been less than joy evoking. A lot of circumstances have changed that have left me feeling a little lost some days. I plan on blogging about them, it's just hard to find the time to start and when I do the fatigue sets in and I find it hard to keep my eyes open long enough to write much. But anyway... for now....lifes' happening that is forefront on my mind...

My aunt, Sue Coffey, my dad's younger sister, lost her ten year battle with cancer last week. She travelled home to be with the Lord on August 25, 2011. She had courageously battled cancer for ten years. Having cancer is an awful, awful, experience, but Sue didn't just battle one cancer she had went to war with three different kinds and then on top of all those she developed Pulmonary Fibrosis. My Grandmother, Sue's Mother, had Pulmonary Fibrosis which is a lung disease that causes hardening of the lungs. One would think since Sue and her mother both had it, it would be hereditary, but that was not so in their case. Sue developed Pulmonary Fibrosis after having undergone so many different, large doses of chemo therapy. We had celebrated Sue's 67th birthday in May. I had traveled to South Carolina twice in the last month or so to visit with her. She ended up in the hospital both times. Her attitude, even on her death bed, astounded me. She wanted desperately to get better and live to see her precious grand sons graduate from high school. But she knew at the end that that was not going to be the Lord's plan for her. She laid in her hospital bed struggling to breath enough to speak with all of us gathered around her bed side. I watched and listened as God provided the Grace she needed to endure until her walk here was complete. A young preacher boy named Austin came to visit her one day while I was standing by her bed feeding her ice chips. It was all I could do to keep myself together as she told him I was the one he and their church had prayed for for so long. She struggled to breath as she told him how very sick I had been and how it was a miracle I was still here and how God had been so good to me. Then she started bragging on the goodness of God in her life!!! It was such a tremendous blessing to listen to her, as she laid there struggling and pausing frequently to catch her breath, praising and worshipping her God!!!! She told Austin how she had never been sick one time from any of the many chemos she had had to take. She bragged repeatedly on the goodness of God in her life. What a testimony she had!!! After all she had gone through, she had kept the faith through it all. What an inspiration she was to me!!! Through it all she had never became bitter at God, or life, or the circumstances she was living in...instead she kept her focus and continually praised God for His grace and goodness to her!!! Everyone, I had the pleasure of meeting while there, talked about what a Christian my Aunt Sue was, how she lived by the principles of the Bible for as long as they had known her. How, through the good and the bad, she praised and honored God. I wasn't there when she told those in the room to tell my dad she loved him and she would tell Pat, (my Mom), hello for him when she got there. I can only imagine that reunion. Sue's husband Jack, passed away in 2001 as the result of cancer, a brain tumor. Her sister Barbara's husband, Liege Roberts, passed away in 1998 as a result of colon and then brain cancer, Sue's Mother, and my grand mother, Roxie Hurst, passed away 4 or 5 days after Liege in 1998 as a result of pulmonary fibrosis and then colon cancer, Sue's father and my grandfather, Luster "Buckeye" Hurst, passed away in 2000 as the result of a stroke, and then my Mother, Sue's sister in law, Patricia Hurst, passed away in 2009 as a result of a brain aneurysm. What a reunion it must have been on August 25th as Sue entered the gates of heaven. I believe they were all there anticipating her arrival. Although she will be greatly missed here, she was reunited with so many of our loved ones who have already made the journey!!! What a day of rejoicing that must have been for them!!! How could we possibly overcome the grief that accompanies the death of our loved ones without the sweet, precious, promise that those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour will eventually be reunited to spend eternity together in the presence of an almighty, loving, gracious God!!!
How good He is!!!!

Please help me pray for Sue's children and grand children they loved her dearly and will miss her greatly. They spent many, many days and hours caring for and taking care of her every need. I know it will be hard for them to suddenly not have those things filling their days and nights. It was a precious thing to witness the love she poured out on them and the great love and afffection they returned to her.

My Dad: Tommy Hurst, My Aunt: Bonnie Lowery,

My Aunt: Sue Coffey, & My Aunt: Barbara Roberts.

PET Scan Results.

Clean Scan AGAIN!!! I'm almost beginning to think we may have beat this thing!!!!!
Realistically I know I can never really know I have beat this thing, because the kind I had you can never really know you are cured. Even after the familiar five year mark that we have come to think of when dealing with cancer. The kind of cancer I had is famous for coming back as many as fifteen years later. But for now I am clean. For now I am extremely grateful. I really wasn't scared this time. But after finding out the results the tears once again began to flow. I am sooooo thankful God has chosen to let me be cancer free for now!!!! Every time I get a clean scan, I feel even more like living life!!!! I'm ready for a vacation!!!!

PET Scan Today.

I am going for a PET Scan this morning. Please pray that it will turn out good!!! It has became so routine that I almost didn't ask for prayer, but then this morning all I could think about is how Wendell and I both talk all the time about how your prayers are how we have made it this far in our journey. I know it is because of the prayers that have gone up for me, is why I have made it through this cancer, when so many others don't. So, once again I ask for your prayers!!! I will not get the results until Thursday, but will let you know as soon as I can!!! Thanks sooooo much!!!!

Punky's Results

It's been a long day, we were at the hospital for over four and a half hours. Punky was the last patient of the day in the surgery center. She has some irritation and a small hemorrhoid, but other than that, her colon checked out great!!! Thank you for praying!!!

Please Pray For Punky

If you have a free moment today or tomorrow please say a little prayer for Punky. She has had irritable bowel syndrome her whole life. About two weeks ago she started hurting and cramping pretty bad when she would go to the bathroom and has been having quite a bit of blood in her stool. We took her to our GP and then to a specialist last week. She is scheduled to have a colonoscopy tomorrow at 3:00 pm. She is only allowed liquids today and tomorrow and has to start the dreaded medicine to clean out her system starting at 5:00 pm today. If you have had a colonoscopy you know the medicine is the worst part of the whole thing!!! The clear liquid diet will be no fun for her either!!! I know the symptoms she is having can be a sign of something as simple as hemorrhoids or it can be a sign of something much more serious. Please pray that God's will will be done and His grace will be sufficient for our family. I Thank-You ahead of time!!!! I will let you know the results as soon as I can tomorrow evening.

Cancer Walking With Me

Once again I am up at 2:20 a.m. My bones are soooo achy, my ear and jaw are aching, and I have insomnia. This has been my "norm" for the last two weeks. This "phase" began on our vacation and hasn't ended yet. I wake up and have to get up immediately. It's hard making it through the day on two hours sleep at night. So as I sat here, in my recliner, in the weee hours of the morning, I began to think about how even though this September it will have been two years since I had finished my treatments, Cancer is still a several times a day thought for me. Cancer is still occupying a big part of my life. Cancer will never go away. Cancer will be a companion of mine throughout the rest of my life, and it is very probable that Cancer will be the culprit allowed to end my life. When you are a realist like me and you know the statistics, and you know the power of God, but you don't know the mind of God, or what His will in this will ultimately be, you think on all the outcomes more than you would like!!!! When your body is almost a completely different body than it had been for the last few decades of your life, you feel 88 instead of 48. Life takes on a new view. It's as if Cancer is walking along right beside me, never missing a step. It's as if I know him so well, as almost, in a weird way, as if Cancer is a friend. A friend in the since that Cancer knows me inside and out. I know Cancer. We know more about each other than we do anyone else. We have been intimately acquainted. Cancer knew how to bring me to the lowest point thus far in my life. Cancer walked me to the very door of death but then backed away for some unknown and unexpected reason. The will of God. God chose to back Cancer back out of my life for now but he will always walk beside me. Waiting I guess, like me, to see if it will be God's will for me to be left in Cancers grip ever again. I know God holds the ultimate keys to this situation, I know what ever happens He will supply my needs and the grace needed to endure. But that doesn't mean I don't spend some time a little scared, not desiring the experience of being left in Cancers grip again. Cancer is someone, even though he was very nasty to me, at the same time and in the same space, Cancer was a friend who forced me to a place of total reliance on a God I had trusted many times before. Cancer brought me to the place of knowing there is definately nothing good within myself. Cancer brought me to a place of rest in the Peace and Grace of an almighty God. I have never known such extreme peace as the peace I found in the bowels of Cancer. I am endepted to Cancer for life, for the major lessons he brought into my life.