HEALTH

I meet some of them most amazing people in blogland.  I am always amazed at how deeply one can care for another, despite never having met in person.

Something else I wanted to share with you is a shirt that was just made in honor of Ashley.  I HAD to buy it.  Its message is super personal to me, and strongly states a lesson I have been learning that past year and a half.  It also supports Ashley, which makes it extra special.  Want one too?  You gotta hurry..they are only on sale until the 16th, 10:00 p.m. Go here to place an order.

Once in awhile, I come across something that will just hit me in the gut, and all my fears return.  Honestly, this is not a bad thing.  It reminds.  It causes me to reach out to the source of my true Strength.

This happened last night, as I was reading up on the Susan G. Komen controversy, and by clicking on some links I stumbled upon one of the most beautiful examples of love I have ever seen.

A husband, a photographer, who captures his wife’s journey through the lens of his camera.  It stopped me in my tracks and I was glued, watching with immediate tension on my insides.

I can talk the brave talk, as in this post that I wrote where I speak of “laughing at the future.”  Most days I truly am able to laugh, and I face the future with a peace and a smile, thankful for each moment.  But then, last night in the midst of pink ribbon controversy, I see the reality of what my future very well could entail.  I think of that pretty little pink ribbon, wrapped all nicely looped, and how it so does not represent well.  Breast cancer, any cancer, is not pretty and pink.  It is ugly, terrifying, messy, and rips loved ones away from each other.

Frankly, I don’t want to talk about pink ribbons or the money making games that seem to always come along with it, so I won’t.

But I will tell you of this beautiful brave soul, whose story started out as mine.  Our cancers exactly the same type. Lobular.  Our tumors exactly the same size. 6 cm.  Our treatment exactly the same. 4 months chemo, 5 weeks radiation, a double mastectomy, reconstruction. Our men both full of love for us.

Here is a excerpt from their about me section:

 I know this is my reality.  That this amazing woman’s story could very well be mine.  As hard as it was to look at their journey, so brilliantly captured by a loving husbands lens and words, I am grateful.  I am grateful for this REAL awareness.  So raw that I could not turn my eyes away from his words.  So real that I had to read his entire blog, despite the tears it brought.  I read with tears running.

This is cancer.  Not pretty pink ribbons.  Not pretty pink anything.  Mostly, shades of grey.

NATIONWIDE MONDAY NIGHT January 30: The award winning documentary “Not As I Pictured” on PBS WORLD stations will be reaching 50% of the nation’s television markets Monday in prime time. Check listings for your town here


Not as I Pictured is a 54 minute documentary film.  It allows us to go on a cancer journey along with Pulitzer-Prize winner John Kaplan.  He fights lymphoma with an amazing attitude, all the while being so very real.  I have the privilege of knowing the editor and assistant director, Jordan Pool, who did an awesome job.


Last spring, I was able to see this film as they gave away over 10,000 copies to cancer patients.  I fit the bill.


I was glued to the T.V. as I watched.  I could not believe how familiar it all was.  Right when it ended, I grabbed my journal and had to write, for I felt the moments and needed to express some of them.  I thought it was fitting to share with you all how it made me feel, on this night when his documentary is being shown nationwide.


Not As I Pictured 


His camera captured cancer,
and all that it entails.


His lens bring to life, a year and 1/2 of mine.


Our stories different,
yet same.


I marvel at his captured tidbits of my familiar.
So much familiar.


~the sound of the machine as it slowly drips poison that heals.


~he stands in front of mirror & holds his hair back to picture what bald will look like.  I, too, did this.


~his hands & pillow covered with hair.  I know.  Mine, too.  His expressed disbelief.  I feel his words.  I know.


~he is getting labs done, & strains his neck to the opposite side of where he will be poked.  We get labs done once a week, you would think we would get used to the sting.  We don’t.


~he used a tissue to open doors in public, due to a compromised immune system.  I did this, too.


~he puts numbing cream on his port, the same exact tube I used.  He speaks about how he does not care for touching the port area, for it gives him the “ebbee jeebies”  I  understand.  Me, too.


~he talks about how he must deal with the idea of recurrence.  It is a reality one has to come to grips with.  Yes.


~he talks about his port area, how it hurt like heck at first, and made it hard to lift his children.  Yes.  I know.


~his face winces in pain as they hook him up to a still healing port.  I remember, mine was still raw and oozing at my first chemo treatment.  


~his children draw pictures of him bald.  So did mine.


His life is not as he pictured, and neither is mine, yet, through his pictures I find life, hope, and I’m less alone.  Thank you, John Kaplan.