Yesterday was a marathon.

It was flag day, and I had forgotten, so I quick prepped flags for the kids to color and make hats to wear. At least I wore red, white and blue.

I also finished up our Fathers Day projects, had them laminated and cut them all out.

It was kindergarten orientation, and i had my kids go to the playground while the new batch came in. With four year olds, you have to switch activities pretty much every five minutes. We read a story, took a tour of the room, sat and talked about what we do in kindergarten, sang “The Wheels in the Bus”, colored a picture of a bus, used pattern blocks, jumped on my mini trampoline, looked and sea shells, read another story, and talked about things they could do to get ready for kindergarten.

All in about forty minutes.

Then the parents came and picked them up, my kids came back and they went to lunch.

It’s hard for the kids to see me and think of me with other kids. So we went into the garden after lunch and I brought out my mini speaker. I played relaxation music and we all kneeled and weeded in the garden. Our garden is ready to be harvested and next week we will have sugar snap peas, kale, lettuce, radishes, and arugula. As we weeded, our principal brought out our new principal to meet us. What better way to meet than outside in nature with soft music playing. We showed him our garden, and we even picked some mint and gave it to him. I have a former superintendent that I love who always comments “mint” in some shape or form in many posts here in facebookland. I thought of him as we gave the mint and prayed for many mint years ahead for us all.

Then we read outside for “R” day, went to gym, had snack, then played.

After school we had a reception for our new principal with staff, then I did a handoff of Quinn to rob for tennis, madison got dropped off for a Flag Day ROTC drill team performance at Polish Hall, Morgan and I ran to Target, then we went back to my school for Family Night.

We hung up signs for my principal like they do for seniors at the high school at their last games. There were games and bouncy houses on the field and parents and kids all over. My friends Tony and Nancy from the Lighthouse deli and catering were there serving up food from the grill, and it was a flashback of when we all worked at Claudio’s together. Another friend Joann gave me a great hug and I always feel the peace of Jesus when I am with her. I had had a vision of getting something come to me and putting it into my pocket earlier in the day.

As i spoke to Joann, my other friend Keri came up to me and pulled me aside. She said she had something to give to me. It was a coin of St Jude, the patron saint of impossible cases. She told me a beautiful story, and we both cried a little. Everyone disappeared as we both spoke about faith, and how miracles can happen, and Tucked the coin into my bra next to the tumors.

Then I walked around and saw former families and students and got a lot of hugs. I held babies and told them I would have them in five years.

May it be so.

Then I ran home and quick changed for the North Fork Community Theatre Gala at pelligrini vineyard. We sat with a lovely couple from Huntington and wouldn’t you know, we knew people in common from Riverhead as well as Valley Stream. We are all connected, and as we get older and open our eyes, the world gets smaller and smaller.

There were performances and actors sang songs about the light. One woman sang “When you wish upon a Star”, and I had to hold it together. Another man sang “O sole mio” and brought down the house. The youth troupe sang a song from Pippin, their summer show, and we were blown away by their talent. Rob and I won $400 in the fifty fifty raffle, and I felt bad not giving it back, but I’ve got herbs to pay for and copays. It had been a pretty crappy week for me, so maybe God said, “Let’s have Keri and Rob end the week with something good”.

My dad was at the flag day event at Polish hall where maddie was, and brought her home for us. Turns out, he won the grand prize and got a beautiful new grill. I guess God said my Mom and dad had to end the week on a positive note as well, as this was hard on them too.

Thank you, God.

Today?

I head into the detox bath because I am in pain. Then I’ll rest, do laundry, and clean. I’ll try do some restorative yoga as I am in quite a bit of pain. I’ll also crack open the brand new phonics program that I have to learn before September and am receiving training on Monday. Tonight quinn has a birthday party and he is so excited.

I got a text from a mom who went to Nationals to see her daughter run along with the other girls that everyone raised money for this past week. They set new personal records and performed and placed top ten. They were so grateful to everyone for helping them run the race and get there.

I received an email from Donnie’s assistant yesterday, and parts of it were concerning. She said he really wanted me to get the new biopsy, and she doesn’t know if he will get on board with xeloda. But there was some positive as she said the scans weren’t as bad as one would think. She was wondering why they didn’t measure the size of all of the tumors to check for actual growth, and they only measure SUV uptick. In two spots I actually had less uptick. She will be speaking with him again Tuesday to give him all of my notes from my meeting with my oncologist. Thank God I’ve educated myself and become CEO of “Save my Ass Inc.”, and can send detailed notes. I wish all of my team could have a conference call, but for some reason no one speaks to each other, so I am the middleman while trying to decide which person to listen to as I navigate these turbulent seas in the S.S. Life boat.

My herbalist has mentioned to stop all chemo and go to Mexico, and I havent heard from him since I told him about the progression, so now I’m worried he is upset, or breaking up with me. I’m sure he is just busy, or traveling to Hong Kong, but the mind is a tricky thing, always whispering the worst as I run this race.

I did get amazing news yesterday. A friend who is an amazing advocate and presence on Instagram has stage four ovarian cancer. Brittany Crosby has thousands of followers on Instagram as she chronicles her life, draining her stomach every day, running a business, thriving and spreading God’s word. She was told recently that she also had a new primary cancer… breast cancer. The same week I was told they were looking at the ovarian cancer marker and it could be a new primary ovarian cancer for me.

I found out Wednesday my ovaries were clear and I didnt have ovarian cancer.

Brittany?

She found out yesterday she was misdiagnosed… at a top cancer hospital… and it’s the metastatic ovarian cancer that has spread to her breast, NOT a new cancer.

A miracle for us both, just flip flopped.

Thank you, Jesus.

It was a marathon day yesterday.

It’s been a marathon week.

But I’m still in the race.

And I’ll keep running until I cant run anymore, but I know I’ll have everyone to help me walk, or crawl, and stay in this race. There’s no winning…

But there’s no losing either.

There’s just living.

May God continue to let me live and run this race for forty more years.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Xoxo

Keri