Benadryl knocks you for a loop when they give it to you. You feel like you are drunk and feel sleepy for hours.
Until it wears off…and the steroids they gave you keep you up all night long.
Fun times in Cancerland.

We left the hospital with only one tumor marker back of the three… and it’s three times higher than it was a month ago.

That will keep you up as well.
Today I’ll work all day and most of the afternoon. I’ll leave at 2 and run to take Donnie’s conference call with rob.
I’m anxious as to what he will say about our leaning towards stopping chemo and just going with my herbalist. They know each other from years back.
I’m still feeling peace, and have to work hard to keep it. I’m laying it at God’s feet, but it will be hard to hear educated people on my team tell me they don’t support it and the reasons why, should that happen. They’ve spent years and years studying cancer.
I’ve spent three and a half living with cancer.
As a teacher, I’m open to new ways of approaching teaching children. Times change, different material becomes available, more research, and each child is different. I find that the material made by teachers is usually the best. They are in the arena, doing the work, instead of people who have never even taught the grade or have been out of the classroom for years.
Doing “The Work”. I came across a podcast with Oprah Winfrey as she interviewed Byron Katie. She discusses the four questions.
When you are upset, find out what it is that is truly upsetting you. Write it down. Then ask yourself four questions.
1-Is it true? This is a simple yes or no answer. Be still and see what arises. If it’s a yes, go to question two. If it’s no, go to question three.
2-can you absolutely know that it’s true. If it’s a yes, ask yourself again and shine a flashlight on that moment of time and ask again.
3-How do you react… what happens?.. when you believe that thought? Notice and write down how you treat other people, yourself, what addictions or obsessions begin to appear when you believe that thought?
4-Who would you be without that thought? Take time to observe and reflect the question again but without the thought . Drop your judgements.
Then?
We do turnarounds.
We switch the story. With disease, we place all the blame in the body. But the story we are telling ourselves is in our mind, our thinking. Let the professionals and choices you make help the body, and you work on your mind. Believe the good story.
Everything happens FOR me, not TO me.
Gratitude is what we are without a story.
Reality is always kinder than the story we are telling ourselves about it.
I am a seeker of approval. I always have been. It hurts me deeply when people are unkind to me. Deeper than it should. I need to let go of wanting approval. That’s hard work, and all in the mind.
The hardest question I have to turnaround and release is about rob and the kids. With cancer, the thought of leaving this world and leaving them alone takes my breath away.
Why?
Because I think they won’t be ok.
But when I went through the four questions… i realized.
They will be fine.
Oh, grief and sadness are normal, even for a lifetime. But they will be ok.
Rob is an amazing father. I couldn’t have chosen a better one to help raise children with. My children have been raised to be good and kind. They have all they need.
So my thought of them not being ok?
It’s not true.
They’ll be great.
I’ve watched the Facebook feeds of families of friends who have loved ones who have passed from cancer.
They are all ok.
So yesterday… after listening and learning and reading about “The Work”…
I released my biggest fear.
Which brings me to the next question.
Am I going to be ok?
The answer to that one… is up to God.
There’s a song written by Jenn and Brian johnson. “You’re gonna be ok”. I’ll leave a link in the comments.
Today, may we all ask the hard questions, turnaround the story we tell ourselves, and be still. The answers are better than we think.
In Jesus’s name, amen.

xoxo

Keri