Another day, another song that has such a meaning and profoundness to my head and thoughts. Counting Crows has been a long time favorite of mine for a very long time. This song, ended up on my “ho ho ho” play list – the play list I’m making for our family outing tomorrow. I’ve been working on this playlist for a bit.

The thought came up in conversations the other day, where in another life I would have been a DJ. Music has always been my art form. I’ve had alot of conversations this year, about Artists and Facilitators. Its kinda one of my running theory/beliefs that there are parts of the mind that are either, Artists, Not Artists (maybe we could/should call those Statistic people?) and Facilitators. That is to say, in more depth, there are people who focus their lives on passions, that are for the purpose of bringing them joy. There are may types of art forms, acting, singing, scientists, politicians, gamers… I could keep going. Artists, are people that when in the midst of their particular flavor of passion, time has no meaning. I mean truthfully, time really has no meaning anyway, so being in that passion that art is the truth – time is the lie. These people are of all walks of life, and all types and qualities, but the single thing they share, is when they talk about the thing they are passionate about, because it so integral for them to life – they are inspiring. Knowing nothing about what they are passionate about doesn’t really matter, if they are a kind artist, they are able to take you on the adventure they experience when they are in their art, when they are working, and you want to be there with them, you want to do whatever you can to help them do it. It makes you feel alive. These people are “artists” – I truly feel most people have the ability to be artists, but its not something that all of us gravitate to naturally.

There are “not artists” – this is not to say they people are any lessor. They are good people, they are practical people, living happy lives, finding things to make them happy. Purchasing the art of the artists, speaking about life. They can enjoy art, from a distance, but the things that bring them joy are not related to the work. They can lose track of time in other ways. These people are even more varied than the artists. And having spent alot of my life as one of these people. The practical people. The people that form a routine, and enjoy the pleasure of the expected, the predictable. They plan, they pick, they chose, they want structure. They find Joy in so many more varied ways than artists, its kinda hard to explain this, although I will say one thing that brings them joy – atleast in my experience Most of the “not artists” is the completion element. That is not to say that Artists do not get joy out of completion, but they get melancholy more from it, in a way that Not artists tend not to get. Not artists, enjoy the completion, because it brings the excitement and the vexation of the starting something new. The frustrastration and struggle that comes with something new that is a new challenge, with the confidence, and predictability that comes with knowing that it too will complete, and there will never be an end to the things that will need to be accomplished.

There are Facilitators – these are people with the Artist and Not artist traits more in balance in their lives. They are driven to not artist tasks necessarily, but they do enjoy them. They do however enjoy the artistic tasks equally or even sometimes more. They however, have a passion driven from inspiring, and being inspired, by both Artists and Non-Artists. They are the ones that can see both sides, and they walk the ground in middle. They can see the passions in artistic works, the ability to transcend time to change things, to bring about something that hasn’t ever existed in some form that is new and helpful, maybe not to themselves, but to the world. They can see the steadfast competence of the non-artists, the predictability, the loyalty, the mountains of accomplishments, and achievements, they can see the goal oriented driven to a predictable result that is helpful and dependable, the task oriented accomplishment. They see both, and they want to help both improve, they stop and listen, and watch, they share a word of positive thought or encouragement, helping see an external perspective for both the Artist and the Non-Artist, they challenge thinking, and help keep both the Artist and Non-Artist from falling into an abyss of anything other than Joy. This is what brings Joy to the facilitator, they know that their passion is in helping other people achieve, and seeing the results are inspiring and hope minding and they have more work to do, always seeking out for that next person to help.

For much of my adult life, I have been a facilitator. I have spent the majority of my life trying to help other people reach their passion, of finding incredible joy in seeing their passion. It has inspired me to be surrounded, many times, by artists. It has inspired me to be surrounded by non-artists. I have been good at facilitating. I have learned and mastered many lessons. This has not necessarily been a natural thing for me. I feel that this was a compromise for me, a way of not fully embracing my artistic self, my artistic nature, of being afraid of what it would mean if I were an artist, what art would I be? Where would I be? What would I do? How would I support myself? All of these self doubts, are what drove me to stay comfortable in the happy place between Non-artist and Artist – to carve out a niche of competence that wasn’t giving up artistic ideas, and pursuits while not completely forcing me to embrace the non-artistic, which while I am competent at, does not bring me a joy. As I have gotten older, I have gotten more comfortable, been able to find joy in many of the non-artistic tasks, the completion of many tasks bringing me a satisfaction much like joy. Each time however, it has left me with mild feeling of frustration, feeling more like I have missed something.

In reflection of my life, I can see many times that the universe has presented me with a Door, a pathway to artistic pursuits, many many times, I can see that at each turn, I was scared and too afraid to step over and open that door. I can not say I have missed all of the doors, there are many I have opened and walked thru, and those few times in my life seem to have been incredible, and brief, as I have fallen back into old patterns that have led me back to that facilitation pathway again and again.

Its a different time in my life, and I am finding great joy in as many artistic things as I can put my heart into. And smiling at myself for the blessing I have each day, to do these things – that its not too late, for me to find my bliss in these things.

Tomorrow we are doing a family “lets go see the lights” trip. It should be a blast, we have a limo to drive us around, and allow us all to have just camaraderie together without someone having to focus on the road. We have dinner reservations, and we decided to do this event together, instead of presents, as the time and company is the best present we can give each other right now. We have tasty baked goods to indulge in – sufficed to say, it will probably NOT be a good eating night – but it will be a TASTY eating evening 🙂 – we have some ideas about where and when we will be about, but mostly it will just be a party together. Its a very odd holiday, and this is a very odd year, and I think this will be a fun adventure to share.

So many thoughts, so many of them spider webbing in different directions, but so closely forming a knitting pattern.

“Pretty paper, pretty ribbon of blue… wrap your presents to your darlin a few… pretty pencil to say I love you”… Loved this song by Willie – its always been one of my favorites. Its actually pretty easy for me to say this is one of my favorite holiday songs.

Then there is the song of the title of this post, Paper Moon – by Nat King Cole – another favorite of mine.

Belief is such a powerful thing. A powerful tool.

Went to acupuncture today, its one of my top 5 things I do to work on curing my cancer. Its a self care treatment that works on all of my symptoms, and helps me physically feel better. The particular place I go, and the therapist who does my treatments makes me mentally and emotionally feel better too, which makes it an extremely valuable tool in my arsenal.

I say we, because I haven’t been driving in the past year. Having agreed early in the year to relinquish this, due to where the cancer is currently taking up squatting rights in my brain. As an uninvited guest, its there, and I’m dealing with the mechanisms for evicting it, slowly. Giving up my freedom for driving is one of the things I have had to embrace gracefully. This has meant that every appointment I have to get to for labs, or doctors, or self care requires someone, one of my family, one of my support group to assist me in getting there.

I am blessed in some many respects, because the people in my support group have had the ability to do this with very little issues, and have been truly gracious in their assistance. This might not have been the case for many other people, but it is the case for me. Its one thing to love someone, its another thing to have to make adjustments to your work schedule every week, and shuttle them around from appointment to appointment. This is just a quick thank you to the universe for them being in my life and for the blessing of having been provided such a wonderful and gracious accomodation to help me with my needs.

We today, was me and my mum. She helps me when she can to get from point a to point b. When we go for the appointment, she is very kind and waits loyally and lovingly and never has negative things to say about the time or the wait or the drive – even when she gets stuck driving early or late, or in icky Austin Traffic.

Today after the treatment, we went to Kerbey Lane, for Brunch ish. We do this when we can, because Kerbey is one of my favorite places to be pampered and enjoy coffee and some seasonally tasty and healthy foods. Today we were talking and I was telling her stories of the experiences I had over the weekend.

This is a case where I’m going to relay something that was impactful, both for her, and for me… because there are as always with everything more than one side to ever story – perspective makes life such an interesting thing.

Anyone who knows me knows, that I am loud. I was classically voice trained, and I learned acting things as well as just generally showmanship things at a very young age, and they have stuck with me throughout my life. I also have a mouth like a sailor 🙂 – I learned cussing at a very young age, and while I learned there was a time and a place for it – my mothers company has always been one of those places where its always been comfortable and accepting of my use of profanity to accentuate a point.

I was telling my mother a story, and I cussed. I used an expression “They are so fucking annoying” – apparently my words were so loud, so as to interrupt or bother the person at the other table. This middle aged woman turned around and glared at me. We made eye contact, I nodded to her, as her look to “stop me in my tracks” did – it interrupted my trail of thought, and so I could nto recall where in my story I was, but I attempted to lower my voice, and I restarted my story, to my mother in a voice slightly lower – I thought it was lower, and started the story back with the cussing line, that had clearly been what caught this woman’s attention. I didn’t think anything over the interaction. In my life, it is not uncommon for people to pay attention when I speak, and not uncommon for people to lookylou into my conversation.

I continued my story, and my mom and I continued talking. We had ordered breakfast and generally I was feeling okay today, and we were talking about things for this weekend, and the holidays.

This woman, as she left her table, waited until her companion had left, and then she stopped at my table, and she made a point to direct her full force of attention at me and explain how I was effectively a horrible person. How she was out having a nice time with her son, who she never gets to see, and my loud lewd words had both offended her and she was sorry I was so rude to my breakfast guest. She further indicated she couldn’t believe I had continued talking when she had stared me down and had clearly made contact with her. I apologized to her, and expressed my sympathy for causing her to have a less than desirable time at her breakfast. I offered to pay for her meal. She indicated they had already paid, and she would NOT be taking my money as it wasn’t about money. I again apologized to her, and I asked her if there were any way I could correct the situation. She further went on to rail on me again from the beginning, repeating all of her accusations, and detailing how I was effectively the worst person in the world. I apologized again to her, looked her in the eye, and reached out to touch her arm with my apology. She snapped back and cringed back from me as if I were a viper, and again started her loud beratement of me for my rude behaviour. I again apologized, and asked her again if there were any way I could make reparations for ruining the enjoyment of her visit. She started again with her litany of insults about my rude behaviour, and again repeated her loud boisterous talking down to me. I sat silently, and allowed her to finish, and leave.

I sat a moment, and felt the weight of all of my energy sources bolster up to shield me and protect me from this army of toxicity. I felt my angels bolster and shelter me. I felt the weight of 10000 armies of light step in to wall and protect me, and the true humility that comes from being chastised for something to which you own, and the weight and the responsibility that goes with knowing what you have done, and being okay with the fact that you did it, but also allowing someone else to not be okay with it. The weight of this all hit me like a tidal wave as the emotional weight of the ocean cascaded over, around and thru me. I cried.

A waiter choice that moment to arrive with food at our table, having caught the lady tyraid he looked me humbled, and he apologized to me, he asked if I was okay, he asked if I needed anything. I told him it was okay, and it was perfectly okay.

I looked across the table at my mother, who was on the verge of crying. I told her it was okay. She nodded, and we talked about it. There have been many times in my life, that I would have been that woman. So profoundly offended by my right to have everything in life precisely as I felt it was deserving, that when someone else was just being themselves, I would have felt the obligation to scold them and tell them whats what about the fact that they ruined my time too. Probably, although I’m not usually one for feedback that is not actionable, but probably some or one of the time my feedback was also completely not actionable, and my “unintended intent” was just to drop a negative ball of hurtful emotion upon another human being too… I mean Misery does love company…. I hope her day improved. It was definitely a moment of life lesson for me.

So many thoughts about this – I talked to my psychologist about this, and I thought that maybe I needed to blog out a perspective for this lady, but I have since come to recognize, that not only do I not need this, it’s not really relevant. I took the lesson from the experience, and it’s done now. Blogging it in general has just allowed me to document my lessons so that hopefully I don’t need to repeat them.

Its been an interesting week all the way around, so many memories, so many thoughts and I get to have an exciting family time this weekend.

Christmas is not my favorite holiday, it would probably be number 4 of the annual ones, falling behind St. Patty’s day, Thanksgiving, Valentines day, my birthday – oh I guess that means it falls to 5. I think part of what I don’t care for about Christmas is the feeling of obligation around presents. I am all for presents, I love buying them, giving them and getting them. But I enjoy it so much more when its just random or when I see or find that thing that makes a person so joyful – or when they find a thing that is so joyful for me. I don’t enjoy the “well its that day” so we have to shop and have to settle and have to pay prices that are higher for the time of year – because its “expected” – so Please don’t take it personally if I don’t buy christmas presents anymore. If you aren’t a young child, too young to explain the concept of obligation vs fun – probably you won’t be getting anything from me…. Unless I randomly happen to see the perfect thing for you that strikes me as a thing I should get – and hopefully it won’t be around Dec 25th.

This is not to say I am a scrooge at all, I love the decorations, and the flashing lights – but I enjoy them for the spirit that they represent, not the presents.

I will say, I have always enjoyed christmas cards – the concept of sending and receiving them. Of hearing from friends I haven’t conversed with in a long time, or of family. The cute sayings and just the practice of writing them out and signing them. Something about mailing things has always seemed magic to me, and even more so this time of year. Somehow the mail carriers have always seemed like the best sort of Santa around, carrying a bag full of letters, with stamps and happy wishes to brighten up my day.

May your time with family always be memorable, may your moments of quiet be revitalizing, may your hopes for the rest of 2019 be heard, may your 2020 start with progress to your dreams for the year.

“Apollo you have to crawl before you can run” – said Alethia to the small baby trying to understand why his feet were not strong enough to just run now.

The quote of Pinky and the brain of “what are we going to do today brain?” “why take over the world of course” keeps going thru my head.

There was good news, interesting news, work to be done news, and news that might not seem good, but is actually not overly bad. Got test results. The MRI looks “not bad” – this is the good news – in case you might have been wondering. By not bad, I mean that while I still have the oh 20+ tumors in my brain, the ones that were treated, and roughly 10+ of the largest ones, do not look larger. They look reduced, and the cool word the radiation person used was “necrotic change” – personally, when referring to the cancer cells I’m trying to kill off, this seemed like a kinda cool way to say “hey I’m with you lady, you go keep killing those things off” The interesting news is that the two tumors that are not showing reduction were not spots that were radiated, and while they do show a small increase, even my radiologist who is by far the most detail oriented and realist of my entire support team, blew up the pictures, to specifically show the growth size, and then let me know he wasn’t overly concerned with these two spots enough at this time to try and radiate them now.

On to the Pet Scan results, and the work to be done, and other news. First its worth mentioning that the Pet scan was being compared to my last Pet Scan which was last year this time. Also marginally compared to my multiple CT & Bone scans this year. Pet Scans show more detail in some areas, while CT and Bone scan show more detail in others. Its not exactly a 1-1 ratio of what they show, and while they will often show “no progression” or “some progression” … its difficult to precisely indicate on any one scan what this means. Part of why I recommended/asked for us to do a PET scan, was to have comparative results, and to make sure we are keeping those, also because I had this nagging feeling since I had the super good CT/Bone scan in October, and still had these things that I feel were more of a concern than those scans indicated… that it was time to do “this type of scan” to see “other things” The scan showed progression year over year, and it showed active tumors in 7 lymph node spots in my chest. This was Not at all a surprise to me, these are palpable spots, that were not showing on the CT I had in October. So yeah, seems like from the pet scan they are cancer too? Joy – not a shock, but work to be ongoing to resolve this, more movement, more treatments – also worth noting that if the lymph nodes are getting cancer again, then the chemo is NOT stopping progression so it will likely be time to change treatments. There is no active cancer showing in my heart, lungs, liver. These are actually kinda good things, a new treatment and cancer free organs means I am still doing a good job of fighting the cancer, and still doing my best to keep alive and healthy.

There have been some concerns on my blood scans. Nothing specifically noteworthy other than Red Blood cell count being low enough, coupled with problematic experiential intuitive confirmations about it not being the right time to do the surgery, have postponed the surgery and put me on the scout for a new surgeon. This is not an especially hurried thing, as I’d like the counts to return to a more normal range before we do surgery, and I’d like to ensure that I have a surgeon I feel more confident will be available for communication and concerns during the process. Seven unreturned contacts is too many for me to consider this person a good fit for my team.

I’ve been working on redoing my guest/meditation – “my spare room to do things in” room – and it recently got painted and I finally picked out new carpet. I’m pretty excited it will be installed in a week so I’m much looking forward to my newly gained time from the cancellation of the surgery, for some rest and relaxation.

I’ve been feeling a bit stir crazy lately, with that travel itch gnawing at the parts of me that are somewhat emotional, a little spiritual, a tiny bit mental and while normally the physical would be all over this too… its kinda like “please let us just rest here at the house for a bit” — so I’ve kinda been telling the other parts to slow down and savour the good things for a bit. This has had some odd ramifications – mostly more emotional temper tantrums with myself, and more feeling the need to spiritually cleanse cleanse cleanse, because somehow my spirit, when I’m not traveling is perpetually calling things into me for every purpose – many are so so good, like “yes yes give me that healing energy” or “yes yes I’ll take those prayers and that love and that hope” … but some of the things like “donate to this political campaign” or “save the environment by supporting the ants in indonesia” – I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the later two at all; just right now my dance card for helping other people and helping the world outside of me – while it is never quite full; having been dedicated to god as a baby somehow gives me this part of me that is always available to help others, its not quite full, but it is spending a good bit of time over allocated and a bit slower than its ever been in my life.

I am finding myself to be a more thought-full person. While I have often had my mind full of thoughts, the times now when I find myself spending more time thinking than acting is … odd. I have always considered myself to be a thoughtful person – meaning showing considerations of others – but now I’m finding myself absorbed in thoughts, which somehow is causing me to frequently have more discretion and discernment towards my formerly thoughtful actions. This is not at all to say I have stopped them lol – easier to stop breathing or to damn a raging river – more that they are more decided, decisive and show how with the slightly more slower speed, more deliberate and significantly more rewarding. Its weird to think that somehow in my past just act and action ways, I somehow missed out on a significant amount of joy and happiness by not pausing to add more of the element of thought and refinement to my actions and there by producing just a small amount more joy and happiness to the final result. I like being thoughtful, so maybe this is the thing that brings me one of my greatest joys. I’m not sure, but I do know this “thought-full” ness seems healthier for me.

This time of year, its so so much fun. I love being surrounded by all the joy and happiness that randomly appears at odd moments. The random acts of kindness I happen to bear witness to, or participate in, or just enjoy the tales of…. Holidays are so good for universal energy. They lighten the spirit and the soul somehow, with the overwhelming realization that we are all connected, even if we just see it as the brief holiday moment of time, it still lifts the shroud of imaginary disconnect long enough for true peace, comfort and joy.

I’m am blessed to be here to enjoy this time of year, blessed to be surrounded by amazing people, caring, considerate, and thoughtful, to share this season with, to share the joy of being alive with, and to look forward to amazing things in the coming year.

Life is good.

Have been feeling the desire to blog, mostly about anything not related to my health. While I know blogging about my health is important and is valuable both from the documentation perspective and from general dissemination of information as well as receptacle of information history, its less fun to share information that I find somewhat abhorrent than to share information that is fun and joyous.

So I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike me about a topic I felt happy to be speaking about or at least felt inspired to be speaking about – not all subjects are happy ones after all, even if you can put positive rose colored glasses on easily and see things from a perspective and frame that allows you to view them as positive. I digress. Engaging topic search….

In the course of discourse with a friend today, we happened upon a button topic of mine that is not actually related to my physical condition. Although, in saying this there seems to be some element of it that IS related, so maybe its a good side piece for how I’m doing with the ability to transcend and allow me to see the picture from a small spec left field element.

I live by choice, at this time, in America. Its a society that is run, controlled, dictated by business. I’m not entirely certain that it has always been the case, but it is 100% confirmable the case today, 2019. There are good elements to this, and there are toxic elements to this, pretty much like everything in life. Accepting this is just a par for the course and then realizing its impacts, and the things that add value, and take away value.

I could write several pages about this as a method for persuasion, but I’m really not feeling the desire nor the need. The fact that having a “job” is something that we consider to be a laudable thing, and lack of having a job is something we shun people for… the fact that working until you “get” to retire – when seemingly you get to “work” on the things you find important, instead of what someone else tells you is important. The fact that all the necessities of life, a home to live in, health care and self care for your body, require this job or a nefarious form of finance, as money is the “energy” of business. All of these things, just self propagate my point.

My thought, this morning was, I wonder where I would need to live that business didn’t drive the society. I wondered if there were a place on earth that this pre-business society still exists. Or a post one, although I honestly don’t feel that a successful revolution of business society has existed yet, as I have not felt its tendrils of back lash within my society of “that place isn’t right, we can’t go there”

I feel that maybe, if the place exists/existed, it would probably be in India/Asia – not just from the perspective that its the largest populous source, but also also one of the most devote spiritual sources devoted to the “pure” energy devoid of finance, that comes with source, soul, heart, balance. Maybe in Tibet, or Parts more rural of India or China… where people still live to live, vs live to work. I feel I had many examples of this in my visit to India, and even could think of some examples in my visit to both, where I can reference examples that might be points for this, however the tendrils of business society have definitely built and fostered seeds in all of the countries I visited, where the opulence and courting sales pitch of “look how great business can be” is definitely lauded.

I know, in our society here in America, there are many subservents, that are not content with this business controlling society, I also know that most of them still shop, buy and consumer, which are the pillars of business, and what keeps this self replicating business society model functioning.

Maybe the business society model isn’t all bad, but it is definitely flawed, because it fails to consider the individual as an individual, and works like the medical profession has become to label everything by category and standardization. This is clearly flawed, and has been proven so by many different areas of study with regard to “not everything that is like is really like” and “standardized practice produce sub quality results” — not to mention the potential harm that forcing someone to do things that their mind, body and spirit are not in alignment with is just bad for humanity, the planet, and life in general. But then, there is the rub, Business is not alive, its not even an entity with a specific form, its a construct, which means even though our entire society is based upon it, its really only an imaginary fabrication given form and stability by shared collaborative thoughts, actions, and repetition.

Enough about this rabbit hole of thought that really isn’t leading places, and just rambling onward to a heartbeat drum.

Speaking of heartbeats…. Medical update information. Had my chemo infusion last week, after discussing the latest test results with my doctor. My labs, which have always looked perfect, no longer look perfect. They were not concerning to my doctor, the nurse staff or to pretty much anyone but me. The levels that are now out of range, are not significantly out of range, but they are noticeable, and concerning to me. They are liver levels, and blood levels that impact my bodies ability to purge toxins, and to sustain healing skills. I have requested them to monitor them again – yesterday in fact, so that I can keep track of them and ensure they are not shifting more, its always possible that the little bit off was “a weird day thing” – blood does fluctuate. The other test results we went over were from my Echo cardio report. Due to my cancer being HER2 positive (triple positive in fact) the chemo drugs I take, have this side effect of causing permanent damage to the heart and liver. Hence my reason for OCD monitoring. The echo monitors many aspects of my heart, but there are 3 things particularly they are watching for to see if the drug has had an impact and needs to be terminated. It had been, a little out of regime for this test, and I’d had 3 prior treatments since my last screening. Again with these types of tests, there is the possibility of it having been an “off day” for my body. That does not feel like the case in this particular result however, and I have asked them re-screen before we do the next treatment after christmas (delayed to allow me to heal some from the surgery) – this is actually quite good, because it will allow for my body to be in a better/best possible place before the next test, so if it were an anomaly, it should be clear.

The particular aspect of concern, is the % of the blood my heart is or was during this test, capable of pumping. A healthy human heart pumps more than 50% of its blood a second. They measure this % by this test. In previous tests, my heart has pumped between 68% and 64% of my blood thru, filtering things out, and oxygenating every second. In this test, my heart was reduced to pumping 58% thru. The doctors get concerned if you drop below 50% or if you shift more than 10%. As my previous test was only 64, this one with a shift of 58 was only 8% shift, so not a concern for a doctor. Highly concerning for me. I was not at all surprised by this result, and learning about it more explained a few things. I have been experiencing random tightness in my heart. Its been more of a ‘wow wonder what that is’ thing than a something I remembered or considered a symptom. I have experienced heart tightness before – when doing a super high intensity workout – where you feel your heart constrict and you know you are pushing it. Its not exactly a painful feeling more just an uncomfortable tightness, that has never lingered more than a breath or two, before returning to its normally scheduled program. That is the same with lately feeling this – like I will be washing dishes, and a tightness will come on, and a breath or two later, all gone. No harm no foul. There is a valid, real point to be made for the fact that I am over 45 now, and that hearts change as you get older, and maybe this 58% is my “new normal.” The time now is for monitoring and staying vigilant, but this isn’t anything new lol, just the job I have right now for “staying alive”

I have been praying more. To say more is kinda amusing, I have pretty much for the majority of my life prayed daily. I am finding myself praying, at more routines and times in the day, giving light and heart to spirit. I have also started cleansing my chi two to three times a day. This has very interesting ramifications.

My body as a temple is something I’ve always known, but seeing it manifest is an interesting thing, feeling it center, and feeling the connection to the people around me that I chose, – yes choice the thing that business tries to elude you into forgetting you have – the people I chose to keep in my life … feeling them working thru their own mysteries, marvels and wonders. It is very awe inspiring, and it brings me great joy to be able to share and revel in their wins, and to help provide comfort and sometimes positive spin on their struggles/challenges.

An adage I am perpetually reminding myself, which has echoed and been tested time and time again in my life – is the thought that the best things, the most satisfying and joys in my life – have always come as products of great striff, great effort, and often times long times of challenge and discomfort or satisfaction. They were worked/fought/harvested for, and they were not without burden or struggle. I try and focus and remember this when I have something happen which threatens to take my mind out of the happy positive places, when the thing isn’t what I’m hoping or right. I also try and let spirit guide me to not stressing over it, the work will happen, I will do what needs to be done, and I will keep fighting to win this battle.

I had an MRI yesterday, it was actually one of the easiest, fastest and best I’ve had – and that’s quite a bit to say since I believe it was my 7th in the past 4 years. I have begun to be enlightened to the fact that most of my suffering and struggle is completely self generated. There is a profound joy in embracing these unpleasant things, and conquering them for myself in my mind. I am hopeful the MRI will have something good to share, I will see the results on Friday.

I have a PET scan scheduled for thursday, and while its not for the doctor I see on Friday, the beautiful part of my medical support team is that he will have access to the report, and will allow me the opportunity to see if nothing else, the highlights from the report.

This is a source of great joy to me. Every member of my medical support team is a human I cherish. They are good to me, they are helpful to me, and while their information is tempered and restricted by the confines of the medical laws, doctrines, and general regime, they are human and will listen, and embrace with me the best treatment courses for my healing. I have an incredible team, from the administration, nurses, and doctors I have hand selected, and screened over time – to the licensed care providers for acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, and psychological care. All of my team is rooting for me, and working to listen and help me find the best possible solutions to solving my heath issues.

Its an incredible feeling, that all the work of tending my garden, of fighting for my patient advocacy – while still perpetually ongoing. Its such an empowering feeling to know that I have these quality personal, individuals to help me along this journey. This is a universal thank you to each and everyone of them.

Its going to be a long busy week, with many things to tick off before surgery next tuesday, but I am feeling strong and capable, and recovering from the chemo last week. I got blessed with an unexpected day off today, to just play and care for myself – hence the blog, and now on to more things around the house 🙂