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In: Cancer, Mental Health

I’ve been listening to the song Fight Song by Rachel Platten on repeat a lot since my cancer diagnosis. I first heard the song years ago when a chronic pain friend shared a music video of it and I liked it then, but the words mean even more to me now. This is my fight songTake back my life songProve I’m alright songMy power’s turned onStarting right now, I’ll be strongI’ll play my fight songAnd I don’t really care if nobody else believes‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me Fight Song by Rachel Platten Tomorrow I head into surgery and I’mRead More →

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In: Cancer, Mental Health
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I travelled to Cleveland this past Friday for my appointment. The surgeon as well as his resident impressed me and they both answered my questions very thoroughly. Before the Appointment The day prior to my appointment, they checked how things were going with a new chest CT as well as a pulmonary function test. The pulmonary function test showed that I have very good lung function. However the chest CT showed that the tumor had grown by about 0.6 cm since it was last seen on CT in January. The tumor currently looks like a larger grape, about 2.5 cm. Talking About Surgery Originally, theRead More →

On:
In: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Mental Health

I’m not the only one who is doing the April challenge to do something every day, there are others, and one got an interesting response on a post with pictures of some beautiful flowers she had photographed.  The response said simply, “looking at flowers does not stop the pain.”  The blogger had her own response, but I thought I’d respond to it as well. So, does doing something enjoyable, like taking pictures daily, looking at photos of beautiful flowers, or anything like that really help your pain? I honestly believe it can.  Not only does doing pleasant things alter the neurotransmitters that can affect yourRead More →

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In: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Mental Health
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It can be frustrating when you have ideas for your life that just don’t work out how you planned.  As part of academic advising, I had things all planned out, I knew what classes I was going to take when.  In spring of 2013, I would graduate with a Bachelor degree in Neuroscience.  Everything looked so nice and neat on paper. The past few weeks have been a real struggle.  Between going to Cleveland Clinic to evaluate a possible genetic condition, the development of a seemingly invincible urinary tract infection, and some other health issues, class has taken a back seat to my health.  AfterRead More →

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In: Chronic Illness, Mental Health
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Today is just one of those days where you wake up and realize that not too much is going to happen because you just don’t have the energy. Last night, I had a friend spend the night and probably stayed up too late, but changing my meds probably doesn’t help much, I don’t think either. Mom mentioned something this morning about my goals for the day which had been to work on a workbook and reformat my hard drive. I hadn’t done either, but started to list what I had done: got out of bed, got dressed, laid on the couch, slid off onto theRead More →

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In: Chronic Illness, Mental Health
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I’ve not been around much, and I suppose there are excuses for it, but I’m not going to go into them in depth here (maybe later). This post is to talk about this crazy holiday we are celebrating. Recently, I’ve become rather anti-Christmas. The last few years, it was mostly just the commercialism of Christmas – trees, presents, decorations, that sort of thing. This year, whether it is because of my depression or because of my pain or because of my relationship with God, I have become anti-Christmas to the point that most manger scenes annoy me. When people talk about the real reason forRead More →

On:
In: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Mental Health
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“He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” 1 Peter 1:3 and 6 In our growth group, we are reading through 1 Peter and that stood out to me. We all have trials and grief, but even through all of our suffering, we can still hold hope because He has given us HOPE. It is that hope that gets us through the long days (and nights) and through the long trials. WeRead More →

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In: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Mental Health
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One thing that I’ve been questioning recently is how God could have allowed all this pain to happen to me when so many people were praying for my surgery to go well and cure the pain.  A few days ago, God revealed a comforting analogy to me through nature that helped me understand a little bit of why. Some days, the sun is hidden by many clouds.  Sometimes the rain pounds the earth, while thunder shakes the earth and lightning streaks across the sky.  This is not what we expected, not what we wanted, yet God remains in control.  The rain that drenches the groundRead More →