Not one blog since I had been RADIOACTIVE. What a slacker!!! 😉
I could muster all sorts of excuses. I really really could. I hate excuses ….but for this time I must submit to them. Here is my month in review via proof of pictures:
May 1st – 7th – MOVED INTO NEW HOPEFUL HEARTS OFFICES. Plus, it was the 3rd week off of the thyroid meds. I’m not kidding, it felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to punch Neal in the throat at times. Poor guy, he took the brunt of my ‘non-hormone functioning self’. There were days I had to say, “I’m sorry. For everything. I don’t even know what it has been, but I’m sorry.”
Can you believe during this time the only thing that I felt ‘sane’ doing was speaking to survivors? The week before (yes, during my 2nd week off meds) I had an hour long radio interview that was syndicated and because of that interview I had 8 people I was speaking to one – on – one (plus 1500 hits in an hour on the website) during this first week of May.
C R A Z Y
May 8th – 14th – RADIOACTIVE If you read my three day journal entry then you know how this went. Ha! LOL…the only main ‘side effect’, beside some intestinal issues, was the freakish weight that collected in my belly for nearly two weeks! I looked like I had a malnourished belly….it was descended and just weird. Plus my eyes and face were swollen. Here is me in my ‘Radioactive’ shirt I wore to the hospital when I had to go in the next day for the full body scan…I mean, I WAS radioactive….just doing everyone a favor letting them know. 🙂
May 15th – 21st – FIXING UP OFFICE & RYAN’S GRADUATION Actually, Monday, the 15th I was at MDA again all day for a visit to the skin cancer department because of my Squeamish cell carcinoma that I had two years ago on my back. Yes. I had to be there AGAIN.
The biggest excitement that kept me busy during this week was my first born son, Ryan’s, graduation. I spent 3 hours in a dressing room trying on 45+dresses because my body was so misshaped. NOW, let me say this…I am BLESSED yes. I am SO BLESSED because it could have been so much worse. Absolutely. I did not have to remove a part of my body. I did not have to lose my hair. There are so many people in worse shape. I’m not whining….just stating my REALITY.
Because Ryan attends an all boy Catholic school we had a Baccalaureate Mass on Friday (which was presided by Cardinal Dolan) and I was a Eucharistic Minister (no, no, I was no longer ‘radioactive’ I checked 🙂 )… and Saturday was the actual graduation. Sunday night we had his big family and friends BBQ. It was A GREAT WEEKEND OF CELEBRATION.
May 22nd – 28th GUESTS, PAINTING & MEMORIAL DAY On Monday, the 22nd, we welcomed Ali & Mark into our home. What an absolute honor. See, God makes sure we have people in our life we can relate to and have as our ‘support’ no matter what we are going through. Ali is a young, 23yr old, Metastic Papillary Thyroid Cancer survivor…very same cancer I have. Except she was 14 when she finally went through her total thyroidectomy and consequently took out many (too many) lymph nodes. For awhile she was ‘good’…she got married and then pregnant and apparently the pregnancy made the cancer accelerate and went into her lungs. She is from the North Dakota area and the Mayo clinic could not do for her what MDA could do. When I came out and told about my cancer her sister contacted me (get this, they heard me speak at their school NINE YEARS ago) … she told me her story and I offered my home to her.
She had her lung surgery on May 25th and it was a SUCCESS!!! But please keep Ali and her family in your prayers. We both have our follow ups within the same week in September. Now she’s family. We are ALL family aren’t we?? She taught me so much while she was here. Her little ‘tricks’ to rev up her metabolism. And simply her DRIVE for life… how she takes all this in stride. SHE IS AMAZING.
Memorial day we got to ‘get away’ and I went to my ‘happy place’… my friend’s beach house in Crystal Beach. No pictures …. lol no need. 😉
May 29th – June 3rd – FINISHING THE OFFICE, SETH’S CONFIRMATION, & SPANISH HHM CONFERENCE As soon as we got back from Memorial Day I had the furniture for the office delivered and beyond meeting with a few new ‘survivors’ yes, I still see (or talk to by phone) at least 2-3 new survivors a week… I was getting everything ready for the very first Hopeful Hearts Spanish program in our new facility. On Saturday, June 3rd, they ended up having 17+ attendees!!! We had it all painted …just no decorations yet.
On Thursday night my youngest, Seth, received his CONFIRMATION. Come Holy Spirit. And I was the sponsor for a young man I love like my own, one of my dearest friend’s son – Cole. Another great night of celebration.
June 3rd – FR. MICHAEL APPLEGATE ORDINATION I simply can not leave off without the amazing Saturday I had attending a young man that I was youth minister to…his ordination into the priesthood. This young man, Fr. Michael Applegate used to babysit my boys. I was very close to his family and I’m so proud of what God is doing through is life. What a great way to ‘end the month’ …or begin it…however you look at it. 🙂
Now, I will say, June promises to be as exciting as May, just cut out the medical issues. But I do pray to get back to blogging and expressing all the crazy things God has given me that I feel I need to share.
Thank you for your understanding and taking in all of my ‘EXCUSES’ with understanding.
Blessings
Shannon