That's my chicken hat!!
I was the bell of the ball at Swill's
Lisa and Brenda
My angels from Coos Bay
And Seattle
My angels who changed my world!
I don't think I would have survived the last 2 1/2 years without them!!
My first and favorite blog from nevadadodge8
That's my chicken hat!!
I was the bell of the ball at Swill's
OK, here is another emotional post!
I have been seeing my physical therapist off and on for two years now, my body has been through so much, parts of me stop working. She sees me go through good and really bad days. On Monday she asked me "So, if you have stage four cancer, and there is no cure, why are you doing chemotherapy?" I had to come up with an answer fast.... because she asked me a question. I said "I didn't want to die."
Nothing can prepare you for a question like that. And three days later it is taking up a lot of real estate in my mind. Why am I trying to stay alive? Why don't I just quit chemotherapy and live what life I have left? Some one asked if I knew what the difference is between palliative care and hospice. Yes, I do. Palliative care manages my disease. Hospice care manages my death. I don't feel like dying most days. Is that enough?
I want to see my granddaughter graduate from high school and maybe from college. I want to be with my son and my husband as long as I can. I would like to enjoy what life I have left with my friends and family.
I can hope for a cure, if I buy some more time.
I belong to a closed Facebook group for metastatic cancer and I poster that on line and I got some wonderful responses.
Thoughts on procrastination: Remind yourself that it’s better to try and fail than not to try at all. “At the end of life, during the final days, people do not regret what they did but what they didn’t,” says Ludwig. “Trying but not focusing on the results can help you decrease the emotions around risk of failure. The result isn’t important. What’s important is to try something new.”
I have been working on self improvement for probably 30 years now. I like integrating new ideas and information with my current schemas. For those of you who don't know about your schemas, here is a simple explanation.
A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information. Schemas can be useful because they allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting the vast amount of information that is available in our environment.
However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information to focus instead only on things that confirm our pre-existing beliefs and ideas. Schemas can contribute to stereotypes and make it difficult to retain new information that does not conform to our established ideas about the world.
From: www.verywellmind.com
I learned quite a few years ago that "I" am a figment of my own imagination. I really enjoyed watching the National Geographic television show called "Brain Games". This show really explores how your brain plays tricks on a person.
I recently found an article that supports the idea that I am a figment of my own imagination, "it turns out that identity is often not a truthful representation of who we are anyway – even if we have an intact memory. Research shows that we don't access and use all available memories when creating personal narratives. It is becoming increasingly clear that, at any given moment, we unawarely tend to choose and pick what to remember. When we create personal narratives, we rely on a psychological screening mechanism, dubbed the monitoring system, which labels certain mental concepts as memories, but not others. Concepts that are rather vivid and rich in detail and emotion – episodes we can re-experience – are more likely to be marked as memories. These then pass a “plausibility test” carried out by a similar monitoring system which tells whether the events fit within the general personal history. For example, if we remember flying unaided in vivid detail, we know straight away that it cannot be real". From: theconversation.com
Another interesting article was about trauma and transformation. This article talks about "people who go through intense trauma and become deeper and stronger than they were before. They may even undergo a sudden and radical transformation that makes life more meaningful and fulfilling". Intense traumatic events,...include bereavement, serious illness, accidents or divorce. Over time, they may feel a new sense of inner strength and confidence and gratitude for life and other people". I would also include disenfranchised grief under traumatic events, any loss that impacts your life should be classified as a traumatic event.
From: theconversation.com
I found another noteworthy article about feeling overwhelmed by current events. "Ever had the feeling that you can’t make sense of what’s happening? One moment everything seems normal, then suddenly the frame shifts to reveal a world on fire, struggling with a pandemic, recession, climate change, and political upheaval. That is called “zozobra,” the peculiar form of anxiety that comes from being unable to settle into a single point of view, leaving you with questions like: Is it a lovely autumn day, or an alarming moment of converging historical catastrophes?...As scholars of this phenomenon, we have noted how zozobra has spread in U.S. society in recent years, and we believe the insight of Mexican philosophers can be helpful to Americans during these tumultuous times." I have been feeling this way for the last ten years or so. I was very glad that someone put this in perspective for me. This allowed me to build a new schema for the anxiety of being overwhelmed! In philosopher Jorge Portilla's (1919−1963) book, The Disintegration of Community, he makes a point that this state of mind has spiritual components.
From: theconversation.com
OK, fear is not my favorite emotion. I keep thinking during a panic attack that I'm as scared as I can ever be.... until I'm more afraid. Afraid to the point of screaming and not being able to breathe or control myself in any way. I'm am so scared, so afraid, I have a lot of support with me, I just don't have the technique down to unwind from a panic attack.
I remember now that a few months ago I couldn't lay down to get a CT scan and figured out I could use my cpap machine to successfully lay down in the CT bed. I had a really bad panic attack in the CT scanner on Wednesday night and I did not remember using the cpap before. I just can't seem to remember everything all the time, especially when I am so afraid.
I had a bad night Tuesday night. I felt the need to call my son to take me to the ER. On Thursday I was able to relate the fear that I felt and what it did to me. on the way home, pain was also in with the fear. I'm so confused... why am I scared to death (and I mean I'm scared out of my wits) when I can't breathe?
I am afraid ALL the time; that I won't be able to breathe, that I'm going to die right now (right this second), that I won't be able to drive, that I won't be able to pay my bills with my non-existent pay check, or that I won't be able to tolerate my pain. My normal level of stress is "fear". I am hardly ever comfortable about my situation.
Now for the positive; I don't take my Christmas lights or tree down, they are up all year and I love them, my library is in the works finally, and I am SO grateful for that. I am grateful for my dedicated fur babies, especially Boots who cuddles with me ALL the time. There are times I don't move because she is sleeping next to me!
My therapist ask me what my fear looked like on Tuesday. I found a good picture for my fear.
More later...Learn to be non-judgemental with yourself. I do not judge other people, but my goodness do I ever lay down the letter of the law to myself. I feel like I'm being irresponsible by not getting important things done. And I only have three things on my "critical" to do list. My living will, both our wills, and my celebration of life. Of those three things that I feel like I must do, only my celebration of life has been roughly sketched out. However, I am doing more harm than good by being so unyielding with myself and my "to do list".
I am exhausted! How can thinking about what is going on in my brain be SO tiring?? I need a nap!! I am giving myself permission to take a nap!
NON-JUDGING
Learn to be an impartial witness to your experiences. Just observe it, and step back from it.
PATIENCE
Develop the patience to let things unfold in their own time.
BEGINNERS MIND
Be receptive to new and unique possibilities.
TRUST
Honor your feelings and your intuition, and trust others to help you on your journey.
NON-STRIVING
Meditate. Be yourself. Do not introduce the idea that you are NOT OK right now, only express positive thoughts. Pay attention to what is happening right now.
ACCEPTANCE
See things as they are in the present moment. Do not waste energy in denying and resisting what is already a fact! Accept what is happening this moment.
LETTING-GO
Or letting things be. There are situations that our mind wants to hold on to, and situations that we want to protect ourselves from having. Learn to let things be without holding on or pushing away.
Even broken crayons still color!
When I think back to kindergarten, there were entire boxes full of broken crayons. They would snap, break when pressed down too hard. They would be left on the floor, stepped on, and broken in two, yet not broken enough to throw away. We would scoop them up at the end of the day and place them back in the boxes along with the intact ones. They would be used to color, just the same as if they were whole.
But they weren’t.
I was asked to think about "being like water" in my reaction to situations or circumstances in my life. I decided that water is powerful but not necessarily strong.
I am often told how strong I am, or told to "keep being strong", and I think there is a difference between being strong and being powerful. People are often said to be strong; Rosie the Riveter is an example of strength. I relate people to being "strong", however I can think of water or other things in nature as being powerful and yet not necessarily strong. So, something can be powerful like water and air, movable and soft, yet powerful.
Water can turn stone into sand and a river carved out the Grand Canyon. Tree roots can turn mountains into gravel over time. The ocean is powerful, yet you can touch the soft water. Things that are powerful, exert power, while things that are strong hold fast and don't "move". Being strong, to me, means an unmovable object that is standing up against the circumstances of life coming at me like an unstoppable force. Cancer, health problems, family dramas, and death, to name a few. The goal is to be flexible, capable of being flexed, bent, bowed, twisted, or moved without breaking; to be pliable; not stiff or brittle.
Don't try to be the unmovable object, be the water!!
Sometimes you just have to leave something undone....
And I am no alone in thinking about things this way!
the-art-of-leaving-things-undone
This is why leaving things undone is an
art, spiritual practice or a discipline. If we can accept that things
unravel and break down; that projects may remain unfinished and
unstarted; that we lose our jobs or our loves or our health, then we can
better accept life itself and find inner peace and joy.
Unlike gemstones that are mined from the earth, a living organism produces a pearl and, in fact, their very existence is a freak of nature. A pearl is formed when an irritant, such as a parasite or piece of shell, becomes accidentally lodged in an oyster's soft inner body, causing it to secrete a crystalline substance called nacre, which builds up around the irritant in layers until a pearl is formed. Cultured pearls are formed through the same process, the only difference being that the irritant is implanted in the oyster rather than entering it by chance.
So Verizon owns AOL and now it bought Yahoo!
And now Verizon is selling it all to Apollo!