Make a Wish

Today is two weeks since my last chemo treatment. Normally, I would have received treatment today and been miserable for the next several days.

But not anymore.

Last week I received news that my scans came back clean, my cancer indicator mark is very low and that all my blood work is perfectly normal. We have been waiting for this since last July. Couldn’t stop smiling.

Now, we begin a new portion of our life nearly as challenging. Healing physically and mentally. Moving on. Not dwelling on what the next scan may show. Living.

My mother in law has been with us since two days after I went into the hospital in July last year. She leaves in three weeks. While we all really need to get on with our lives, she has done so much for us and that burden will return to me when she leaves. And I am scared. She needs to leave but she has been the greatest help to us.

I don’t know where to go from here just yet. I don’t know how to start over. I have to create some new order to my life. Some focus. I need to remember my purpose and my dreams.

Most importantly I need to remember to live my life to the fullest. I have been given a second chance. So many aren’t. I must make the most of it. I must live.

52 Lists Week 14

This list is certainly shorter than the last one. It’s a little hard to think about what jobs I want to do right now. When I was diagnosed last year, I was an unemployed special education teacher. Teaching jobs are hard to come by in our area right now so I was beginning to explore other areas I was qualified for. Seriously, there is not much any teacher doesn’t do and a special education teacher does even more!

Right now though, I just look forward to being cancer free and getting my life back in order. So thinking of a job that will take up 40 hours of my week is overwhelming. I don’t even know what I can physically handle right now. Certainly not a job requiring a lot of physical activity like my previous teaching jobs required.

I really loved teaching and even two years after leaving my last job, I still think like a teacher. But, I just don’t know if I can ever handle it again. So much stress, physically and mentally.

For now, I am happy to get my life back in order and spend some time on my more crafty interests.

February Project Life 2013

Still loving the transparencies.

Finally getting around to posting my February Project Life pages. I have March complete as well but need to wait for some sunshine to photograph them.

I added a highlights card with a February circle transparency. This month my ten year old, Warren drew on the envelope card. He is currently obsessed with bacon.

This is the page behind the big envelope. The quote was designed by Elise Cripe but I put it on a transparency. The drawing is a page of Ali Edwards digital month circles I accidentally printed on plain paper. My daughter asked for it. What she did to them turned out cute so I asked her if I could include them each month.

I am loving themed pages right now. The snow day, Valentine’s Day, and the monopoly page. I try to do date order but the theme pages are kind of running the show right now. You’ll see that again in March and I’m planning on it for April as well.

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I love that I have kept up with this so far. Doing it on a monthly basis is really working out for me. I have found myself thinking about what extras to add and doing some journaling earlier in the month but no pressure. I will just take a day early in the next month to put it all together.

March is complete and has more pages than January or February. When the sun is out and I am not suffering the effects of chemo I will take photos and post them. Hopefully that will be before the end of April. I think I am going to need to purchase a second album to complete the second half of the year. Partly this is due to the big envelopes but I really like just putting the kids work and any extras right in there and being done. It's like finding a shoe box of old memorabilia and discovering all the goodies inside.

52 Lists week 13

I’ve been hearing about this project, 52 Lists for a while now and finally decided last week to join in. As with everything right now, simple is the only way to go. I saved the file to the GoodReader app and added items as I thought of them. I never had to worry about where I put the list.

I’m thinking of adding the lists to my Project Life album or possibly making a separate album and adding photos relevant to the topic for that week. But for now I just love getting the words and ideas down.

Hoping to get my February Project Life posted here this week. March is almost done. I need to add the Easter photos then photograph all the pages. One more chemo treatment next week and then I hope to get back into a more routine life that doesn’t revolve around cancer.

Brave and Scared

Brave and scared. This is me right now. What surprises me the most is that I am brave. I always thought of myself as scared. I still am scared of so much. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with colon cancer that I started to realize how brave I really was.

I finally got around to watching Brene Brown on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday tonight. So much of what she talked about is so powerful and I have her newest book to start reading, but what I really needed to hear tonight, the night before chemo is “Brave and scared”.

I have two treatments left. Tomorrow and the last one is in two weeks. And I am feeling really scared right now. I don’t want to keep doing this. I want to be done but at the same time I am so scared to be done. What next? How do I live every day wondering if the cancer is growing back? How do I not let that fear put me into a deep depression? How do I stay brave enough to keep going?

I must admit a lot of my bravery comes from my children. I’d like to think I would have stayed as positive through all of this if I didn’t have kids but I just don’t know. The bravery is there no matter how it got there. It is there.

Every day I get up. Most days I get dressed. This changes my outlook on the day so much. Even when I can’t get dressed (I had two major abdominal surgeries in six months so sometimes I am just too sore to wear more than a nightgown) I almost always go downstairs instead of staying in bed. This keeps the positive energy going even more. I can still participate in the world even if just from a chair in my living room. At least I was brave enough to get up and move that day.

Not once through the last nine months have I wanted to really give up. I have made it through every chemo treatment even when the nurses thought maybe I should skip a week. No matter how much pain I was in or how sick I got. And it really surprises me. This is not who I thought I was.

When my grandmother was diagnosed 9 years ago she gave up. She never went to a store or restaurant again. She only left the house to go to doctor appointments. She was someone who was always on the go. She had her routine of what she did and where she went but when she was diagnosed, she just stopped.

I really thought that was me too. I have my thoughts on why she behaved this way but right from the beginning that was not me. It wasn’t until a few months after my diagnosis I realized just who I really am and I must admit I am quite proud of myself. Quite shocked but proud.

I questioned at first what was important and why I should do the less important things I used to do. Taking care of my kids. That is important. Taking care of myself. Of course. But so is all the little stuff. Knitting, watching Doctor Who, spending time on Pinterest. It’s important because I am still alive and I can’t always be doing the BIG things. These little things are who make me who I am. And that makes them important. And they are essential to keeping me brave.

So when I sit down in that chair tomorrow morning, and fight back tears because I know how this is going to make me feel for the rest of the week, I will remember that I am brave and scared and that is okay. That’s good in fact. Brave and scared means I am still alive and fighting.

Reality

The view from my Doctor’s office.

Usually the week after a treatment I feel much better and can get back to a pretty normal life. This time, not so much.

Last week was the fourth treatment since my surgery in January. My 11th treatment in total. I was making big plans for this week. Being the week before Easter and the kids are on spring break, there were so many things I wanted to do. Knitting, crafting, maybe even a trip to the Bronx Zoo.

Unfortunately, reality stepped in and reminded me I have a serious illness. Nothing major happened, I was checked thoroughly. My doctor just said it is fatigue. I’ve been through so much and even though this treatment has been easier than in the fall, I still have a long road ahead of me.

I have only two treatments left and will be done mid April. Then onto the test to see if the cancer is still gone. My doctor is great but she is definitely not the type that tells you that since everything looks good right now, you won’t be worse in six months. She is very honest, telling me we don’t know what will happen next but that we will figure it out together when something does happen. I like that.

Maybe that is what brought on the fatigue. Maybe it is depression, too. Not knowing if or when my cancer will come back. It’s so hard to make plans and that upsets me.

I haven’t really even knit much this week. I have things I want to make the kids for Easter but I just don’t know if I’ll get them done. There’s no create all night so it will be done for me like I used to do. If I can’t even do anything at home it also makes me wonder how I will hold a job eventually and how long before I can?

My iPad is my lifeline. Even when I don’t feel like moving, I always have something to do. From silly games to some new creative apps that I recently downloaded. I have so many ideas brewing in my head I was happy to find some apps to help me work on them. I have been sharing a lot of what I do on Instagram lately. You can find me here . One of these days I will figure out how to add all those links to the sidebar. Just not today. I’m on Pinterest and Twitter as well.

Anyway, I’m rambling now. I’ve rested the last few days and really want to finish a hand knit animal for each child and make Doctor Who bookmarks for them using transparencies before Sunday. I need to take some time this weekend to put together March Project Life. I have been doing some journaling cards throughout the month. And I really want to finish my sweater soon. The back and a little of the right side is all I have done so far. Most of my old hand knit sweaters don’t fit anymore since I’ve lost so much weight. I’m seriously not complaining about that but I miss my sweaters!

For now I’ll do what I’ve done all along and just keep going, appreciating every day that I have.

Created this in ArtRage app. The quote I used as an overlay was created by Elise Blaha Cripe

Transparencies

Transparencies seem to be my thing right now. There is a story behind it.

Ali Edwards Date Stamps 2013 Brushes and Stamps 

Last April while putting together my Week in the Life album, I became obsessed with adding a full page transparency for each day of the week. When I tried to purchase them, though, I found it was going to be costly to purchase inkjet transparencies. So I thought about it for a few days but just couldn’t give up on the idea. I vowed when I bought them I would find many ways to use them and get my moneys worth. I bought these on Amazon.

Ali Edwards Hello Life 12×12 Text Overlays

So I did use them in my Week in the Life album. And they were perfect. Just what I wanted but my messed up life got in the way and I didn’t do anything with them after that. Until my December Daily album.

Ali Edwards Happy Christmas Red Paper Collection

It’s not finished but I am using the transparencies the same way I did for Week in the Life.

Ali Edwards Hello Life Boxes Brushes and Stamps No. 04

I am currently using transparencies in my Project Life album. I printed out the PNG files on transparencies. I was asked recently how to do this. I recommend watching this tutorial by Ali Edwards where she works with transparencies and this tutorial where she talks about using Photoshop in general.

As for me, I used Microsoft Word this time. We are having a problem with Photoshop on this new computer so I tried Word. I worked very well and was pretty quick. I did the following to create the Project Life elements:

1. Create a new blank file. I turned on ruler and grid to make sure I got the right size.
2. Click the insert tab.
3. Click picture.
4. Find your photo in your files and click insert.
5. Resize the images by dragging from the corners.
6. To recolor, right click on the image.
7. Click Format Picture at the bottom
8. Click Picture Color. I used presets but I didn’t really play around too much to see what else I could do.
9. If you are making the images smaller, such as 3×4 you can fit several onto the same page.
10. Print. I did not pick any special paper to print on. I just used plain paper and have had no problems. You just need to remember to load you transparencies properly!

To print full page transparencies you will need a printer that does borderless printing. But even if you don’t have one, you could probably add creative elements to the blank edges! Printing these files is even easier. I simply selected the file from my documents and printed from right there.  I used the options menu to choose borderless.

I hope this information has been helpful. I would be more than happy to answer any other questions. I do start chemo again next week so I don’t know when I will be back but will get notice of any questions or comments while I rest.

My February Project Life is photographed and ready to be shared here when I can do so. I am eager to put together the March section when the month is over. I have been collecting items all month and have some ideas of new and meaningful things to add.

Keep creating!