Awake, Oh Dreamer, Awake and Live.

I am so blessed.

I could probably write that a number MORE times and not fully express how that feels.

I have a spirit of joy. I could dance around the room inside of myself at that declaration. How many YEARS did I live unaware of that? Way too many. I was weighted down with the living. I was burdened with the sorrows and worries that I bore -- and unaware that inside me was this joy, this bright, shining joy that was a gift from God.

We all have difficulties, burdens, sorrows. We all make mistakes, bad choices, and we fall prey to just plain stupid. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. It's our humanness that just sometimes runs us full in to S-T-U-P-I-D!

I have wallowed in self-pity. I have blindly lashed out at my own frailties by lashing out at others. I have hurt other people.

I have awakened.

I have stepped out of the mud and gloom and darkness that is internal blindness to see that I was making life much harder than it has to be.

While the awakening is a long process, while the healing is itself a painful process, these things strengthen you, they renew you, they enliven you where you thought you were never to awaken, never to heal, never to live, never to pull out of the pool of tears.

I was actually clinically depressed a number of years ago. I had a prescription for anti-depressants, I saw a therapist regularly, I fought the battle all day, every day.

I had these two small sons who needed me, you see. They needed me to be strong, they needed me to keep them from the abyss.

They are grown men now and I am proud of them both. They have their own battles to fight with the darkness and I know I cannot help them. I hope and pray that I have cleared a path for them towards the lightness that is joy. Regardless - their battles are their own as each of us must fight our own way clear.

It may sound a little crazy to say - and it is true, nonetheless - that I think this trip through cancer has been a blessing.

Well, to be more accurate, it has brought me blessings.

One of the blessings it has brought to me has been a strengthened bond with a dear friend, RJ.

RJ has a rare type of cancer herself, and is nearing the end. "The end" - such a simple phrase and perfectly welcome at the end of a story in a book or at the end of a movie.

It is not so welcome when you apply it to life itself. I saw and chatted with RJ yesterday for a while. This was not my first visit with her and I hope it will not have been my last. Each time I have visited her these past few weeks I have feared it would be the last time.

She has fought a valiant and epic battle against her cancer. She has done it with humor and courage and grace.

I told her yesterday how beautiful she was. Her immediate response was no, I'm not beautiful. I had to correct her - I told her she may not feel beautiful, but that is not of the truth.

I won't share about my visit with her - there were some private things discussed between us. So saying, I will tell you and her - I will miss my friend. She knows it is near now. She knows I love her (3 times more) and I know she loves me (again 3 times more) and she is tired.

She has a wonderful loving family - husband and sons, absolutely fabulous daughter-in-love, two sweet grandchildren. She has a strong faith in God - her spirit is unbroken. And she is just about as stubborn as it is possible to be!

She has had to be to get this far! I don't want to say goodbye to her. I don't want her to suffer anymore. And she has suffered, is suffering, and fights on to suffer more because she loves her family and worries about them.

Perhaps, RJ this is the dream. Life is the dream and we will awake when we are done here, THEN we shall live.

Perhaps.

And still I will miss my friend.

Box it up and move it out of here!

Cancer, that is.

There are ways in which that is exactly what I have done. In the EARLY days of this, I was given a notebook which held all manner of information about cancer. I read it - which actually rather surprised the patient navigator who came to visit me in the hospital.

This is my body, my very life, and I want to be informed about it. I want and need to be informed about all aspects of my treatment; surgery, chemo, radiation, the rest of my life. I have done so. My computer has a whole bookmark file"Breast Health" and it is loaded with bookmarks.

I had thought I would be all but completely done with everything by now. After all, this process began in January and here it is November.

Reality, however, intrudes its ugly little head into that little fantasy. I cannot likely have any surgery to improve my aspect until a year after radiation. That means that this time NEXT year I may, possibly, perhaps, might be close to done with this step of the ongoing adventure.

I don't really complain about this. I do lament a wee bit that it is the way it goes. I still have to receive Herceptin for an entire year - which means I should be done with that by the end of March, 2012. But perhaps not.

My infarction rate is not quite what it should be. This means we may decide I have to suspend treatment for a few months to give my heart time to recover which means the treatment will then resume as if I had not taken a little break from it, thereby extending past the previously targeted end date.

I have to take Arimidex for probably the rest of my life. That is no big deal. I can certainly live with taking one prescription.

My dexa scan was "almost" normal. I mean a tiny little bit less than it should be for ideal bone health and status. So - exercise, calcium intake increase, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. That doesn't sound bad at all. I have been craving fruits and vegetables - and eating them like mad. My poor husband must surely be tired of the arrival on the table of broccoli and of winter squash.

As much as I would like to box this whole thing up and pack it away to never be seen again, I know that is unrealistic. I need the information that I have literally put in a box under the table in my family room. I may not need all of it right now, but there is information I will need at any given moment therein. Plus - I had put in that box some of the many cards and well wishes I have received over this period of time. And those are dear to me.

I don't want to look at them. I know that is a weird dichotomy - the treasuring of them and the desire to have nothing to do with them.

I'm just a little fatigued, you see. I will gather myself back up and move forward and get to all of the things that had to be laid by the wayside during this task. It is a little overwhelming, though. I had to lay aside so many things. I hope to pick them up again as graciously as possible.

In the end, the only thing that I really want to put in the box is the fatigue and overwhelm. Because I have found so many blessings along the way. I would never wish cancer on any one. ANYone. Yet throughout this journey, because I kept my eyes on God, because I did strive to love God and be called according to His purpose, oh, how He has blessed me.