It's been awhile

Certain life events compel me to pause from the daily happenings and connect with others around me.

Cancer - specifically breast cancer - has compelled me to stop and take an account of what is going on in my life, our home and family.

November 2024 has required that I pause, re-evaluate, and re-connect.  After many months of a ridiculously persistent cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, and few if any explanation on causation, a significant hospital stay, and a pericardial effusion, (tamponade), we have some answers.  As I suspected in May, the cancer has spread.  Malignant cells abounded in the pericardial fluid drainage culture.  My current metastatic breast cancer treatment has failed.

The news has not devastated me, as I really felt that God, as before, prepared me in advance to accept this news.  It has been harder on my husband, my children, my siblings, co-workers, and friends.

My son Austin is seeking a "cure".  He has looked at some literature on a new study with the University of WA in collaboration with Bastyr University bridge Western and Eastern medicine looking at breast cancer and prostate cancer treatment with a "magic mushroom" - "turkey tail mushroom", aka Trametes versicolor.  For me, this is an unlikely alternative in my mind, as I am not really seeking a cure, but rather preparing myself and our family for the end of this life.

Why not seek a cure?  Why not participate in a study that could possibly cure others.  Isn't that what I have benefitted from thus far, people with cancer who have engaged in of studies to improve outcomes for cancer patients.  Why I not want to do likewise?  Well, I haven't applied to any study, nor have I been invited to a study. Does that make me selfish?

I have accepted God's will, but do I know that what I am doing is really God's will, or is it simply succumbing to what I believe is His will going forward, when he is asking me to reach for a miracle?

In the Liahona Magazine digital version January 2024 Can we really "Expect" Miracles by Chakell Wardleigh Herbert this message resonated with me.

I have been blessed with miracles and continue to experience miracles.  I am looking for them now, regularly.

Today, it is the miracle of prednisone that reduces my inflammation in my lungs and allows me to breathe easier.