Sunday, 10 Dec 2006

My Dear Friends,

I had this dream last night. Please tell me what you think. I want to write as many details as possible so please bear with me. After, I welcome your comments as to meaning:

Mark and I were going to a fireworks display near an industrial park. (In reality, we had once done this.) We pulled up and parked the car. Some tall guy was in the backseat. (??) Then I remember being in a crowd of people just waiting around. There were people on both sides of the street but fewer people on my side. I turned around and saw someone who looked like my boss at the first CPA firm I'd worked for. He looked tired and was leaning up against a stop sign. I called out to him but he did not answer. Decided it probably wasn't him. Another guy that looked just like him walked up to stand next to him and talk.

I had knowledge that one of my friends was very sick and probably going to die. I looked around for another friend who was supposed to be there. Couldn't find her so I went back to the industrial park to go look for her.

Found her at the edge of a jungle. The trees were very thick and impassable on both sides but I could see a short path through a break in the dark trees. It led to the the shore of a lake then beyond the lake, I could see two snowy mountains side-by-side in the distance. The lakeshore was scary. On it were all kinds of dangerous animals. The largest and most fierce was an angry lion.

He was unlike any lion I had ever seen. I concentrated on his face. It was black and white. His mane was sharp, like metal spikes. He was furious and snarling. He was so agitated in his anger that he was jumping up and down as he paced near the end of the path. I did not feel any danger where I was standing but I did NOT want to go in there.

"What's in there?" I said to my friend as I looked at the mountains.

"The cure," she said.

"Let's go back," I said, staring at the agitated lion. "Come on."

"I can't," she said. "Our friend needs the cure."

I looked at the impossible journey.

"You can't go in there. We don't have time. We've only got 40 minutes!" I told her.

"I don't care," she said. "I have to try."

Then I woke up.

What do you make of that?

Love,
Jeanette

Sat, 9 Dec 2006

My Dear Friends,

First of all, let me go back to that conversation with the other Boy Scout mom that I promised to mention.

I am one of four moms in the troop that are fighting breast cancer. One is my friend, as we taught catechism together but I never met the other two. The troop leader's wife is also a survivor. She introduced me to one of the other moms (assistant leader's wife) earlier in the school year and we had a nice conversation. The mom is a bit worse off than me.

We recently heard that one of the moms passed away. I knew it wasn't my friend but wasn't sure if it was the asst leader's wife or the 4th mom I'd never met.

Since I am a badge counselor for the Personal Management badge (it deals with managing your money and investing), a mom called me to set up an appointment for her son to work on the badge. We set a time, then I told her I am fighting cancer and will be wearing a headscarf.

"You may want to mention that to your son," I suggested.

"That's OK. He's used to it. I'm have cancer too," she said.

"Did we meet on the ramp outside the gym earlier this year?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Oh good!" I said. "When I heard about that mom who died, I wondered."

"Me too," she said. "I thought it was you."

"And I thought it was YOU!"

We laughed about it.

"Well, OK then" I said. "We're both still alive!"

Her husband and I spoke at length the night their son began working on his badge. (BSA rules say that two adults must be present.) They are asking God all the same questions as Mark and me. I told him we probably won't know the answers on this Earth but we can ask Him later.

Gotta go now. The boys are swordfighting with my curtain rods!

Love,
Jeanette

Tuesday, 5 December 2006

My Dear Friends,

Staying home from work today, as I have been every Tuesday after chemo. I'm starting the second month of this type. I get it on Monday and feel tired and nauseous. Tuesday, I am really tired. Usually I get headaches on Monday from the Herceptin but this time, it waited until today.

Got a call from the doctor's office this morning. My stomach always lurches when I see it's them on the caller ID. They only call when something is bad, as I've mentioned before. This time, it was only the white blood cells, thank God. We expect that to happen. They were 2.2 yesterday (normal is between 4.0 and 10.0, I think?) I fix this by taking those Neupogen shots. I was supposed to take two shots this week but now I'll need three. Oh well.

I asked about the other blood test they did yesterday. This one is once a month. Thank God my liver enzymes were normal! I always fear the cancer will spread to the liver. God forbid.
Wow, I didn't even want to write that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Christmas season. The first family party will be this weekend, on my stepmom's side. I will bring two of my famous appetizers...orange mini-muffins stuffed with turkey & cranberries...also, I'll bring bite-sized round open-faced roast beef sandwiches with cheese, baby sweet pickles and Dijon mayonnaise. I have this awesome hors d'oeuvre cookbook.

I was very happy to get a long e-mail from my oldest (should I say longest-lasting) friend today. We became penpals in the fifth grade, so we've been writing for something like 28 years! Man, time flies! She visited the U.S. to work security for the Atlanta Olympics so we met in person once. She reads the blog so I wanted to give her a nod. :)

Tomorrow I will try to sell some doll clothes at the local grade school's holiday show. I'll take my shot in the morning to get those white cells up.

On the homefront, the church ladies have been bringing us dinner every Monday and the school staff is taking Tuesdays. We are very blessed to live among such fine Christian people.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Love,
Jeanette

PS: Did you know Spellcheck wanted me to replace "penpals" with "pimples"? :)

Sunday, 3 December 2006

My Dear Friends,

Just a short post since it's late. Looking forward to Christmas. Lots of parties and things to do.

We had to postpone Thanksgiving by two days because I had to go to the emergency room that Wednesday. I caught that nasty norovirus. Most healthy people wait it out at home but I recognized that I should get help because I was dehydrated. They pumped me full of fluids (felt more alive after that) and gave me some anti-nausea and anti-diarrhea medicines. Didn't help but luckily I stopped throwing up at 11pm. I thought I was a goner and was just praying for it to stop. I got out of bed at 3am because I was so thirsty and stayed up til 5:30am hoping the apple juice and Gatorade stayed down. It did. I was very happy to be eating solid foods again on Thursday but my stomach was still a bit rough for about three days.

We had Thanksgiving on Saturday. I was sorry the family had to postpone it but was glad they did. It would've been sad to miss it.

Not much else is new. Caught a cold but now it's on the way out.

Call me a germ magnet.

Thanks for your prayers. ( I will write on other topics next time.)

Love,
Jeanette