December

Yesterday she wanted to help shovel the driveway for Daddy...

This morning, she prefers to enjoy it from inside the window...

I think the snow was a bit more than she expected! ;)

A new kind of thankful

She sat by my happy fire the other day and remembed aloud a moment in time when she began to love her body again.  She had been down a path no one chooses and she knows what it's like to feel as though your body has betrayed you, let you down.  Still, she came to a point where she was able to see her body as a noble foxhole partner instead of a treacherous betrayer.

That's where I need to get to in my head.  I need to be thankful.  Not just thankful for the diagnoses I've received of "No Evidence of Disease"; but for this body herself.  So, in one of my recent awakenesses, I began a list of things about this body that I am thankful for...

I say, "Thank you, Lord...

...that my body kept the cancer contained and didn't allow it to spread.

...that she tolerates pain well.

...that she is so unique as to have required custom care solutions.

...that she would not be ignored when a PE was threatening her.

...that she stores calories so well ~ I will not starve! (creative thankfulness!)

...that her skin held out valiantly to the burning, cutting, stretching required.

...that her eyes are still blue.

...that her hair faithfully returned and continues to grow.

...that she has a strong immune system that carried us through chemotherapy on track.

...that my strong heart absorbed the abuses of Herceptin and pumps faithfully still.

...that her bones are strong.

...that scars do fade.

Father, YOU created this body for me, knowing what would be asked of her.  Thank you."

And for some perspective on what has been asked of her, I made a list of all the things we were doing at one point or another...probing, testing, hurting, cutting, tearing, disecting, chopping, poisoning, tapping, weakening, blocking, starving, arresting, preventing, burning, irradiating, scorching, cooking, tightening, thinning, pushing, stretching, sucking, shaping, sewing, fixing, healing...

Can it be, then, that my cancer IS gone? That I can learn to love this body and imagine a long future together?   I think maybe so and today, I am a new kind of thankful.