Unexpected - mixed feelings

I have been having a sense of mixed feelings lately.

On the one hand - I feel like this cancer has left me with almost a sense of a long term conviction. I may be in remission - I may have beaten this cancer - I may be alive - but life as I know it - will never ever be the same. This is not like anything else I have ever dealt with before.  All of the other problems, diseases, issues if you will - I could get over them. They may take a while - some longer than others. But they were all do-able. I joked about being that rare-find that got every statistical anomaly there was, every problem that came up.  But it wasn't a joke - it was real. I put on a good face.

And so when we "jokingly" started saying "Hey! It's been a year since I was last in the hospital." I was actually starting to freak out on in the inside.  That's not something you say to someone like me.  I inwardly actually had anxiety or panic attacks because I just knew it was coming.  But nowhere ever did I imagine something like this.  This was just cruel.

But I have been surrounded in a way I never knew possible since this whole thing began. I have been loved in so many ways and by so many people. I have been reached out to by people I didn't even know knew me.  In many times and in many ways I didn't even know they were reaching out to me.  But their blanket surrounded me at a time I needed it so badly that I believe that it saved me.

People came to me in the hospital. They stayed with me night and day - even when I didn't know they were there and couldn't acknowledge their presence or carry on a meaningful conversation with them. They stayed with me even when I argued with them. When they couldn't be there, they sent who they could. They made sure I wanted for nothing. They made sure I was never alone. I was visited by total strangers, but with ties to people I had not seen in 30 years. My church never left my side. My family would ensure I was never alone and had every answer to every question.

I didn't even know to be upset.  All I knew was to fight.  And fight I did. I fought may way back from the lowest point I had ever known. And almost 7 months later I am different person. Different from the days of my diagnosis in so many ways.  I can't possibly go into them here. I will never be the same. Part of that is just because of all I have been through.  But much of it is because of all of you. All that you have done for me.  I am a different person. And it is so unexpected. I don't even know where to begin. And I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say.

I have been reached out to by people who have expressed their own unexpected journey - either their journey through cancer - or a loved ones - and how it effected them. And not all of you are as blessed as I am.  Not all of your loved ones made it to the other side as I have.  I feel guilty - I feel ... wrong somehow for even being here at times.  Why me?  I don't know.  By all accounts and purposes I was not in a good place. I was high risk. I had one of the rarest types of acute leukemia you can get.  And yet - here I am.  In the triangle of North Carolina - near one of the best oncologists for this type of cancer you can ever find as he has studied it for years.  That can't be an accident I suppose.

I seem to have been wallowing in my own pity for a bit here ... in my own conviction.  I have had a lot to think about. It has occurred to me just how much I have to deal with moving forward in life. Just because I am in remission doesn't mean that life is hunky dory to be sure. But more and more I look around and can't deny that I am being shown that I need to accept he signs of life around me. I am alive! I have made it! I can turn this around! I have stared death in the face again! Again! I can't keep asking myself how many times I am going to do this.  I just have to realize that once again - I did it. It's me - I did it. Again. Throw me some more. I got this.

Acute Promyolytic Leukemia. Molecular and Hemotologic Remission.  BAM!
Ischemic Stroke. Walking and Talking and Reasoning.  BAM!

October 28, 2015.  Back to work.

After everything I've been through - maybe it's about time I found my Hallelujah?

A little bit of baking - Rigatoni Pie

I've seen this particular dish all over Facebook and Pinterest for a while, and I thought I would try my hand at it to see if I could do it with any success. And I am proud to say it wasn't too hard and I was able to make it pretty well. I am calling it Rigatoni Pie and it was a big success here at our house. I am here to tell you that you can make it too.  I am all about giving credit where credit it due and I am fairly certain that this was originally found at TheNoblePig.com so check it out there if you can.

Here are the ingredients that I needed:

• 1 pound of rigatoni
• container of shaved parmesan/arregiano
• 1 pound of hamburger meat
• tomato sauce of your choice
• mozzarella cheese - either shredded or finely  cut however you would like
• springform pan
• cookie sheet
• aluminum foil

Preheat oven to 350 to prepare the oven and boil the pound of rigatoni. While the rigatoni is boiling brown the hamburger meat. I have learned that while the rigatoni is boiling in the  water to keep a wooden spoon over the pot to keep the water from boiling over.

Once the rigatoni is cooked and I have strained it I make sure to wash it with cold water so that I can handle it better. I then put it in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle it with the parmesan/arregiano cheese so that it will be easier to handle when I go to stack it in the springform pan.

I then move on to the browning hamburger meat. I drain the fat and I add the tomato sauce. If you like other vegetables with it you may add it at that time. and let it simmer.

I then move on to the springform pan.  I make sure that aluminum foil has lined the cookie sheet as well as the spring form pan so that the tomato sauce I eventually put in does not leak through. I make sure that the springform pan is at an angle so that it's easier to do what I need to do and I start stacking the rigatoni in the pan. This will take some time but every piece of the rigatoni - the whole pound - will fit in that pan.

             

Once you are done, you then move on to the tomatoe sauce with meat.  You then spread that on top of the rigatoni and let it fall within the wholes of the rigatoni. To give it some help I used some old chopsticks I had and pushed in the wholes to help.

    

Once I was done there I took some shredded mozzarella and spread it on top. Then I put some aluminum on top and put it in the oven and cooked it for 30 minutes. For the last 5 minutes I took the aluminum foil off so that it would brown a bit. Then I took it off and let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes to just set up.

Once that 10 minutes was up I took the aluminum foil off and took the sides of the springform pan off and I had a beautiful rigatoni pie. I cut it just like a rigatoni pie and serviced with some french bread to the family.  The general consensus was that it was delicious.  A welcome deviation from our usual spaghetti and lasagna.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Unexpected ... yeah - all of it

So I haven't been very "bloggy" lately. To be honest... I just haven't been feeling it. The title of all my blogs has been "unexpected" after a blog I posted just before all of this happened that I had titled "Unexpected" after an Upward devotion that I did one Saturday afternoon.  I was saying that there is good unexpected and bad unexpected, but that basically it doesn't matter - God knows about it all and He knows what your reaction is going to be - good or bad - just give it to Him and walk with Him through it.  So as I gave it to Him and I walked through it all with Him I titled all of these posts Unexpected.

But to be honest - it is.  It is all just unexpected. All of it.  I am that person that I was speaking about. I have gotten through the cancer - I am in remission - I am in maintenance therapy. We are trying to figure out what is still bothering me in many different ways - I'm still experiencing vertigo and dizziness - I'm still experiencing headaches that won't go away.  Oh yeah - and in the midst of all this - I got to go see my Kidney Cancer doctor.  Guess what - it's been 5 years without a re-occurrence of Renal Cell Carcinoma. 5 Years NED.  One down.

Somehow - I'm supposed to be OK - be GOOD - with all of this.  I actually had a doctor say to me "You are a walking miracle!" This was about 10 minutes after saying "You are a shadow of your former self." I'm sorry but I think the former was probably more correct sir.  I really do feel more like I am a shadow of my former self.  I had actually gotten to the point where I had said "Hey! I think it's been a year since I've been in the hospital!"  Do not be mistaken - you won't hear those words cross my lips again. I had actually started to feel a sense of dread start to creep into me just before this happened to me because it had been a year since anything major had happened to me.  But NEVER had I imagined anything like this. I have been looking back at my facebook posts via applications like TimeHop or On This Day and all that I can see is ... this crap just keeps on happening.  It just keeps happening over and over and over again.

You spend all this time focused on getting through the chemo and getting into remission, only to realize - life has changed - forever.  This cancer is not like the RCC.  It is insidious. I had the stroke and it's side effects don't go away either.  And, yes, I'm doing wonderfully all things considered.  I don't want to make light of that in any way shape or form. I'm walking! I can see! I'm talking! I'm remembering! I don't want to belittle what God has done in my life.

But I do want to be honest with you. This isn't easy. This was totally unexpected. I don't like it ... AT ALL. I mean - really? Seriously? I don't even know where to start here when people ask me my medical history. I really don't. And when a nurse suggested I put it down in like a notebook or something - all I can say is the thought literally gives me a panic attack. 22 surgeries. 2 cancers. Among those surgeries some of the most rare and for no damn reason.  I have lost over 160 pounds over the past 6+ years and who knows how long some of that will stick. Some of that was intentional and some of it was not.

I just need to get this all out. I just need to get it down. I'm just tired of being told that I'm such a walking miracle and that I look so good.  I'm tired of being told my hair cut is so cute. I almost feel like it belittles what I have been through. I have so much left to do.