When I originally posted my Unexpected post I had done a devotion for half time at Upward regarding how we all have the Unexpected in our life. I was addressing all of the Unexpected that I had experienced in my life up to that point. It was a lot to come out with and talk about. I was trying to make sure that people understood that God is OK with how you handle the Unexpected in your life because He just wants to be there with you through it.
The Unexpected can take you to some dark places. I have been to those dark places. They aren't fun. And for some of us they last longer than we would like them to. It's all OK. God wants to be with you in the middle of it all. He knows, and it hurts Him too.
What I find so interesting is that it was literally almost 1 year to the day that I was there giving this same devotional about the Unexpected and then just a couple of weeks later I was in the ER because I found myself covered in these weird bruises. That is when I was told I had leukemia, and then subsequently had my stroke. Talk about the Unexpected. It has just been the Unexpected from there.
This is what I talked about yesterday. It can be hard to hear me at times because there was a lot going on, but I hope you can get what I was saying.
I still struggle with the Unexpected and handling those dark places. But God knows and He is there with me. I pray He is patient with me as I deal with them and figure them out.
Friends who would not give up. That is who Cheryl was to me. She would not give up on me ... period. She was in Chapel Hill and was trying to visit me at the hospital several times only to find that I was not really in a position to be visited. Either I was asleep - which at that point was not something I could easily be woken up from - or I was out at a different test like an MRI. I will give this to her. She was beyond "Hey Pam ... What's good?" She was determined to make sure that I was recovering from this awfulness. That my family was remaining in tact. That I was not being swallowed up whole from what had happened to me. And I appreciate what she was trying to do - every bit of it. I am so thankful. For her friendship, and for her effort. I won't forget it.
Cousins. Some of us have great ones. Some of us take them for granted. I have to say ... I think I have always taken mine for granted. I can go for very long periods with very little contact with mine. And for some reason I don't know why that is. But I love them dearly. And if they ever need me I do what I can for them.
But you don't know what your connection is to them until that connection is tested. Ours was tested last year when my dear Aunt Maggie passed into the next world. I loved her very much, and I will miss her dearly. So when she passed it was natural to step up and do what I could. It didn't even feel like enough.
But I was blown away by what my cousin, Angie, did for me when I got sick. It wasn't enough for her to check on me. She had to drop what she was doing and come up to North Carolina for a long weekend to help take care of me after I left the hospital. This was so helpful in so many ways. It helped my mom and my husband because they had spent so much of their time taking care of me at that point. They were able to take a bit of a break at that point. She was very skilled and attentive to me and my needs. And it was just plain fun to spend time with her in a way we had not been able to in so many ways. I know it wasn't quite the same because I wasn't quite up to par, but it really did mean so much to me.
The whole family just had so much fun while she was here. It was so needed. And it's something we all look back on with such fondness. I can't thank her enough.
I don't know if this person will even see this post. His name is Ian. He was my first nurse when I was at UNC Chapel Hill. Actually, he may not have been my first. He could have been my second. But my memory of that time is not all that great. But as far as I'm concerned he was my first. And I did not call him Ian. I called him Starlord. Why? Because he reminded me of Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy (one of my favorite movies of all time).
He got me through some very harrowing times during those initial days. And with grace. He was incredible. We had a lot in common as far as interests. I had just come back from taking the girls to Winter Jam and I had a bunch of videos to share because it was so fun. He loved all of the bands. He was thinking of proposing to his girlfriend. We shared lots of stories.
He helped me get through to not so fun procedure of getting my PICC line installed. He helped me focus and talked me through it as the radiologists did what they needed to me as I laid in my bed.
He encouraged me through various test results that I received in my room. He was also from New England and we shared a love for Tom Brady and the New England PEvenatriots. That right there told me he was a good egg. :) He brought a fantastic poster of Tom Brady to encourage me. He said it brought him good luck, so it would bring me good luck as well. Looking back, I could use all the good luck I could get!
And on that horrible day that I had my stroke - I was talking to him when it happened. I couldn't have been in a better place or talking to a better person. He knew exactly what was happening and what to do. No one else did. I was looking at Daren and asking him questions and apologizing for what was happening because I didn't understand. But Starlord, he just snapped into action. He knew. He did what needed to be done. And I will be forever grateful to him. Without him I don't know where I would be today.
He only worked in the stepdown unit that I was in when I came into the hospital. But I managed to find him before I left the hospital and he came to see me in my cancer ward. I was able to see him after he got engaged and talk to him about it. He was able to see that I recovered from my stroke and that I was responding to my chemotherapy. I am so thankful for that. I hope to go back there some day and make sure that he knows that I am in remission from this dreadful disease, and that I am so thankful for all that he did for me.
One day while I was sitting in my room on the cancer ward at UNC Chapel Hill this reverend walked into my room. At first I thought that maybe he was a chaplain with the hospital. I mean, why would I think anything else?
Then he explained that he was the father of someone that my husband and I went to HIGH SCHOOL WITH!!!!!!!!! I mean what? We live in North Carolina and went to high school in Massachusetts. Bethany Steigler Guiste and Kirk Steigler's dad, as well as Rebecca McGregor's pastor. Their dad was now living in North Carolina and they had asked him to come to the hospital and check on me because they knew that I was in a bad way and needed that spiritual guidance and prayer.
I can't even tell you what it meant to me to have him come and visit with me. It was such a short period of time, but the joy and peace that he brought to me simply can't be put into words. We talked a bit. He prayed for me and over me. He anointed me with oil from the Holy Land. It meant so much to me!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It was just what I needed at just the right time. And to come from friends that we hadn't seen in such a long time, and certainly wasn't expecting it from ... all that more meaningful.
I met Kelli Ditmar at one of the first jobs I had when I lived in Michigan. We knew right away that we would be great friends. I can't believe we have stayed in touch this long! It's been 20 years!
She has been sending me wonderful and encouraging messages, as well as beautiful blankets to keep[ me warm and inspired when I was in the hospital. Since I have left the hospital I ave looked forward to the notes she has sent me on a regular basis that have encouraged me and often made me laugh. They have brought me back to the days that we worked together and I love that.
And not to mention - she looks FABULOUS! I love you Kelli. I can't thank you enough for all you have done.
I met Leah what seems like forever ago, through our husbands. They were what seems like "forever friends". They are guys. They are the kinds of friends who can not talk to each other for years and it doesn't matter cause ... well ... they are guys. They will not talk to each other, then see each other, get together and BAM! It's like they were never apart.
So when Leah and I met there was some expectation that we would be best friends as well. And I am here to say - we clicked. :) I'm not sure how - we just did. And I'm so glad. Even though we have lived anywhere from thousands of miles apart to just down the road from each other ... we have made it work. Admittedly - it works better just down the road from each other. :)
And she just knows my heart. I wish she didn't have to know when it hurt so bad. But I am forever grateful for when she does. For she is one of my lifelines.
I work full time at a great company. From the time I was diagnosed with this awful disease they have been incredibly supportive. But specifically the group of people that I worked with have been incredibly generous to me through this whole ordeal. They have been not only concerned for me, but have been there for me in a myriad of ways. They even came and visited me in the hospital. They made it possible for me to come and visit them at work once I could after I was out of the hospital, and made sure that my visits lifted my spirits. They sent me cards, gifts, baskets, etc... and they all came at just the right time, and had just the right words of encouragement. Many of them will never know just how much I appreciated what they did for me, and what they continue to do for me now that I have returned to work. Just because I have returned does not mean that the battle has been won. I continue to fight on a daily basis. I appreciate what all of them do for me every day.
I know that I am very very behind. I have a very good reason. I came back to work full force - which is my M.O. I don't do anything half way. I go in all the way or I don't go in at all. Well, my brain that has suffered a stroke - and a pretty serious one at that - didn't react all that well to it. I thought I was doing fairly well at it because I had remembered everything that I needed to and that was the measurement I was using. But in actuality my brain was giving me pretty good signs that it had enough and that it needed a break. I was getting headaches that wouldn't stop and they weren't like the migraines I am used to. I was also experiencing vertigo and dizziness pretty badly. I could not remember what had happened during my stroke and right afterwards. So my husband and sister helped me remember. It was not very pretty.
I had always wondered how my family had gotten through that time. It was really rather harrowing. How did my husband and sister know to do what they did? How did they know to listen to one doctor over another? How were they so sure they had made the right decision? I was so sick. I was in such unknown territory to not only them, but also the doctors. This was all so scary. This was truly my land of denial. And they literally chose to keep me there. I am just making my way out of it, and it scares me. I will take a step out and look around and look at what I see, then bolt back at denial because I just plain don't like it. How did they live there without me?
And now I know. There were friends - good - dear friends - praying me through it. I cry as I write it. How could I doubt it? RAMP. You were there. You stood in the gap. You knew. You prayed. You prayed for just the right thing. I had no idea. I was in never never land. But when I talk to Daren about it now - he knows that it's the only way we made it through. It's the only way he made the right decision for me when he had no idea what it should be. RAMP was praying for me, praying for the doctors to have unity, praying for Daren to make the right decision. He knows that without that, that without my sister beside him to help him have clarity of mind ... he may not have made the right decision to have me here beside him today.
I shake. I cry. I toss. I turn. Where would I be without my RAMP girls to hold me up before the thron of our almighty father? As one of them most recently said to me ... to help me back from the "brink"?
So you want to know why I have been behind? I have been so tired from work. My brain has been overworked. I used to be on my computer 24/7. Even when I was done with work I would be on it - either working more or on facebook, or doing more research. Now I am done with work and I am done with the computer. So I have had some trouble getting my posts done, and I apologize because it makes me fall behind on so many things that I am doing on my computer. I'm sorry.
It is said that we have friends who come into our lives for a reason or a season. Some friends have been there for a really long time and some - not so long. And then - hey! There goes a pumpkin! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's my Kris. I had heard of her through my mom, and then met her one year during my trip to Cancun, Mexico. She came running up to my sister and I and announced that she was adopting the two of us as sisters. Life as I knew it would never be the same. I now had an adopted sister who lived in Connecticut. And wouldn't you know it ... she loved strawberries too! :)
She sent me the most wonderful gift box when I was in the hospital to lift my spirits. I still walk around in my beautiful hat to lift my spirits because she knew it would do that for me.
I love that she knew just what would make me strong because she is my adopted sister. Thank you so much my love.
You find out who your true friends are when they show up for you when you are in your darkest hour. When they know when your darkest hour is. But also when they know how to make you smile like no other. When they know your ins and outs. When they know your sarcasm needs. They know that the weirdness you need makes you better - lifts you up. Krystal - I can't thank you enough for being there for me when I needed you. For showing up at the hospital right away. For showing up at the hospital later. For taking me to chemo. For being at the house and for joking with me when I needed it most. And mostly, for crying with me when you didn't want to. I know you hate it as much as I do. But you will never know how much it means to me. You rock my sister from another mister.
I was in such a bad place for a while at the hospital. And people came out of the wood work to support me. Some of them I have actually been with for off and on for about 7+ years now. Hard to believe. But Wake Chapel Church has become a part of me.
I have worked with them through Upward Basketball and Cheerleading for a while now. My son did basketball. My girls did cheerleading. I was a cheerleading coach and then the commissioner. Then I was just too sick to do either. My one daughter decided she was more cut out to basketball instead of cheerleading.
But all along the way, Seth Carter made sure we could get in even when we missed deadlines due to my surgeries and sicknesses. Jenny McCreary pulled me in as a coach and commissioner - seeing in me what needed to be seen as a leader I didn't know I was. I will be forever grateful to them.
But to have Jenny show up at the hospital when I was pretty much at my worst, and show me love as though I was one of them will forever be emblazoned on my heart. It meant so much to me. I hope that somehow, someway I will be able to repay you for your gift to me. Even though my children have outgrown the Upward program I hope that I will be able to "pay it forward" and show the children in that program the love the I feel in my heart, not only towards Upward, but towards your church.
I have a group of ladies that I knew I could depend on before I got sick. I had no idea to what extent I would have to depend on them until the rubber met the road. And to be honest - I had never met a one of them. I felt I knew them deeply. We had been through a deeply intense experience together. But now I know. I don't even have the words to describe how good they were to me. Not even when I was sick, but afterwards, too. They know my heart. Some of the first cards I got in the hospital were from them as a group, and it meant so much. I got presents from some of them individually that were simply beautiful and had a lot of thought put into them. I treasure them. And I treasure the words and prayers they sent to me. Reclaimers. I love you all. You know who you are.
When I was in the hospital I was amazed at the people who reached out to me and to my family. They made sure that we were all just encouraged and knew that we were surrounded in love. Some of the people that did this were people were people we had not even seen in a very very long time. An example of this for me is Nobuko Shiraishi.
Nobu and I go back to Elementary school at Westminster Academy in Ft. Lauderdale. I love remembering our time together back then. The fact that she remembers and not only that, but would take the time to reach out all the way from Japan just means so much. Being able to introduce my family to the great traditions of Japan that Nobu was showing us was a great lesson as well as a fantastic distraction that I desperately needed at the time. I still love to explain to other what the beautiful cranes are that they may find in different places - either on my desk or by my couch, etc... I love to spread the joy of those little cranes everywhere, but also I love to have the opportunity to tell the story as often as I can.
Thank you, old friend, for giving me one more thing to be grateful for.
My family took my phone and my computer away from me after I had my stroke in the hospital. Having them just made things very frustrating for me because I had forgotten some very basic things. Things such as passwords, and even to some extent how to do some basic typing because I had lost some a lot of functionality on the right side of my body.
So when a friend I had not seen in years walked into my ICU room to take care of me, I cried for the first time in a long time. Becky, the fact that we can go years not saying a word to each other, but that you would know exactly what I would need as soon as I would need it - that you would drop everything you have going on to give me what I need when I need it ... you just don't know how that made me feel. That you know me so well... That you know my needs... physical, emotional, spiritual ... even from so far away ... so much so that you can just drop what you are doing and come be with me like that when I need you most. Seeing you and spending time with you was such a treat - one I will never forget. I am forever grateful to you for the time we spent together. I sure hope the next time we spend time together it's not because one of us is really sick.
I am grateful to many people for helping me out. But I am grateful to these people for jumping up and being there immediately - for coming all the way to Chapel Hill IMMEDIATELY. Not knowing what was going on, but know that a member of the body needed help and needed it immediately.
Shannon and Jason - you will never know what it meant to me having you there for my first chemo party! Having you there to pray for me in the unknown. Having you show up in the ICU when even I didn't know what was going on. Having you anoint me with oil. You just don't even know. It means so much and I still sit and cry over it today because that moment was so pivitol for me. The cards you delivered for me from the youth group stayed up in my room the whole time. They were not just a joy to me, but also to the whole nursing staff. We all loved to look at them and read them. I love to do it to this day.
AND! I can't thank you enough for how you care for my children. I know... I know... I know. You have been so good to them. You have intervened for them in a way no others have. You understand them. You know what they love. You know what they need. And you take it more seriously than any other. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough.
And you are so fun. How much do I love that?
What more could I ask for in the youth group leaders for my children? I need you to know how much it means to me. I hope that this gratefulness post gives you some idea just how much I appreciate you.
This post is going to be about my sister, Shannon Dempsey.
I know I say this about so many people right now. But I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I don't know where I would be right now without her. The bond between us has never been stronger and I hate that it took something like this to make it this way. The fact that when she heard what was going on and dropped everything to be with me .... I will just never be able to repay her.
She stayed beside my bedside during the most harrowing hours. She saw me at my worst. She did not bat an eye when my worst got even worse than I ever imagined it could be. When not only my questions got harrowing, but so did the doctors. She laughed with me when the only other option was to cry. She helped my family get through their own issues by pushing through her own.
I know that 2015 has been a horrible year for her, too. Here is hoping and praying that we both start to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon.
My next gratefulness post is about my mother, Pat Dempsey. She is more than just my mother, she is one of my best friends. Not many of you can say that about your best friends. I don't know what I would do without my mother.
I moved down here to North Carolina with the knowledge that I would have to take care of my parents some day. Isn't that how it goes? You take care of your parents? Who knew they would end up taking care of me more in the next 11 years than any parent had any right to.
Mom ... I know. I know that morning, in the ER.... I know you left that room when the doctor said "You have leukemia" so that I wouldn't see you crying. You left because you had to be the strong one for me, and you couldn't be if I saw you crying.
Thank you for all that you did, not only the past 7 months with this cancer - the late nights at the hospital - checking on me at home even when I didn't want to be checked on, but for everything that you do for me. Knowing me better than I should know myself.
I can't begin to say how grateful I am for you. I can't even show you. I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can for you.
Another day of gratefulness... where shall I begin? My husband, lover, best friend, Daren DeVries. The first guy I saw when I moved to Massachusetts, it's not a mistake we fell in love and married. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for making important decisions with me and for me. Thank you for understanding me when I don't understand me. You mean more to me than you will ever know.
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?
Day 19: Jesus Gives You Significance
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Did you know that you are a minister? Sure, you may never perform a
wedding ceremony, preach a sermon, or wear one of those white collars
around your nec...
$75 Pink Blush Gift Certificate Giveaway!
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I’m crazy excited to announce a new giveaway today from the lovely folks at
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Move
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I have moved my blog. Come visit me over at
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now on. This site will still be here...
