Tag Archives: cancer

When Angels Leave This Life

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Survivors Guilt

by Christie Perkins

Untitled designI have three contacts in my phone I can no longer use. Anita, Sheree, and now Lori. All cancer friends. I can’t bring myself to erase these contacts, as if having them in my phone somehow keeps them close to me.

A flood of memories rush in when I see their name flash across as I’m scrolling for another contact. For a brief moment my heart goes soft and I am touched by their goodness. The memory of their smile greets me in this moment. I can almost hear their voice, their laughter comforting me and telling me that though there are hard times there is much sunshine.

I just can’t push “erase.” Continue reading →

How Volcano Day Warmed My Soul

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Cancer and Volcano Eruptions

by Christie Perkins

It was just the 5th grade volcano day.

For any other parent it would have been one of those dreaded weekend cram sessions of twirling homework hurling. But for me, life was erupting and spewing fresh hot lava down new paths.

Yep. Good old cancer diagnosis blew 5 days before volcano day.volcano day 012

The week I was diagnosed with cancer my life erupted and everything came to a halt. It seemed that all I could see was the lava flow of cancer. It was consuming me. Not that I was depressed, necessarily, but I was overwhelmed by the details of it.

One day I’m planning the sweet details of my own life and the next day my health care concerns are charring in life’s little fire. It’s like those sugared almonds I have trouble with. In one minute it’s looking good and then then next moment they are eyepopping black-ish. It’s the elite cancer lava plan I just got thrown into. Continue reading →

What Most People Don’t Understand About Hair Loss During Chemo

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Losing Your Hair During Chemo

by Christie Perkins

I hoped I’d be the one.IMG_0011 - Copy

You know, the one who never loses her hair. I wanted to keep all that hair (see picture below). One day I believe my prayers are working that I’ll be that one who never loses her hair and the next moment it goes dead (if hair could ever be called alive). It was like my plump lush flowerpot after one hot day in the sun: withering and lifeless. Just one. That’s all it took was one little chemo treatment.

Continue reading →

Sure Fire Ways To A More Balanced Life

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How to Find Balance After Chemo and Radiation

by Christie Perkins

Fish Lake with Paxtons 041Finding balance after a major setback can be frustrating. After I finished chemo and radiation I believed that life would spring back to “normal” for me.

Preconceived notions are quite humorous. Yep. Hilarious.

For the entire year after treatments I found myself laying on the ground more than I was walking gracefully on any kind of balance beam. Oh, I would get up but it wasn’t long before I was toppling over…

And dreaming peacefully about falsified energy zings & things. Then I’d wake up more behind. “Be patient with yourself,” my doctor would tell me over and over. I was tired of being patient. Hadn’t I spent the entire year before being patient? Continue reading →

The Blues of Cancer News

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Accepting God’s Will

by Christie Perkins

So first thing I know I’m in a relentless dizzy whirlwind.  And I’m wondering is it possible to drown in a whirlwind?  And just as fiercely it spits me somewhere in the middle of a silent ocean; on a little rickety row boat I float.  There’s not a breeze, no water licks the sides of the boat, and there’s a shark looming underneath.  I can’t see it, but I feel it in that queasy feeling in my stomach.  My thoughts are loud, extremely loud.  And there’s no escape.

Germany 6-12 094

But I smile.  It’s fake.

I don’t want my kids picking up on my distress signal.  But the warning lights have been flashing for 15 days now.  The biopsy was 8 days ago.  The promised 3-5 day results are overdue.

It is here on this eery ocean I sit quietly and wait for a rescue.   I desperately need a rescue, any rescue.

I’m not so sure I can take one more day of worry.  At this point, any news will soothe. Continue reading →

Chemo Hair Gets a Compliment

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Share Your Thoughts: Quit Keeping it a Secret

by Christie Perkins

baby blessing, etc 138“I love ‘urs’ hair Mommy.  It’s cute,”  my three year old said as he ran his fingers through my 1/2 inch stub of hair.

His timing could not have been more perfect.  I was laying in bed after a radiation treatment chalking up everything that I’ve lost control over since I started this cancer journey: money, my 1st graders empty reading calendar, my 3 1/2 year old who was still enjoying his soggy diapers, and selling and building a new house.  I was stressing about the day I go wigless in my new ward, and frustrated about my personal power cord fiasco from the chemo treatments…

All these thoughts were buzzing around in my head and bugging me. Continue reading →

Share The Truths You See In Others

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Build Up Those Around You With Words Of Truth

By Christie Perkins

Germany 6-12 072Gasp.   My little guy drew in his breath.

I was trying to listen to the speaker at church amid an acrobatic stunt.  You see, I was working on crushing my 4 year olds dreams of pursuing his talents… well, at least here on the church bench anyway.

I wasn’t even sure he was listening to the speaker because usually when the jaw’s flapping the ears are slacking.  I was anticipating that the lions and bears would be arriving any time soon. Continue reading →

Understanding the Purpose of Death

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In Love and Death

by Christie Perkins

December 2014 011I pass my Grandma’s house one last time.

A brief vision of days past flash through my mind.  A wave of emotion overcomes me.  I remember Grandma standing at the edge of her yard in her curled hair and up curled lips.  Grandpa in his navy blue pocketed shirt is waving with those knobby knuckles.  I watch out the back window of the van as we turn the corner.  Until next time.

It is just a vision, for Grandpa’s been gone for years.  Grandma’s only been gone a few days.

I fight the stinging of hot tears brimming in my eyes as I realize that today will be the last time I visit Grandma.  No more aqua rainforest soap, aloe vera plants for bee stings, or Tang coupled with amazing breakfast eggs edged with that secret ingredient.  (Seriously!  How could she not like her own eggs?)

All is gone.  But not forgotten.

I touch the corner of each eye to drain the tear and I take a breath.

“Bye Grandma, love ya.”  My thoughts cradle my memories.  Good byes are never easy but today I say my final good bye.

I believe the wave of emotion I feel is from Grandma whispering back one last good bye. The emotion I feel is not in the doom of her death but in the power of her love.  Until next time… as for now Grandma and Grandpa will stand at the edge of heaven and earth and watch over us until we see each other again.

Continue reading →

Angels Among Us

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4 year old Angel

by Christie Perkins

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMy 4 year old boy has a sweet little friend going through chemo.  He has not missed one little prayer in his behalf.  I thought that after a few days he would move on with life and forget- getting wrapped up in dump trucks, crazy kid moments, writing on walls, and mutilating boxes with pens (don’t ask…I don’t even know what draws him into that.)

And if we forget to mention his little friend in prayer (which we have) he is grumpy with us.  He scowls and shoots out, “Hey, you forgot my friend.”  We tip our ears down, tuck in our tails, and repent.

Oh, we repent!

But, he is persistent and perfect in prayer.  He’s a four year old angel on a mission.

His prayers are always the same, “Please help my friend (calling him by name) to feel better. And I’m gonna ‘axe’ (AKA “ask”) my mom if he’s better when I’m done saying my prayer… Amen.”

And as always the same question jumps from his lips when he is done, “Mom, is he better?”

Perfect faith.

I wish it was that quick.

But, then I think.  You know what?  Yes.  It does work that way.  I’m certain a tiny stardust of hope floats his way.  It may only be a brief moment: a hopeful thought, a sweet dream, a moment of relief from aches and pains and losses and gains, or even Mom’s lips on his cheek.  All these little prayers- they are doing something.

And for a moment he feels better.

So, I’ve been thinking about my 4 year old boy and how much we need each others prayers.  How, at times, we are in need of angels and other times we are the angel.  And, really, it is the tiniest of things- like prayer- that are the big things.

He inspired this poem.

Continue reading →

Share the Gift

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Gifts that Lift

By Christie Perkins

A message of hopeToday I’m joining the #ShareTheGift movement through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website.  I want to share a message about how I know that through the gift of Jesus Christ one of my most difficult moments were made light.  I want to bear my testimony of the atonement and it’s great power.

In Alma 7:12 it reads “…and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” 

I felt as if I was carried in His hands through my cancer trial.  I could not have done it without the Savior taking upon Him my infirmities.

His is the gift that lifts.

 

My Most Difficult Day

Early one morning, just before sunrise I sat at the kitchen table, eating oatmeal that I couldn’t taste.  I didn’t feel well.  Big warm tears dropped from my cheeks.  It splashed on the table below me.

I couldn’t do this anymore.  I had only done 4 of the 8 chemo treatments (which I refer to lovingly as 5 hours of nuclear waste dumping) but each one was progressively worse.  And each treatment had a new complication I had to muddle through.

I was tired of feeling sick.  Nights were restless and my anxiety was escalated so that I couldn’t even crawl into bed for a good rest.  My legs were antsy.  I buzzed around, wearing circles in my carpet, which alleviated my anxiety but complicated my need for rest.

My chemo fog was extreme.  I couldn’t read or concentrate. I existed in a muffled brain state.  It’s as if someone had shoved a blanket in my head cutting off all circulation, numbing my brain and it’s functions.

I was ugly, bald, and cold.   My eyelashes and eyebrows were dropping.  And I felt like I was dropping out of everyone’s life… circumstances made it so.

My fast track moment in life began with diagnosis, total mastectomy, painful reconstruction, and now chemo.  My body had taken all it could.  Mentally, physically, and emotionally I was exhausted.

I couldn’t fight any more.

Continue reading →