Happy Birthday to me!

On Monday, July 1, I will turn 60 years old. A milestone, a new decade, and a new improved me ( I am working on it.) Last Sunday my husband threw me a surprise birthday a little early to throw me off. I was suspicious, but never the less, surprised when I walked in and realized it was a party for me and he invited ALL my family and friends. We had about 55 people at a local restaurant for brunch. It was quite wonderful. When I walked in and everyone yelled surprise I had to brace myself to let myself feel all of the love. I stood next to my husband and scanned the crowd. So many smiling and happy faces all gathered there for ME! It was quite a moment and I think I may have left my body  for a  minute or two and then floated back and leaned against my husband's shoulder and cried.  

I have no complaints about getting older as I will be grateful to celebrate many, many, more, birthdays.

When people ask me what I am doing with myself while I am still on medical leave, I tell them that I am the CEO of me! It usually makes people laugh and I feel better for still not working. I know that I am on the right track though since I started to see a naturopath. She did a complete series of blood tests and found I was so depleted of many vitamins and minerals from all the chemo. No wonder I have been feeling so low energy and low motivation and just blah!  So I am on a new regime of vitamins and supplements and weekly acupuncture appointments. Our goal is to get me back to the working world by the fall. I do see some improvements in my symptoms, but most of all I am feeling so hopeful. The hope fills me up and helps me to stay motivated to do what I need to do. 

Meditation

Many ,many years ago when I first went to a energy healer she asked me to pick a number. I think I picked the number six. She told me that no matter what happens and if I were never to see her again that I should meditate six minutes everyday and it would be life changing. So I went home and tried to meditate my six minutes a day every day. 

I quickly found that I did not enjoy meditating. I would sit with my eyes closed peeking at the clock to see if the six minutes (which almost felt like six hours) were up. I could not quiet my mind and I was just about jumping out of my seat. It was supposed to be a peaceful experience, but it felt like torture to me. This practice did not fit my impulsive and instant gratification kind of  personality. I was never good at hanging in there with anything new and developing a practice that in the end would benefit me; instead I ditched it. 

Over the years I made some feeble attempts to meditate again, but par for the course it never seemed to stick. Thirty years later when I visited the very same energy healer after my first cancer diagnosis she encouraged me to use meditation as a tool to cope with the chemotherapy treatments and the stress of dealing with a life threatening illness. Now that I had hit rock bottom  healthwise, I was a somewhat motivated to give it another try. It did help me during those first months of treatment and I had some wonderful experiences, but true to form  my motivation level dropped again. 

Since I have been home recovering and trying to get my health and energy back I have been reading more and more about how important meditation is for the people recovering from cancer. Marianne Williamson considers it the absolute number one most important thing one can do to regain health as meditation connects us to spirit and self healing agents.  So with yet another big endorsement regarding meditation, I have been trying to incorporate it into my day on a regular basis. I still struggle with being antsy and still forget to make time for it, but I can say I am working hard at fitting it into my day to day activities. Mostly I put in the time and feel good that I can cross it off of my list for the day. Every so often I have a great meditation time. Today was one of those days.

Before I sat down to meditate today I had been looking for a yellow piece of paper that I had written an important appointment on. I looked in the two places I thought it could be, but it was not to be found. I was not worried about it per say because I was just planning on calling and getting the appointment confirmed. But it does bother me when I can't keep track of my things and since chemotherapy, it seems I am more distracted than ever! 

I  did a few more  household chores before I sat down to meditate not at all consciously thinking about my lost paper. During my meditation all of a sudden I had a vision of my paper hanging on the refrigerator and I heard my voice inside my head say; yes, it is on the refrigerator, just where I put it yesterday.

I realized in that very moment that I was deep in mediation and I started to pull myself out of that state and  open my eyes. As I came to (so to speak) I realized that I didn't really remember putting that paper on the refrigerator in my conscious mind and wondered if it was actually there. Maybe I dozed off and I was dreaming?  So I went right to the kitchen and there it was hanging on a magnet on the fridge.

I know this is not a big experience but I learned something big. The voice I heard was my inner voice, not an inner dialogue of chatter. It was the voice I need to be listening to, but I have not been able to distinguish between the two voices for so many years. 

Just the experience I needed to keep me going. 

Here I am!

I have been locked out of my blog for weeks! My password was not working and when I tried to change the password, I was not able to. I called my son the IT expert to come over and he fooled with it for a very long time and we still could not get in. He sent an email to the help department and we never heard back. Tonight, just for the heck of it I tried to get on and all systems were go! I am just amazed. It's like reuniting with an old friend.

It feels like a little miracle! 

I am doing well on many levels even though I have a long way to go to get to where I used to be. One foot in front of the other is my motto! 

As I stated in my last post, I wanted to make an appointment to see a naturopathic doctor. I took a long time before I made the appointment because I was not sure where to go. I had to make a visit to my eye doctor for a cyst growing on my eye lid and he recommended the doctor that he goes to. The practice is just 10 minutes away from my house and I didn't even know it was there! I was so grateful to find one recommended by someone I trust so much. My eye doctor said he was skeptical about natural medicine considering his medical training,but he had come up against some scary symptoms with his own health and after going from doctor to doctor with no results he decided to give it a try. His symptoms have disappeared and he was feeling and looking fantastic! 

I have had two visits so far and I am now taking some new vitamin and supplements and making changes in how I shop for food and what I shop for. It is a complete overhaul from how I have operated in the past and it would be so overwhelming to me if I thought I had to do everything all at once. I don't. I just need to take baby steps and make changes one at a time. 

I have been doing an incredible amount of research on organic foods and meats that are hormone and antibiotic free and doing lots of comparison shopping. I have also been throwing away all my old make up and lotions and sunscreens and buying more natural products. 

I am late to the game with these changes in many ways considering if I had been more conscious of how food and environmental pollutants affected my health, I may not have become so ill. But I know now and I can move forward with all this information and hopefully return to a more healthful and happy life!