Author: edebock

Letting it go… with thanksgiving and hope

/ edebock / 6 Comments

In just a few hours, 2014 will be forever behind us. For me, it was a year filled with challenges and loss. At the beginning of the year, my smile looked like this

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but now, it looks like this.

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Like the rest of me, it’s a little worse for wear, but thankfully I still have much to smile about. As I reflect on the struggles of the past year, I’m ready to sing the refrain from Frozen that I, like most parents and grandparents, have heard a bazillion times this year.

Let it go, let it go!

 
Yes, I’m ready to let go of the negatives of 2014. Instead of dwelling on those things, I choose to hang on to the things that I have to be thankful for.

First and foremost, I’m thankful for a personal relationship with a God who never lets go of me! At the beginning of my cancer journey, He promised to take care of me and he has done just that. I’m thankful for the amazing team of medical people that He’s placed in my life and for the expertise He’s given each one of them.

I’m thankful beyond measure for the love and support of my amazing husband who has walked every step of the journey with me and who helps me hang on when I reach the end of my rope.

I’m thankful for my children, now young adults who make me very proud, and for my darling grandchildren. Being present for Simon’s birth in mid March was definitely one of the highlights of 2014!

Drew & Simon     Jami-Lee
Drew and Simon                                        Jami-Lee

Nate     Sam
Nate                                                             Sam

I’m thankful that my father didn’t give up on life when Mom died in June and for the fact that he’s made a remarkable recovery from the stroke that he suffered in September. I’m thankful that we’ve been able to spend time with him this Christmas season.

I’m thankful for the fact that 2014 was the year that I finally reconnected with a cousin who lived with us for awhile when she was a toddler and I was a teen. Though she lives about 4000 km away, it’s been great having ‘little sis’ back in my life!

I’m thankful for amazing friends both near and far including those of you I’ve only met through blogging. I’m especially thankful for the other three-quarters of the Rav 4 and the fact that they convinced me to go to Vegas with them in November!

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          photo credit:  Sheryl Culbert

 
Yes, even in a year like 2014, I’ve had much to be thankful for. Now’s a good time to let go of all the rest and to look forward to a brand new year. I choose to step into 2015 with hope.

I hope that my treatments continue to be successful and that they become less frequent. That alone would make 2015 a less crazy year! I hope that we can get through an entire year without a family crisis of any kind. I hope that I can enjoy each moment not worrying about the things over which I have no control and I hope that a year from now, I can once more look back with thanksgiving.

What do you have to be thankful for this year? What do you need to let go of? What are some of your hopes for the New Year?
 

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The gift of relaxation

/ edebock / 10 Comments

We received our first Christmas gift a bit early this year and what a wonderful one it was! After a two day drive through the mountains, we arrived at our son Matt’s home in Vancouver in time for supper on Dec. 20th. After a quick meal, the three of us headed for Whistler where his in-laws have a ‘cabin’. Not the rustic sort of shelter that I grew up calling a cabin, but a lovely 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom fully equipped house. Robin, her parents and our two young grandson’s were already there. That evening, Matt and Robin presented us with our present… gift cards to Whistler’s Scandinave Spa to enjoy while they hit the ski hills the following day.

 

Spa

photo credit

 

Nestled into a snowy forested hillside, Scandinave Spa is a haven of peace and tranquility, definitely a little piece of heaven on earth! After walking through the spruce and cedar forest, we entered the reception area where we were issued towels, bathrobes and locker keys. There, the relaxation sequence was also explained: warm your body for 10 to 15 minutes, rinse in cold water for 20 to 30 seconds, then relax for 15 minutes. Repeat the sequence 3 or 4 times.

Our first stop was the eucalyptus steam bath where I could feel tension melting away as my body temperature rose. Ahh… what a wonderful sensation! I felt as though I could stay there forever but soon it was time to move on. Moving outdoors, we strolled down the heated walkway in the crisp mountain air and plunged into the 18ºC cold pool! Wow! That was definitely invigorating!

After relaxing in one of the comfortable solariums, we moved on to one of the outdoor hot pools where we enjoyed sitting under the thermal waterfall and letting the water pummel our shoulders, neck and back. Continuing the hot, cold, relax sequence, we visited both hot pools and the wood burning sauna, plunging into the cold pool or standing under the nordic shower after each hot session and relaxing in the solariums in between. We tried sitting by the outdoor fireplace but it was beginning to drizzle and we found it a bit too chilly. The spa is open year round though so a summer visit would likely include relaxing on the outdoor terraces.

I enjoyed every part of the experience but I knew almost from the beginning that my visit wouldn’t be complete without another session in the steam bath so our last sequence was identical to our first.

In addition to the therapeutic value of hydrotherapy, silence is also an essential component of the Scandinavian bath experience. Though there were a few people who didn’t seem to think that rules applied to them, most of the patrons honoured the no speaking rule making our three hours a soothing, serene experience, one I’d love to repeat someday!

Thank you, Matt and Robin!

Writer’s block

/ edebock / 10 Comments

Yikes! It’s been almost a month since I posted anything here. I’m pretty sure this has been the longest dry spell since I started blogging seven years ago. Yes, my blog had a birthday earlier this month and I didn’t even acknowledge it with a post.

Lest any of my faithful readers begin to worry that something is seriously wrong, let me assure you that I’m fine. I did come down with a nasty cold immediately following my last treatment and I was under the weather for a little while but I blame the blog’s silence on a combination of the busyness of the season and writer’s block. It seems I simply ran out of things to say!

As I’ve mentioned before, I think the secret to Following Augustine’s longevity is its eclectic nature. Though I’ve loved sharing our experiences in faraway places, it’s been more than a travel blog. Family often shows up but it isn’t a mommy blog and while I occasionally focus on clothing, shoes or accessories, it definitely isn’t a fashion blog. Over the past fifteen and a half months, I’ve used the blog to share my cancer journey but it’s always been about more than that. My faith permeates every part of my life, including what I write, but this isn’t a religion blog either. Occasionally, I climb up on my soapbox and write about a cause that I feel strongly about but it’s definitely not a political or an activist blog. It really is a bit of many things and as a result, I can usually think of something to write about!

Lately, however, my writing brain has been blank! I have a feeling that that isn’t going to last though and I’m certainly not ready to call it quits! I’m in the middle of packing suitcases again and we’ll soon be off to Vancouver to spend Christmas with family there. If that doesn’t provide me with inspiration, I’m pretty sure our trip to Mexico in January will!

In the meantime, let me leave you with a cute conversation that our six-year-old grandson had with his parents lately.

Drew: I wonder how old Mickey Mouse is.
Mommy: Mickey Mouse is very old.
Daddy: Like older than Grammas and Grandpas.
Drew: Wow! Like 21?

Here’s my slightly older than 21 hubby with Drew and his two younger siblings on our recent pre-Christmas visit to Calgary.

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Days of praise!

/ edebock / 5 Comments

I have much to praise God for this week!

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t consider a visit to the dentist a big deal. There was a time, after a traumatic experience in a dentist’s chair when I was eleven or twelve, that going to the dentist was frightening but that’s in the distant past and hasn’t been an issue for a long time. No, the reason for Tuesday’s apprehension was different. For the past several months, I’ve been experiencing severe jaw pain when I eat. It appears to have been brought on by a combination of last spring and summer’s surgery and radiation treatments and accumulated stress. I’d been warned that radiation, in particular, would likely cause stiffening of the muscles in my jaw. When I started seeing a physiotherapist in early October, I could only open my mouth 26 mm (average is 50) and the pain when I ate was, at times, almost unbearable. Over the next few weeks of regular exercise, I regained quite a bit of flexibility and can now open my mouth about 35 mm. The pain has lessened but it hasn’t gone away. I was very concerned about whether or not I’d be able to keep my mouth open wide enough and long enough to have my teeth cleaned and checked and how much that would hurt. Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t postpone the appointment.

Until I had my parotid gland removed and my other saliva glands were compromised by radiation, I had no idea what an important role saliva plays in tooth protection. Now that my saliva production has been permanently reduced, I’m especially vulnerable to tooth decay and for at least the first year following radiation, in addition to brushing my teeth after every meal and giving myself daily fluoride treatments, I’ve been advised to see my dentist every four months. Tuesday’s was the first of these check-ups and I feared what the results might be.

As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Under the gentle care of my hygienist and dentist, the appointment went amazingly well. No pain and no cavities! As I said, I have much to be thankful for this week but that’s just the beginning!

The following morning, long before daylight, we set out on the two and a half hour drive to the city for my second Lutetium treatment at the Cross Cancer Institute. There were a few snowflakes in the air but the roads were clear and the drive uneventful; definitely another thing to be thankful for at this time of year in Alberta! I was admitted for an overnight stay and the treatment went ahead resulting in nothing more than a slightly queasy stomach that didn’t last very long.

After a reasonably decent sleep considering the fact that I was in a narrow hospital bed, I was up early on Thursday morning for my follow-up scan, the one that would tell us what’s been happening to my neuroendocrine tumours since September’s treatment. One of the things that I appreciate most about this process is that, unlike most medical procedures, I’m given the results immediately afterward. No anxious waiting for 2 or 3 weeks to hear back from the doctors.

And the news? That’s the biggest thing I have to be thankful for! There has been absolutely no change! The cancer has not grown or spread! It continues to be stable. I may have pain when I’m eating but in the overall scheme of things, that seems pretty insignificant. I have much to praise God for and I sincerely thank those of you who have been praying for me!

My next treatment will be on Feb. 11.

No laughing matter!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Every once in awhile, we need to be reminded how very lucky we are!

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll probably recall that I’m an avid Kiva lender. Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows a person to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in one of 83 countries around the world. Though Kiva provides loans to both men and women, I choose to lend to women who are borrowing money to purchase specific items that they will use to generate income that will help them support their families and educate their children. As each of these women makes a monthly payment on her loan, my share of that payment is deposited in my Kiva account and I receive an email notifying me of my updated balance. I could withdraw the money at any time but instead, as soon as my balance reaches $25, I search the Kiva database and choose another woman to lend to. Today, I made my 30th loan!

Sokhem is a garment factory worker and mother of 5 who lives in a rural area of Cambodia. Together, she, her husband and their oldest child earn a combined income of approximately $13 a day. Sokhem requested a Kiva loan to purchase some cows and start a breeding program, but it was actually one of her long term goals that caught my eye and prompted me to help her today. She hopes eventually to be able to build a bathroom with a toilet in her home.

Can you begin to wrap your head around the idea of raising 5 children in a home without a toilet? I can’t.

Did you know that this Wednesday, November 19th is World Toilet Day, a day set aside to draw attention to the one-third of humanity who, like Sokhem, lack basic toilet and sanitation facilities? I didn’t either until I read this morning’s Edmonton Journal article just before checking my email and discovering that I had the necessary funds to make another Kiva loan.

World Toilet Day! It’s hard not to laugh, isn’t it? Sadly, when you read the statistics, it’s not a laughing matter.

  • One billion people – a sixth of the world’s population – defecate in the open because they simply have nowhere else to go.
  • In India alone, 600 million people – about half the country’s population – lack toilets in their homes.
  • 1.5 million children die annually from diarrhea that could be prevented by simply having clean toilet facilities.
  • People living in many towns and villages in Africa and elsewhere run the risk of being bitten by scorpions and venomous snakes every time they relieve themselves in fields and woods.
  • One billion people get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces.
Over the course of our travels, we’ve seen the best and the worst of the world’s toilets from “squatty potties” in many parts of Asia to high tech toilets with heated seats and built in bidets in higher end Japanese establishments, but wherever we’ve been, we’ve always been able to find a toilet to use. Here in Canada, where it’s not uncommon for a home to have 2 or 3 of them, we take so much for granted. On World Toilet Day, let’s not forget how very fortunate we are!

 

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Rav4 in the Mohave Desert

/ edebock / 11 Comments

When I agreed to go to Las Vegas with three of my closest girlfriends, I knew that I would want to get away from the glitz and glamour for a little while and see the Mohave Desert but would the others agree? I know that they would do almost anything for me but would they enjoy it?

See for yourself. Do they look like they’re having fun?

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At first, we considered a tour. In fact, we almost booked a 4 hour Pink Jeep tour. After all, one of the girls loves all things pink and frou frou. Look carefully and you’ll see her pink iPhone in the photo! What could be better than a pink Jeep?

Practicality led the way, however, and we decided that renting a vehicle would be a better option. We wanted a small SUV so we reserved a Toyota Rav4. Sadly, when we went to pick it up early Tuesday morning, that model was unavailable and we were offered an “upgrade” to a minivan. A minivan… are you kidding? Our kids are grown and we’re past our Minivan Mom days! We wanted something sporty! In fact, we’d even considered renting a convertible but again, our practical sides and our purse strings said otherwise. A minivan was what was available though, so minivan it was. No problem, we’re flexible. We simply decided that we were the Rav4 and a group nickname was born!

Renting was definitely the right choice as it allowed us to go at our own pace, spending as much time as we wanted wherever we wanted. The half hour drive out to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area was an easy one. Our first stop was the Visitor Center where we were given a map, some great advice about where to stop and hike, and some valuable tips such as “Watch where you put your hands and feet. Rattlesnakes, scorpions or venomous spiders may be sheltered behind boulders or under rocks and shrubs.” Fortunately, though we saw lots of holes where they may have been hiding, we didn’t see any of those creatures!

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We were a bit disappointed that we didn’t see any of these ones either!

The 13 mile one-way scenic drive gave us ample opportunity to see the area from the vehicle but we were there to hike and explore. Our first stop was the Calico Hills where we were allowed to climb and clamber wherever we wanted. The sights were spectacular and the red rock against the brilliant blue sky was absolutely stunning.

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It was November 11, Remembrance Day or Veteran’s Day as it is known in the US, so we stopped and built a small inukshuk, a Canadian symbol adopted from the Inuit people of our far northern region, and pinned a poppy to his lapel.

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Throughout the Commonwealth, the poppy is a familiar Remembrance Day symbol and people on the streets of Las Vegas recognized us as Canadians because we were wearing them.

On our second hike, in the Willow Springs area, we saw the remnants of an ancient agave roasting pit as well as one of the “Hands Across Time” pictographs waving to us from the canyon wall, reminders of those who made their home in the desert centuries ago.

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There was abundant and interesting plant life in the area, much of it looking like something out of a a Dr. Seuss storybook!

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As much as I enjoyed Las Vegas itself, it was when we drove away from Red Rock Canyon that I truly felt like I’d had a holiday!

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Las Vegas!

/ edebock / 10 Comments

Las Vegas was never on my list of places I most wanted to visit but when three of my closest friends suggested last July that we replace our annual Christmas shopping trip with a trip to Vegas in November, I immediately found myself saying yes! It wasn’t the destination that captured my attention but the opportunity to travel together and enjoy several days of “girlfriend time”.

When we booked the trip last summer, we had no idea how perfect the timing would be. After an unusually long autumn, we woke up to winter on Saturday morning. We drove on icy roads through snow and slush on our way to the airport, happier than ever to be leaving Alberta behind! As the temperature here at home plunged to around -20ºC, we enjoyed daytime temperatures in the +20s in Vegas!

We packed a lot of living and a lot of laughter into the next few days and proved that four Christian women can have a fabulous time in “sin city”! The laughter started Sunday morning when one friend, who shall remain nameless, discovered that she’d forgotten to pack her pants! Not all of them, fortunately. Just the ones that she intended to wear to church that morning. It continued until we arrived home and she found out that the pants had actually been in her suitcase the entire time!

We stayed at the Excalibur Hotel, a fairytale castle near the south end of the Strip.

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On Sunday afternoon, we strolled the Strip enjoying the sunshine, eating lunch on an outdoor patio and taking in the sights.

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We stopped at the Bellagio Hotel to enjoy the conservatory with its multitude of flowers and floral statues, see the world’s largest chocolate fountain and watch the outdoor fountain show. We visited a few shops along our way. Can you imagine four storeys devoted to anything and everything related to M&M candies? That’s Vegas where everything is over the top!

We took in two shows during our three day stay. We saw the Blue Man Group at the Monte Carlo and The Tournament of Kings back at our own hotel. How does one possibly describe the Blue Man Group? Hilarious! Fun! Unforgettable! Or, according to their own website, “an energetic and innovative combination of music, comedy, and multimedia theatrics.” The Tournament of Kings was a delicious dinner served medieval style with no cutlery while the audience, seated around the outside of an arena, watched the non-stop action of knights on horseback engaging in competition.

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Shows in Vegas are over early in the evening leaving patrons plenty of time to spend at the casinos. I’m not a gambler but I had lots of fun playing the penny machines and when we left for home on Wednesday, I was ahead by a whopping 55 cents! Pretty cheap entertainment!

We shopped til we dropped at Vegas’ two factory outlet malls. Even with our Canadian dollar at an unhealthy low, there were plenty of bargains to be had and one friend was heard to say, “I had money left over so I had to buy more!”

Though there are many strange things to be seen on the Strip after dark (a large hairy man in a wedding dress is probably forever etched in our memories!), we really saw the underbelly of Las Vegas on a late evening visit to Freemont Street. With a zipline overhead and live bands playing, it’s billed as a premier entertainment destination but it felt to us like a carnival gone wrong. There were many, including the scantily clad dancers atop one of the outdoor bars, who would have frozen some pretty intimate body parts if they’d been on an Alberta street but I think we were most disturbed by the two young beauties wearing huge glittery angel wings and very little else who were selling themselves to passersby. Sad.

This trip was more than just our annual Christmas shopping trip in a new location or a girlfriend getaway. It was also a celebration! When we started planning it, I was two-thirds of the way through 30 rounds of radiation. Now, with that ordeal several months behind me, we were celebrating survival and on our final evening in Vegas, my friends treated me to a very special celebration dinner.

The destination didn’t matter but the company did! I am so blessed!

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School dreams and stress

/ edebock / 12 Comments

For many years, in spite of the fact that I enjoyed my teaching career, I had what I called my “school dreams” in the days leading up to each new school year.  These were dreams in which everything went wrong.  All a teacher’s worst nightmares would visit me as the end of August approached! One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about retirement has been the absence of these dreams; until recently that is.

Why in the world would I be having school dreams again more than seven years after retiring from the classroom? It happened again last night. This time, I was trying to teach a high school English lesson to a large class of students in a crowded area at the back of a busy hairdressing salon! Yes, my school dreams are like that; a curious mixture of realistic and just plain weird. Midway through the lesson, all but two of the students got up and went upstairs to some sort of student lounge. In spite of my pleading and threatening (definitely not effective teaching strategies), they refused to come down again. Over the years students leaving class and refusing to come back has been a fairly common theme in these dreams.

Teaching is a stressful occupation and during my career, though I anticipated the beginning of each new school year with excitement, I recognized that my strange dreams were a symptom of that stress.

Over the past 14 months, my life has been a series of one stressful event after another. I thought I was coping well but little by little, with each ensuing event, the stress built up until now it’s beginning to bubble over. According to the Holmes and Rahe Life Events Stress Test, which is supposed to give a rough estimate of how stress affects health, events including death of a close family member (Mom), major personal illness (cancer) and major change in health of a family member (Dad) have given me a 50-50 chance of succumbing to stress-related illness. I’m doing my best to combat that by continuing to eat well, exercise regularly and by ensuring that I get enough sleep but it’s absolutely amazing what’s stored away in the deep recesses of our brains. Apparently, mine still connects stress to teaching and  is reacting to my current stress level with school dreams! How weird is that!

Now the challenge is to find ways to reduce the build up of stress and manage it better in the future.

Any suggestions?

 

Growing in the hard places

/ edebock / 10 Comments

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I found this tiny gem growing through a crack in the sidewalk today. We’ve had heavy frost many times this fall and the flower beds have been bare for almost two weeks yet there it is, its perfect little face looking up at the afternoon sun!

I, too, have been growing in hard places this past year but unlike the little pansy, completely surrounded by bare concrete, I have not been alone. I am surrounded by a garden of family and friends, watered and nourished by their love and sustained by their prayers. I do not wither and fade away. I turn my face to the Son and there is life!

 

My heart hurts

/ edebock / 6 Comments

flag-tower-thMy heart aches today. Two soldiers have been killed on Canadian soil this week. 53-year-old Patrice Vincent, a 28-year veteran of the Canadian Forces, was mowed down by a hit and run driver in a Montreal parking lot on Monday in what appears to have been a deliberate act. Then this morning, 24-year-old Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian Forces reservist, was gunned down while standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Minutes later, shots rang out in the halls of our parliament building where the Prime Minister and his caucus were meeting.

Vincent and Cirillo were not the only ones to lose their lives this week. Two assailants are also dead. 25-year-old Martin “Ahmad” Couture-Rouleau was shot and killed by police following a high-speed chase after he rammed his car into Vincent and another soldier. Couture-Rouleau was known to federal authorities as one who had become radicalized after converting to Islam in 2013. His passport was seized when he attempted to leave the country and travel to Turkey last summer and he was one of 90 people being monitored by the RCMP because they were suspected of being involved in terrorism-related activities. After this morning’s shooting and the assault on Parliament Hill, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a 32-year-old Canadian citizen and also a convert to Islam, was shot dead by House of Commons sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, within the walls of Centre Block, our main parliamentary building.

Four men dead. Four families in mourning and a country in shock. Though the scale is miniscule in comparison, I think we, as Canadians, have a better understanding today of how our neighbours to the south must have felt on 9/11. Yes, my heart hurts but I also feel angry; outraged, in fact. The sanctity of our nation has been violated and fear has crept in.

Why did these things happen? Was it because our country dares to stand up for what is right and good? It’s too soon to say for sure and some even call it fear mongering, but it doesn’t seem far fetched to me to assume that these events are directly related to the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) call for attacks on Canadians made this past Sunday. In response to our country’s involvement in an alliance that has begun mobilizing to defeat ISIS, which has been committing widespread atrocities against Syrians and Iraqis in its attempt to impose a barbaric version of Islamic law in that region, we were told “You will not feel secure in your bedrooms.” Perhaps tonight, that is closer to the truth than ever before. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Couture-Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau were personally directed by ISIS leaders to act as they did but neither do I think that these were simply unrelated acts of lone madmen.

Perhaps the question that looms largest in my mind today is what is it that drives people like Couture-Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau to such radical and violent acts. Were they so marginalized, so far on the fringes of society as to need to latch onto something like the global terrorist bandwagon to find purpose in life? What made them so angry or so cold blooded that they were willing to sacrifice their own lives for a foreign cause? Were they bullied, humiliated, or neglected during their formative years? Definitely something to think about.