Author: edebock

Milestone!

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I reached a medical milestone today!

Yesterday, I completed my initial round of four radioisotope treatments and this morning’s scans showed that my primary neuroendocrine tumour (located in my colon) is shrinking! The other four tumours appear not to have grown and there are no new ones. As a result, my cancer treatment will now go into a maintenance phase. I will continue to be treated with Lutetium-Octreotate, but instead of a treatment every nine to twelve weeks, I will now have one every six months!

While I was sitting on my hospital bed yesterday afternoon while the Lutetium was being administered via IV drip, I flipped open my new issue of Chatelaine magazine and was in for a surprise. When I read “Crashing the Cancer Club”, Jenny Charlesworth’s story of surviving cervical cancer, in the March 2015 issue, I immediately responded with a letter to the editor via email. I’d completely forgotten about that until I saw my letter in print yesterday! Here’s what it said:

Thank you for pointing out, in “Crashing the Cancer Club,” that every cancer story is different and that each of us who has cancer, or who has had it in the past, is a survivor in our own right. Since August 2013 (a misprint in the magazine says 2014), I have been diagnosed with two different cancers. One was removed by surgery followed by radiation; but the other is a rare, slow-growing cancer for which there is no cure. People have a hard time grasping the idea of a chronic cancer. The usual assumption is that patients either die of their disease or are cured, thereby becoming cancer survivors. I’ve learned to look at my situation differently. I may die of my cancer or I may die with it, but either way, I am a survivor.

It may sound silly, but I was encouraged by my own words. Written two months ago, they reminded me that though mine is an incurable disease and, barring a miracle of God, I will have it for the rest of my life, I am indeed a survivor!

Reaching today’s milestone was a great reminder of that!

 

No ordinary weekend

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This weekend Christians around the world celebrated the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10) It was definitely no ordinary weekend, but for our family, it was also no ordinary Easter.

Thirty years ago, a heartbroken young grandmother placed her first grandchild in my arms and walked away not knowing if she’d ever see him again. On Saturday evening, she sat across the table from me at his wedding reception. Her daughter, Nate’s birth mom, was at the next table. This was definitely no ordinary weekend!

Nathan was just three days old when he joined our family but there was already an unmistakable twinkle of mischief in his eyes and he has found his soulmate in Colleen, a beautiful and godly young lady with a mischievous twinkle to match his own! The wedding ceremony and the reception, complete with an inflatable bouncy castle in the corner of the hall to keep the youngest guests entertained, were a perfect reflection of the fun-loving and quirky but also very classy personalities of the bride and groom.

My weekend began with a moment of panic on Friday morning when I woke to discover that the five pound block of ground beef in our hotel room’s mini fridge was still frozen solid! I had a rehearsal dinner to prepare for approximately two dozen people and only a couple of hours until I needed to begin putting it together. Where there’s a will, there’s a way they say, so tying the meat into a plastic hotel laundry bag and dropping it into a bathtub of warm water, off I went to breakfast! The novel defrosting method worked wonders and by early afternoon I had three slow cookers filled with lasagna. (No, I didn’t prepare the meal in the hotel room! We transported the meat, along with all the other ingredients, to one of the bridesmaid’s homes.) Though I never want to be a caterer, the meal was ready right on time and received rave reviews. Once that was over with, I could relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

From the bride and groom’s self-written vows that reflected both the sanctity of the moment and the humour that permeates their relationship to their impromptu dance on the platform during the ceremony, the wedding was, in the words of one of our dear friends, “a wonderful, classy, down to earth celebration.”

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For me, one of the highlights of the weekend was having all my children and grandchildren together in one place, something that doesn’t happen often. On Sunday morning, with the bride and groom off on their honeymoon, the rest of us gathered at their home to be for a relaxing brunch before having to go our separate ways. The Easter bunny somehow knew exactly where our five young grandchildren would be and ensured that there were chocolate eggs to be found!

After cleaning up and making sure that everything was ready for Nate and Colleen’s return, we headed for home stopping on the way for Easter dinner at my sister’s place. It was also a celebration of my nephew’s 22nd birthday and in his words, “a perfect end to a perfectly incredible weekend!”

Our beautiful children: Matt and his wife Robin, Nate and his lovely bride Colleen, Melaina and her husband Aaron

Our beautiful children: Matt and his wife Robin, Nate and his lovely bride Colleen, Melaina and her husband Aaron

Uncle Nate and Auntie Colleen with our five grandchildren

Uncle Nate and Auntie Colleen with our five grandchildren

First day of spring

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According to the calendar, today is the first day of spring, but looking out the window I see a grey, gloomy Eeyore sort of day.

Eeyore

Yes, though it seemed for a little while that spring had come, this morning we woke up to snow again! The geese are back, the pussy willows are in bloom, Jami-Lee and her little friends found dozens of ladybugs at the playground in Calgary last week, and I’ve heard that the gophers have been out and about. I suspect that they’re huddling deep in their holes this morning though.

The best thing about snow in March is that it isn’t likely to stay very long and it will provide much needed moisture for the fields. Unlike the eastern part of the continent, we didn’t get as much snow as usual this winter.

I’m not a fan of winter and I’d love it if the first day of spring really was spring-like, but like Eeyore, I’ll try to look on the bright side. I’ve been receiving regular updates from a missionary couple living in Vanuatu, the remote cluster of tiny south Pacific islands that was blasted by Tropical Cyclone Pam late last week. It has been called the worst storm to ever hit the Pacific region and the devastation is beyond imagination. More than half of Vanuatu’s buildings have been badly damaged, many having their roofs blown off, and up to a third of the country’s 266,000 people have been left homeless. What’s a little spring snow compared to that? I dare not complain!

One of our Vanuatu churches

One of our Vanuatu churches

photo credit

Five at a time!

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I love books and I’m an avid reader but with the exception of my Bible, I rarely read more than one book at a time. Though it probably happened back in my university days when textbooks and research papers were the bane of my life, I don’t ever remember reading five at a time before or since! Such an occasion seemed worthy of a blog post especially since I’ve been thinking about following the lead of fellow blogger, Kari Ann, who posted “Five Things Friday” on her Outside Air blog last week.

So what am I reading and why so many books at once?

Bible

In addition to using a daily devotional booklet that takes me all over the Bible, I’m almost always somewhere in the middle of reading the scriptures from Genesis through to Revelation. For this purpose, I like to use a chronological Bible, one that puts the stories of scripture into the actual order that they happened. I find it so much easier to understand the big picture that way. I’ve read through my New International Version chronological text several times, but this time I chose the New King James Version Chronological Study Bible. I’m not a fan of daily reading plans that take you through the Bible in one year. To me, reading the Bible is not a ritual or a race. I like to immerse myself in the scriptures, seeking to understand what they’re saying to me about how I ought to live my life. I’ve read the entire Bible in less than a year, but most often it takes me considerably longer. With its illustrations, fascinating background and daily life notes, timelines, maps and charts to help bring the cultures and people of biblical times alive, this one could take me two years and that’s okay.

7 ways

I’m not going to air our dirty laundry here, but Richard and I have hit a rough patch in our marriage. To be entirely honest, it’s actually more like we’ve fallen into a sinkhole or gone careening off a cliff, but long term marriages are like that sometimes and we’re working on it. Since we’re both academically minded, we tend to turn to books for help at times like this. He went to a Promise Keepers conference last weekend and came home with this one, 7 Ways to Be Her Hero by Doug Fields. He read it in a couple of sittings so I thought it must be worth looking at. It’s written for men by a man, but Fields acknowledges that “some women will sneak around and read it (and will most definitely get something out of it).” The book, which he originally wanted to call How Not to Suck as a Husband, is written in colloquial man-speak that is fun and easy to read. It’s definitely not a textbook! I read eight of its ten chapters in one sitting last night and all I can say is that I’d like to give it back to my husband and tell him to read it again, memorize it and put it into practice. It’s that good!

Love & Respect

This is another one that I’m hoping might help us through the rough patch. Based on more than three decades of counselling, as well as scientific and biblical research, Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerich is based on the premise that a wife’s greatest need is to feel loved while a husband needs to feel respected. We’ve decided to go through this one together, reading and discussing one chapter a day. It definitely isn’t as fun and engaging as 7 Ways and we’ve only read the first two chapters so it’s a bit too early to pass judgment but I think it does make some good points and it’s already provided a good jumping off spot for discussion.

Outlaw

This is another one that we’re reading together along with two other couples that we meet with for a weekly time of prayer and Bible study. Sadly, it’s been a huge disappointment. John Eldredge is probably best known for his first book, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul. I have to wonder if he wrote Beautiful Outlaw simply hoping to cash in on the success of the earlier book. He attempts to introduce the reader to the real Jesus by squashing typical stereotypes and focusing on what he calls Jesus’ playful, disruptive, and extravagant personality. He spends most of the first three chapters dwelling on Jesus’ playfulness. While I expect that our Lord did have a playful, exuberant side, I don’t think that a single one of the scriptures that Eldredge uses points to that. In addition, as one of our group so aptly put it, he could have said everything in the first three chapters in three sentences. As a group, we’ve decided to read and discuss two or three chapters a week instead of just one so that we can get through it sooner and move onto something else. My assessment of this one is that it’s just fluff!

Rainbow

And finally, book #5, the novel that I’m reading for sheer enjoyment. When our small town librarian saw me looking over the shelf of recently acquired books, she pointed to The Dark Side of the Rainbow by Caren Powell and told me to try that one. “I thought of you when I bar coded it,” she said. “It looked like an Elaine book.” She knows what I like to read and hasn’t steered me wrong yet. According to editor, Ann Westlake, “The Dark Side of the Rainbow tells of Nelson Mandela’s South Africa – a country struggling with racism, fear and determination.” She calls it “a wonderful, endearing blend of characters, scenery and history.” I’m still in the early pages so I’m just getting to know those characters but I can hardly wait to dig deeper. Caren Powell lived in South Africa for 38 years during the apartheid era and the changeover to democracy. She and her husband owned a farm there and much of the detail in the book was drawn from her personal experiences.

It’s unusual for me to have so many books on the go at once but tonight’s choice is easy. I’m going to read the last two chapters of 7 Ways and then escape to The Dark Side of the Rainbow!

International Women’s Day 2015

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Tomorrow, March 8, is a day set aside to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. Women’s rights have come a long way since the first International Women’s Day in 1911 but we still have a long way to go. This year’s theme is ‘Make It Happen’, a slogan aimed at encouraging effective action for advancing the rights and treatment of women. We need to make it happen in those workplaces where women still earn less than men, in countries where women are regularly sexually abused and forced into marriage, and for girls who are still denied an education or forced to undergo female genital mutilation.

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I couldn’t help laughing at the tongue in cheek parody of the lists that women are given to prevent rape that has been circulating on the internet today. At the same time, I felt guilty for laughing. I realize that rape is never a laughing matter but sadly, there are still those who believe that women are to blame for their own abuse.

Rape prevention

I was absolutely incensed when I read this week’s news reports about one of the men convicted in a 2012 gang rape and murder case in Delhi, India. In an interview from jail, 26-year-old Mukesh Singh said that women who went out at night had only themselves to blame if they attracted the attention of gangs of male molesters. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he said.

Singh also claimed that had the 23-year-old victim and her male friend, who were returning from an evening at the cinema, not tried to fight back, the gang would not have inflicted the savage beating from which she died two weeks later. Describing the killing as an “accident” he said, “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ’doing her’.”

Equally appalling was this comment made by one of the lawyers in the case. “If my daughter or sister engaged in pre-marital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight.”

I wish I could say that things like this were unique to India, but that’s far from the truth and as long as my granddaughter is growing up in a world where any man, anywhere thinks it’s okay to rape a woman, we need to do more than celebrate the achievements of women; we need to ‘Make It Happen’. I am neither a man hater or a radical feminist but I dream of a world where every child has the right to an education and every woman feels safe.

Freedom Sunday 2015

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As president of our church’s missions council, I share a short message about what the church is doing around the world during every Sunday morning service. This week’s Missions Moment required more research than most and had a profound impact on me so I’ve decided to expand on it here.

Would you believe me if I told you that there are over four and a half thousand slaves living in Canada today and approximately 60 000 in the US? If you think that slavery ended in 1865, think again! According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, that is the number of people trapped in modern slavery in our two countries and that’s only the tip of the global iceberg. There are, in fact, more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history! Experts estimate that 30 million people are caught up in the global slave trade, an industry that generates $150 billion in profit each year.

Today is Freedom Sunday, a day that Christian churches around the world have set aside to increase awareness of the problem.

According to the Polaris Project, a national anti-human trafficking group, most of North America’s modern day slaves are foreign workers labouring in factories, farms, strip clubs, and begging and peddling rings or serving as domestic workers. They come seeking a better life, but instead, they find lives of servitude. Most are told upon arrival that they owe huge sums of money to the smugglers and traffickers who brought them here, debts that they have little hope of ever being able to pay. Many are physically abused. Employers often keep their passports and other documents “for safekeeping” making it impossible for them to escape. Threats of deportation or of harm befalling their families back home keep them from trying.

Human trafficking is defined as the illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation, a system in which both children and adults are bought and sold, held captive through force, coercion, threats, deception, or abduction. It is a global problem that affects people from many backgrounds or situations but people living in poverty are especially at risk because traffickers prey on those who are most vulnerable.

Ours is a worldwide denomination that has a presence in many countries where children and adults are vulnerable to trafficking. In those areas, it partners with local churches in anti-trafficking efforts that range from prevention and education to protection and rehabilitation. It’s strongest efforts toward ending human trafficking are through prevention and providing economic and educational opportunities to lower the risk of poverty-induced trafficking. Children living on the streets and in the slums of third world nations are particularly vulnerable to abuse and to “too good to be true” offers of a better life elsewhere. Child development centres and child sponsorship programs help children stay in school and teach them to see themselves as valuable and loved by God. Other programs focus on providing homes for orphaned and abandoned children to keep them off the streets.

Imagine the heartbreak of a parent so trapped in poverty that selling their own child seems to be the only way out; a parent who chooses to sell a son or daughter to a stranger rather than watching them starve. Church run self-help groups and skills training programs empower women to improve their household finances, thereby lessening their children’s risk of being trafficked. It’s a documented fact that money in the hands of men often goes to alcohol and prostitution but in the hands of women, it nurtures children, feeds families and promotes education.

Our denomination also partners with other ministries that help survivors of trafficking by offering rehabilitative services and skills development.

But what can we, as individuals do? What can you do?

First of all, you can do what I have done this week. You can educate yourself and then others. Take the time to be informed and to inform others. None of us can end the curse of human trafficking on our own but together, we can make a difference.

If you believe in the power of prayer, commit to praying regularly for the victims of human trafficking and for those governments that are striving to end it. James 5:16 tells us that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

You can financially support an organization that is working to end human trafficking. Whether it be a church or a secular organization, there are many that need resources to carry on the battle. Do your homework, check the links in this post and choose an organization to support.

Combat the demand. I’m as guilty as the next person, but if we put our minds to it and took the time to do the research, most of us could do a better job of ensuring that we don’t purchase products that are produced by men, women and children trapped in slavery. Do you know how and where the clothes you’re wearing were produced? Click here for a 5 step guide to ethical fashion shopping. What about the coffee you’re sipping or your favourite chocolate? There are many resources on the internet to help you be a better global citizen through how you shop.

I know I might be treading on toes, but now that I’ve started, I’m going to get even more personal and specifically address the men who are reading. Guys, if you are in the habit of viewing pornography in any of it’s many forms, you are involved in the slave trade! You are contributing to human trafficking. I could write an entire blog post, or perhaps a series of them, on the connection between pornography and trafficking but suffice it to say that many of the girls and women who are used in its production are the victims of trafficking and are being held against their will. Think for a moment, what if that was your sister or your daughter?

Let’s all commit to doing something to help bring an end to the curse of human trafficking and modern day slavery. Let’s set the captives free!

Blogging is good for my health!

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Seven years ago, when I started blogging, my husband and I were preparing to spend a year teaching English in Japan. Following Augustine was born to share that experience with friends and family back home in Canada. I’ve always enjoyed writing so it was no surprise to me that when the year came to an end, I’d fallen in love with blogging and I wasn’t ready to let it go.

Over the years that followed, my blog became an eclectic collection of posts on a wide variety of topics including faith, family, and travel with a bit of food, fashion, fitness and even history thrown in. In essence, it chronicled our life and interests as an active retired couple.

Then came cancer!

When my first cancer was diagnosed a year and a half ago, the blog became an avenue for sharing vital information about my health with concerned friends and family around the world. I soon learned that it had an added benefit. As I dealt with the diagnosis of a second unrelated cancer, surgery, radiation, multiple tests and scans, new treatments, a clinical trial, and the emotional ups and downs that accompanied them all, I found that writing about the journey helped me process what was going on. It seemed that blogging was good for my mental health.

Now I’ve discovered that there’s actually scientific evidence to support that! Studies have shown that expressive writing leads to physical and mental health benefits such as long-term improvement in mood, stress levels and depressive symptoms. People with asthma who write have been shown to have fewer attacks than those who don’t and cancer patients who write tend to have more optimistic perspectives and improved quality of life.

So what is it about writing that makes it so good for us?

Apparently, the act of expressive writing allows people to take a step back and evaluate their lives. It can help them find meaning in a stressful event, manage their emotions better, talk to other people about the situation more easily and reach out for support more willingly. Instead of brooding or obsessing over a diagnosis or a catastrophic event, they are able to focus on moving forward. By doing so, stress levels go down and health goes up.

Remarkably, researchers found that just 15 to 20 minutes of writing three to five times over the course of a four-month study was enough to make a difference. That was good news to me. Though I try to blog more often than that, I’ve never had any desire to post every day. I’ve seen too many daily bloggers burn brightly for a short period of time then flicker and burn out. I try to post at least once a week but I’ve even fallen short of that lately.

Cancer is only one of the topics that I continue to write about. Blogging will never be a cure but it’s nice to know that really is good for my health!

Scanxiety

/ edebock / 16 Comments

Since being diagnosed with cancer almost 18 months ago, I’ve learned a lot of words that I, a self-professed word nerd, would rather not have had to know. Words like neuroendocrine tumour (I have five of them lurking inside of me) and carcinoid syndrome (a group of symptoms linked to the excess hormones released by the type of neuroendocrine tumour that I have). I could bore you with several others but the word that best describes my life the past few weeks is scanxiety.

Scanxiety

Scan + Anxiety = Scanxiety

Though my cancer is incurable, I go for a treatment about once every ten to twelve weeks that is designed to keep it from growing and spreading. I am injected with Lutetium-177, a radioactive therapy that adheres to specific receptor cells in my tumours and destroys them. The morning after each treatment, I have a full body scan that shows us exactly what has been happening with the disease since the previous treatment. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait long for the results. I meet with a doctor immediately afterward to view the pictures and talk about what they show.

For the most part, I’ve been at peace and have approached each treatment and scan without a lot of anxiety but this time was different. Since my last treatment in mid November, I’ve been experiencing intermittent stomach pains. They’re short-lived, lasting only a few minutes. It’s easy to second guess every ache or twinge and wonder if it’s related to the cancer but this was more than that. Stomach pain is one of the most common symptoms of carcinoid syndrome and one I’d experienced prior to diagnosis. I began to wonder if this was a sign that the cancer was growing or spreading.

Worry often begins as a little thing but it seems to feed on itself. Soon I was carrying a heavy burden of anxiety. It continued to grow until I was quite sure that I would hear bad news when I went for this week’s treatment and scan.

Then, on Tuesday night as I was brushing my teeth and preparing for bed, I heard the Lord say, “It’s going to be okay!” Oh, it wasn’t a booming voice thundering through the ceiling of our tiny ensuite bathroom. It wasn’t an audible voice at all but it might as well have been. I knew without a doubt that it was God speaking to my heart. He even said it several times. “It’s going to be okay!” I walked out of the bathroom feeling like the world had been lifted off my shoulders, crawled into bed and had a great sleep. Then, the next morning, I climbed out of bed, picked up the heavy load of anxiety and put it squarely back on my shoulders!

As we drove to Edmonton for my treatment and throughout the hours that followed, I tried to tell myself that everything was going to be okay, but I kept hearing the other voice, the one that said, “Are you sure it was God that you heard? It wasn’t God, it was only your own wishful thinking! You were right in the first place; the news is going to be bad!” Foolishly, I listened and my anxiety grew.

I was thankful for the visits that kept me sane that evening. First, an acquaintance from years gone by that I’ve recently reconnected with. We could have talked for hours! Then, my dear hubby who has walked every step of this cancer journey with me. I was also thankful that the treatment had made me tired enough to sleep.

The next morning, I prayed for the entire half hour or so that I was being scanned and then it was time to find out which voice I should have listened to. I walked into the consultation room where Dr. Sandy McEwan, head of the neuroendocrine tumour clinic at the Cross Cancer Institute, and Dr. Dean Ruether, leader of the provincial endocrine tumour program, sat waiting with smiles on their faces and I heard the words I’d been longing to hear, “Everything’s okay! There’s been no change.”

My cancer is stable! I can relax until mid April when we go through the whole thing again, hopefully without as much scanxiety! Oh, there are still the stomach pains to deal with but I’m even wondering if they will subside now that the burden of anxiety has been lifted. I’m going to be monitoring their frequency and intensity for the next few weeks to see if they’re actually lessening, as I think they may have been. If not, the solution might be as simple as increasing my monthly dose of Sandostatin which controls the carcinoid symptoms or as complicated as surgery to remove the primary tumour from my colon.

For now, I’m simply going to relax and give thanks to the One whose voice I should have listened to!

World Cancer Day 2015

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World Cancer Day

When I first learned that today is World Cancer Day, a day in which the world comes together in unity in support of the global fight against cancer, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Do we really need an awareness day for everything? After all, isn’t everyone already aware of the devastation brought about by this dreadful family of diseases? Surely everybody has been touched by it in some manner. And what good does a day do anyway?

Cynical? Yes. Grouchy? Yup, that too! Perhaps my reaction has more to do with the fact that I’m resting on a heating pad because I wrenched my back yesterday than it does with whether or not we need a Cancer Day. It might also be related to the fact that I have a treatment next week followed by a scan that will tell us whether or not there has been any change in my own cancer. The days leading up to these scans are always a bit nerve wracking so I’d just as soon avoid the topic of cancer altogether today.

I’ve decided not to do that, however. The Lord has given me a voice (or in this case, a keyboard) and the least I can do is lend it to such a worthy cause. There’s really nothing that I can say about cancer that hasn’t already been said, but let’s begin with some alarming statistics:

  • Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and the leading cause among Canadians.
  • An estimated 191,300 Canadians were diagnosed with cancer in 2014 – 97,700 men and 93,600 women.
  • About 76,600 Canadians are estimated to have died of cancer in 2014 – 40,000 men and 36,600 women.
  • 45% of men and 41% of women will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime.
  • On average, 524 Canadians are diagnosed with cancer every day.
  • On average, 210 Canadians die of cancer every day.
  • About 30% of all cancer deaths are due to five leading behavioral and dietary risks: obesity, low fruit and vegetable intake, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, and alcohol use.
  • More than 60% of all new cases each year occur in Africa, Asia and Central and South America which account for 70% of the world’s cancer deaths.
  • Deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to continue rising, with an estimated 13.1 million deaths in 2030. I suspect that this is, in part, related to the fact that life expectancies are also rising.

Despite these gloomy numbers, cancer survival rates have doubled in the last 40 years. Awareness is making a difference!

The theme for World Cancer Day 2015 is “Not Beyond Us”. This year, the campaign is focusing on four key areas: choosing healthy lives, delivering early detection, achieving treatment for all, and maximizing quality of life. It takes a positive approach to the fight against cancer by highlighting new treatments and solutions that are within reach.

Today is World Cancer Day but the fight against cancer takes place every day. It takes place in research labs around the world but it also takes place all around you. It takes place in that home where a mother, father or child is fighting for life. It takes place in the hospitals and clinics where they receive treatment. It takes place in classrooms where good health habits are being taught and it takes place in communities, large and small, where fundraisers are held to benefit everything from individual patients to global research.

What will you do to make a difference in the fight against cancer? Will you make a donation, offer to drive an acquaintance to an appointment, or drop off a meal for the family when you know that Mom has had a treatment? Whatever you choose to do, you can make a difference!

Tulum

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One of the reasons that we chose a resort on the Riviera Maya for our Mexican getaway was its close proximity to the Mayan ruins at Tulum. Visiting this historic site was definitely one of the highlights of our vacation.

I was awed by its location high on a limestone cliff overlooking the beautiful turquoise waters of the Caribbean. The original Mayan name for the settlement was Zama meaning dawn, very apt considering it’s eastern exposure facing the rising sun. It was early explorers who gave the place it’s current name which simply means wall, referring to the stone barricade surrounding it on three sides. The ocean provides protection on the fourth. Tulum was the only Mayan city built on the coast and one of few that were walled.

Within those walls are found the imposing Castillo, or castle, Tulum’s tallest and most famous building. Standing atop the 12 metre bluff, it has a commanding view of the ocean and many miles of coastline. Other buildings that remain today formed the city’s centre where ceremonial and political activities took place. They include the king’s palace, a meeting hall and several temples. Stone outlines are all that remain of lesser buildings that were mostly built of wood.

Tulum was a seaport and a centre of trade. A grassy expanse in front of the palace was once a bustling marketplace. Below, an opening in the offshore reef leads directly into a small cove, its sandy beach a perfect parking lot for trading canoes.

The earliest date found at the site is A.D. 564, inscribed on a stelae, but its heyday is thought to have been between 1000 and 1600 A.D. Looking at the heavy stone structures, the graceful columns and the intricate carvings that can still be seen on some of the walls, one can only wonder at the architectural achievements of the settlement’s early inhabitants and ponder what might have brought about the demise of such a civilization.

El Castillo

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King’s Palace

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‘Parking lot’ with lighthouse in the distance

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Other structures

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Present day inhabitants!

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We didn’t actually have to leave our resort to see ruins. Remains of a small temple to the Mayan goddess of fertility are located on the grounds and next to them, parts of a much larger Spanish chapel where some 120 bodies were found interred. Overlooking the ocean near the beach stands a Mayan lighthouse very similar to the one at Tulum.

Mayan Temple

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Remains of the Spanish chapel

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 The lighthouse

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