My Eyelashes Continue to Molt

So how was everyone's weekend? It just kept getting better and better here at the Mountcastle abode. I was so excited to have some adult conversation Fri night as my father and his lovely wife asked us to dinner at our local Mexican joint. Little did I know what I was in for. I pack the girls into the car after a yummy cheese filled dinner, decide the girls were so good, we'll go get some ice cream and bring it home. We get half way into town and Ginger, once again, vomits all over. I mean, all over. Then projectile onto the front seat - I kid you not. Needless to say, I promptly turn around and am playing through my head how I can possibly clean all this up by myself. I figure she gagged herself, as she has done may times before, and that's what this is. Boy was I wrong. Ginger had the flu - and she continued to throw up all night to the point of dry heaving until 4 the next morning. So incredibly sad for this little 2 year old, who has no idea what is happening. I covered my bed with blankets and towels and we just laid there sleeping and heaving in 30 minute intervals. This, my friend, is parenthood. At it's rawest. She slowly got better as the weekend played out - and thankfully, my dear friend Sarah delivered pedialyte to me Sat morning since I was trapped in my house all weekend (plus dinner what a Godsend she is) but once I got over the initial panic - which actually set in Sat morning when she begged me for milk, which I gave to her (BIG mistake) and she threw that up all over me an hour later. I was on my hands and knees cleaning this up now and I just looked up and let out this guttural howl of sorts. Strange, yes, but extremely freeing. As if to say ' GOD! ENOUGH ALREADY! OY VEY!'. He must have heard me, she didn't throw up again till Sat night and that was just a little. Once I did this though, this guttural thing, this calmness came over me in a way that I have a hard time explaining. I'm not a 'go with the flow' kind of person usually - I prefer the structure and schedule of a day. Suddenly, it just was about me being a mom and screw the rest of the world. It was pretty cool. Sat afternoon the three of us all took a 2 hour nap on my bed - all of us, together. It was so peaceful and awesome. I don't think I've ever done that with them before. What a gift. As screwed up as this sounds, if I had to go through the stomach flu with Ginger to get that nap experience with them, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Ginger, however, may feel differently. I'll ask her when she's able to actually tell me. Needless to say she is doing much better and is on the mend. PJ thankfully returned home safely Sunday night, conveniently to a vomit free home, and all is now right with the world.

I didn't have one moment this weekend where I had a chance to think about my breast cancer - and ya know what - it was really nice. Well, I thought about it when I took my pills as I started my new cycle on Sat morning, but for the most part, it was all pretty 'routine' feeling and not 'cancer' feeling. Like, This Is What I Do, kind of thing if that makes sense.

I printed out this collage of pictures of me when I was thinner and taped it on my vanity so I can look at it each morning for motivation to lose this weight. I look at these pictures of me, and I feel so many things. I feel motivation yes, but also anger that I don't look like that anymore, that I lost my long hair, I miss the innocence, or maybe it was ignorance, of what I was about to encounter - but then, when I really look at my eyes in these pictures, I remember the things that used to fill my brain. With the exception of Madeline, everything else now seems so trivial. So silly. I know, I didn't know any better, and those things WERE really important to me at that time. Things like money, stature, power, hair style, clothing, handbags. Seriously. Did it really take cancer to pull me out of that and realize what life is really all about? Did it really? I look at my eyes in these pictures and they aren't nearly filled with the life I see in them now. What a shame. But a blessing. It just sucks we have to fall so hard to learn how to rise up again. I don't know how people deal with heavy shit like this without God. I really don't.

I finished my Steven Ministry class tonight, so, I'm unofficially official. I will be commissioned at our church service on June 6th - but for the most part, I'm done. It was so sad to bring our class to a close tonight, but exciting as well. It's pretty empowering to be equipped with all that I've learned to go out and be the walking, talking (well, listening really) Jesus on earth. How exciting to be able to walk with someone through their journey, whatever that may be. What a privilege.

Well, it's another late night for me and I have to go take my evening chemo pills.

Bottoms Up and God Bless -