Save the Whoo-Haas

Is it really September 3rd already?  We had a great Labor Day weekend around here.  It was filled with lots of swimming and outdoor fun.  It was super hot and muggy which made for a great way to *close out* summer.  I find Labor Day to be a bit of a depressing holiday.  Mostly because I'm sad to see summer go. 

Here is another fact about September that snuck up on me... it is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.  This is something in the past two Septembers I have distanced myself from.  Largely due to the fact that most cancer-related things make me hyperventilate.  I'm not super fond of calling myself a *survivor*.  It is an odd identity.  Ovarian Cancer doesn't generate the cute bumper stickers (Save the Tatas and Fight Like a Girl come to my mind.)  Save the Whoo-Haas doesn't have the same ring, and teal isn't nearly as flattering for everyone as pink. 

 However, I did think it fitting that September will be the month that my port will be removed.  National Ovarian Cancer Awareness month...

My port is a little bumpy triangular thing that sticks out just to the right of my left armpit.  It was surgically implanted in February of 2010.  It will be surgically removed September 2013.  It doesn't hurt (although Turner rammed it with his head just last week and I have to say, it knocked the wind out of me) and unless you were looking, you may not even notice it.  But I know it is there.  It is the place where they took blood, infused poison and hooked up I.V's for several years.  Now I'll have to *get stuck* like a normal person.  I am thankful to have had a port during the worst of the worst, but I will not shed a tear as it is removed!

As September arrives, I'm not sure what my part as a *survivor* would be.  To re-tell my story of how I came upon my diagnosis?  Maybe.  And perhaps over the next few weeks I will.  I am not convinced that will help anyone else.  I don't love talking about my chemo, my diagnosis, my baldness, my weakness.  But I do LOVE to remember God's healing power, the generosity of others, the way my neighbors surrounded me with love and care.  I MUST remember how I needed to cling to God with every fiber of my being, how good my friends were to me, how amazing my husband's sacrifices were for me.  I am humbled and grateful for the amazing care of my oncologist, Dr. Tom Reid and the nurses that were gentle and caring.  It is a time of my life I would prefer to forget, but a time in my life that MUST be reflected on.  It changed my life... forever.

In a lot of really hard ways, but in so many ways that could have only happened through cancer.

 

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me today.  I am grateful for another September.  I hope I really am living out "Taste and see that the Lord is good." 

 Because He is.