6 days and counting...

So this is what happens when you start yoga...you get sick! JK :) I have had this cold/flu now for six days and its driving me crazy! It's weird for me because usually my health issues are off the wall things, but this common cold hit hard core! I actually had to take off school for it and that was weird. Usually the times I have to take off work is because of all my doctor appointments, this time I just didn't have the energy to work. My energy level just stinks at the moment. And I know that energy is everything, especially as a teacher. The energy that you bring into a room can change the whole attitude of the room. So once I'm better and back to Laura, I'm really going to try to be aware of the energy that I bring into a room, not just the classroom, but any room I enter. There is a lot of negative energy out there and we do not need to be around it! I know with my stress level lately and being sick, I have not helped the positive energy cause :) Hopefully, I'll be back on track soon!

I've been having a lot of prayer time with God lately. Lots of people around me needed it, including me. And I'm learning while I reread The Prayer of Jabez, that it is more than okay to pray for yourself too. So I wanted to share something awesome. I prayed for God to show me a sign about something in my life, and the next day a woman said exactly what I needed to hear. It was pretty awesome and a moment where I just stopped and recognized that it was an answer to a prayer and even told her that God just totally worked! So don't just ask for a prayer to be answered, be aware and watch it be answered. It may not be the answer you were looking for or it may not happen right away, it may be many years down the road when you can look back and say 'Oh, that was the answer.' It's so neat, but it's really neat to get the answer the next day too :) My life has so many blessing that I thank God everyday for. Take time to think about the blessings in your life. Focus on those things to keep your drive and make the effort to change the things in your life that need to change. Although it can be so hard or scary, have faith that God will bless you and the situation, just have the strength to ask and remember to keep your eyes open :)

In Tim McGraw's words...Live Like You Were Dying!

Our Hot Air Balloon Ride!
Here's the 4 month update from Cancer Care!
Let's just get to the point, because I have something much better to say! There are no more tumors and the ones that I do have are just a smidgen bigger. My copper level was stable which indicates that there isn't any lymphoma going on, however my white blood cell count that day was 2.1 when the average is 4.5-10.5 (anything above or below is abnormal). He said I may have just had something viral that day. Lots of things can make you have a low count one day, even stress which is not anything foreign to me! I also got an inhaler for my lungs for when I exercise and have shortness of breath (there are days when I get really worked up in the classroom and have been known to tell Dena ‘I need air, I just can’t breathe in here!'). It could also be the fact that my room is the size of a shoebox with 14 people living in it. :) The CT scan also showed that I have a hernia in my diaphragm. We are going to my family doc next Friday just to check it out and my CBC's again too. Over all, no cancer so I am in remission still! Praise God!

But here is what got me more today...I was at the sink at my school and I just stopped as I thought about a conversation Dr.Powell had with an older man that almost brought tears to my eyes. The old man was asking Dr. Powell about his wife with cancer and if she will make it and Doc said he didn't know. Imagine....you are at the doctor's office, no matter how old you are, and the doctor tells you 'I'm sorry, but the cancer has spread to your other organs. We can try to stop the progression, but... ' I'm sure you know what comes next. I thought about what it would be like to know you are going to die. Then I thought, would I be satisfied with how I lived my life? In most aspects yes, but when I think about how I can let my emotions get the best of me, no.
Sometimes I just go back and think about the things I would do over again from my past. I get mad or sad thinking about the things that I can't change, that I haven't been able to open myself up to enjoy the present and the possibilities of the future! I need to accept the life I have today and forgive the past and others, so that I can have the freedom to move forward and pursue happiness. Reflecting is great, but I need to work more on being present, too. So when I saw that Yoga had been DVR'd on my TV (whether it was a Godly intervention or AJ giving me a hint), it was like a sign. I have been looking for a way to keep me less stressed, present, and at peace with my life so that I can die with a smile on my face knowing I lived the very best life I could.
The statement 'Live everyday like it's your last' hit me like bricks today. Forgive your past and start a life of no regrets. You and I both can't change the past, but we can forgive it, let go of the fairly tale dream that was never promised to us, and move forward towards a happiness that we both deserve. It's like my verse I loved in high school so much and found in my bible not long ago...


Philippians 3:13-14
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

My 4 month CT scan

I remember where I was last year at this time. I had a blood cancer that we were fighting with aggressive chemotherapy drugs...and yet, I was at such peace with life.
This year, I'm stressed. I recently discovered that stressed is desserts spelled backwards. Must be the reason I've gained some weight lately.:) Like everyone else, I'm feeling the daily stresses of Life and its demands, and I feel like I have no time to spare. I'm going, going, going, but I have to just stop. Because if I keep going like this, I'm going to be 250 pounds and in the crazy house! In a way, I mourn last year. I mourn the time I had to write, a true passion that I have that gives me so much peace. Cancer gave me a reason to start writing again and I'm thankful for that part of cancer. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. Last year feels like a dream now, but because I wrote it down and can look back and remember, it wasn't a dream. It was my real life...a life worth documenting. I want my life to still be something worth documenting, not something that was consumed with so much stress, that I forgot how to Live.

Tomorrow is my 4 month checkup. I get my CT scan and I really don't want to dismiss it. I don't want it to be just another day in my life, because it's not. Hearing that I am still in remission gives me a reason to celebrate my Life and do the things that I dream about and want to do. So I've made a decision...every time I hear that I am cancer free, I'm going to cross off one more thing from my bucket list. That should give me a reason to keep striving for the life I want and documenting it in the process. So last June when I heard I was in remission, I did Relay for Life. This time in October, I'm taking a hot air balloon ride. After it cancelled 2 times last year and then again last week because of the storms, we are scheduled this Sunday :)
So tonight, before my CT scan, I just wanted to take time to write, more than anything else I have to do tonight, I wanted to write so that I can remember this moment. A moment in my life where I feel like I don't have a minute to spare, yet still I took time out for me. I did something that I truly enjoy, so that I can read this again in a nursing home one day...and not in the crazy house!