fact: I have two brain tumours! If you want to find out more then have a read.
The last few years have have been full of many trials and tribulations but I will tell you one thing, I have learnt a lot about life.
So this morning, as usual, I logged onto the faceybook to scroll through the news feed. I noticed that one of my peers from high school had posted a couple of old photos of him and some mates. Usually I wouldn't think much of this but only a week ago a group of us had caught up for coffee and talked about someone who we went to high school with who had been suffering from cancer over the last couple of years. This guy with cancer was in these newly posted photos. Due to the fact that our conversation about him was sort of fresh in my mind I wondered if he had passed away. Turns out he has. Whilst I was never close to this guy I am saddened by his passing and I feel for those who were close to him. A week ago I experienced the loss of a close friend so I can relate to the sadness they must be feeling. I was in shock when I found out about my friend. He lives (I'm finding it hard to use past tense) in Germany and I had known him since 2005. I stupidly went to my messages to see the last conversation we had and then ended up scrolling and scrolling back through the messages. I never made it to the beginning because man had we chatted a lot over the last 11 years, we shared our highs and lows with one another. Both times I have been back to Germany I went and saw him. The last time I saw him we agreed we'd see each other again in 2 years time as that seemed to be the reoccurring pattern. That was 4 years ago and then life got in the way, brain tumours got in the way! F*** you brain tumours! He was taken too soon. Life can be a bitch, a cold hearted bitch!
On new years eve I was sent a lovely message that helped me look forward and become partially excited about the year where I hit the big three-oh, this year. I was upbeat & optimistic on new years day and then then that evening, the beginning of this exciting new year, facebook punched me in the gut! Over the last week I've thought about how this is going to influence my year. Initially I said 'great another fucking shit year ahead' but I think about how my friend would approach this situation. Yes he'd cry and stay in bed all day like I did but he'd also not let it stop him from enjoying his whole bloody year. Who would be so stupid?! So I'm going to treasure the moments that are joyous, that are fun and look forward to the moments when you snort because you're laughing so hard. My friend was determined to make the most of life. He faced more obstacles in his life than a lot of us put together but that did not stop him. So whilst my year has not started off in great joy I look forward to the glimmers of hope and I'll take in the moments that remind me how I'm so lucky to be here. Although I'm feeling sad and I know that life is not fair, once again I need to make sure that I make the most of it. I've got a few things I need to do this year!
Here's a soppy John Mayer song to listen to. Says it all really!
This Tuesday saw me heading to beloved Clinic C. After the usual lengthy wait, three hours this time, I was called in to see a different Dr.. This took me by great surprise and I questioned the new to me Dr. numerous times to make sure I was meant to be seeing them and not Dr. Straight to the Point, who is the only ever neurosurgeon I've had an appointment with. I was a little bit frustrated with this meeting because after they had talked about the larger glioma they were about to farewell me until next year but then I questioned them about the other glioma. The look of "what?" went across their face and then a lot of rustling through my file, which is getting even bigger, took place. They eventually found the information and re-assured me that there was no change with that glioma as with the other. Whilst they were looking though all of the notes they were talking in medical terms and I just wanted to stop them and remind them that what they were saying makes no sense to me so please talk to me in terms that I can understand. I sat there and thought what if I was writing a report for your child and wrote about me scaffolding them within their ZPD and encouraging them to increase their associative play as well as me seeing a change in their representational use of objects within their sociodramatic play. Would I do that? No! I wonder why not?! Anyway you're on your own until next June little gliomas. Emotional exhaustion occurs each time these meetings come around, you'd think I'd be able to handle these meetings by now.
This week was brain injury awareness week in Australia. The video that I have posted below came up in my facebook newsfeed. Although I find it a bit over dramatised, in some instances, the words the lady speaks rang so true for me a couple of years ago. I related to every single thing she said and her mentioning venturing into shopping centres, holy smokes, I recall how much of a horrendous task this was to do! I'm lucky because such experiences that the lady talks about no longer occur to me and I never want to experience these again.
Anyway in other parts of my life quite a bit has changed and these changes have been positive (mostly). Life rolls on, seasons change, people come and go but I'm still here trying to...
So a couple of weeks ago I posted about a big "life changing decision" that I had made and when and if I would go ahead with it. Well I have done it. To be honest I made a big hoo-ha over something that for most people could quite possibly be a 'meh' decision. Anyway I resigned from my job. From a permanent teaching job! For those of you that don't know, it's been really tricky to get a teaching job in my little city over the last few years and it still is, but I had come to a point where I no longer enjoyed what I was doing. I've been in a role that I never thought I would be and in the last 18 months it's gone from what was a security blanket to me to something that I drag myself out of bed for and hope to make it through the day. I know where my passion lies, I know what I want to do and have been called to do and although I leave this job with no job lined up in a way it's exciting. The main reason I posted about this was due to the fact that it relates to mental health. My mental health was suffering. I knew that and so did a few people that were around me. As I've learnt over the last few years being healthy isn't just about being healthy physically but about being mentally and spiritually healthy. I want to be an all round healthy person and I'm taking action to do that. No doubt there will be a few 'ahhh crap, what have I done?' moments over the next few months but like I posted about previously I know this is the right decision.
I've been surprised by some people's reactions. The majority of people have congratulated me on taking this 'bold step' and I wonder why. I'm still not 100% sure but as one of my dear colleagues said to me 'Sometimes where we end up is not due to us being lucky, but by us taking those risks, leaving a comfort zone and us working for what we get. Sometimes we make our luck, luck doesn't just happen.' (or something like that but you get the idea.)
Anyway, do what makes you happy folks. Ask yourself 'What's right for my mental health?' and maybe just take that leap of faith.
I've made a big decision in the last couple of days. For me it's a life changing decision, however me implementing this decision is dependent on what happens in the next couple of weeks. I hope the next couple of weeks brings my dreams to life but if it doesn't I know what I will do. If I'm to go ahead with Project TakeALeapOfFaith it brings with it a lot of uncertainty and big changes but changes can be exciting right?!
As I finally accepting that this decision is the best one for me. I had all this anger rise up in me. I was blaming all that hasn't happened for me in the last 3 years on my brain tumours. I honestly feel so hard done by, I've felt like it's held me back from where I want to be in life. I was speaking to my psychologist about this on Friday evening and then she interrupts and says to me 'well is it holding you back now?'. I thought that was rude, all I wanted her to do was agree with me and help me work through this pain but she is right. I have been taken down a path I didn't want to go (hence the title of my blog) but at this point in time it's not the brain tumours holding me back from where I want to be, I'm holding myself back and it's now up to me to take a chance, take a leap, dive into the unknown. That was a revelation!
I was scrolling through Facebook earlier and noticed that someone had liked this status and boy oh boy is it timely.
'You may feel like your dreams have died. Everything is coming against
you. Take a new perspective. Nothing in life has happened to you. It has
happened for you. God has you in the palm of His hand.'
It's all about faith I suppose!
I'm saddened my what will most probably occur over the next couple of months but deep in my heart I have this sense of peace.
I'll keep you posted!
In other crazy news I found out on Monday that one of the girls I play netball with underwent a craniotomy 3 years ago. As I joined this team not knowing any of them I didn't know anything about their personal life nor did they of mine. I had found out a couple of months ago that 2 of the girls on the team I play with are nurses on ward 5B - the ward that I was on after surgery, which in itself was crazy but to find out about MsGD was surreal. I have a brain tumour buddy on my netball team.
Oh and lastly, just in case you were wondering, the meeting with my neurosurgeon went well. My next MRI has been bumped out to a year.
One of the reasons I love working with 4 year olds is that I love seeing them develop socially and emotionally. Call me crazy, but I feel the support given to children in their preschool years in this area of development is more important than a lot of other "stuff" we help children with. I think most ECE would agree. The topic of social and emotional development was probably one of the topics that I enjoyed the most at Uni.
I haven't been feeling that well lately both emotionally and physically and my usual overwhelming moment of having the MRI occurred last Monday. I saw this clip a couple of weeks prior to my MRI and I just loved the
simplicity and honesty of it. It reminded me to breathe in those
overwhelming moments. As I lay in that tube, heard the noise, felt the rumble and listened to 'you're doing great Cassandra' said to me a few times I took quite a few deep breaths to calm myself down.
If you're feeling angry, sad or bitter, I encourage you to take a moment and just breathe!
Hello fellow Brain Tumour Bloggers and to anyone else who reads this. I hope this post finds you in good spirits. I've been wanting to post all day and have been thinking about what I should post but even as I type this I'm still not really sure what the end product will really be about.
Health wise I don't have anything to report on apart from a few really nasty migraines and a few panic moments when I thought I was going to have a seizure. I blame those silly moments on my über tiredness that work is providing me with. My next MRI is getting closer, June, and as usual I try not to think about that.
Today is Good Friday and personally I find Easter the most important time in the Christian calendar. I remember a few years ago on a Good Friday I rocked up to my usual church and just questioned Easter and therefore Christianity as I sat there and heard the same story again. 'Like seriously, this is ridiculous! Some guy a couple of thousand years ago dies on a cross and now I'm saved. What am I saved from? Oh and yeah, then he rises from the dead and drifts on up into "heaven"!' these were the types of thoughts that went through my mind when I sat in church that Good Friday morning. I spoke to a friend after the service and moaned to her about how when we talk about it logically the whole story is ridiculous. We'd been told this story since our birth, it was ingrained in us, the names of the people and the places and the concepts of sin and grace were things we just knew. She agreed but whilst we were talking about it she eventually reminded me, as Os Guinness writes, "If ours is an examined
faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually
justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But
if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger. It knows God more
certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply."
Anyway I'm still a bit unsure where this is headed but I know that the doubt that bombarded me all those years ago on Good Friday most definitely led me to strengthening my faith and as I mention in previous posts, pre-surgery posts, my faith has helped me a lot over the last couple of years. There are days where I am afraid of what will show up on the MRI, in fact I'm always worried by that, or I'll have a seizure but my faith brings me hope and offers me peace.
Last weekend I was at a church and the sermon talked briefly about having the confidence on your last day on earth that God loves you and you are saved by grace. Talking about one's last day on earth is not something that I am afraid of yet at the same time not one that I would regularly wish to converse about. One reason is because pre-surgery I felt very vulnerable to the fact that I may experience my last day on earth before surgery and didn't want that to be the case, not because of fear but because there is so much more that I wish to do and see. I have thought about the words of that sermon over the last week and whilst I know that life with a brain tumour, or two, brings with it a lot of uncertainty about one's time on earth, even after successful surgery, I am confident that whatever day is my last day on earth I am loved by God and saved by grace.
I love reading other Brain Tumour Bloggers blogs, they help, encourage
and inspire me. I suppose it's the one positive thing about having and
following blogs about brain tumours. This post doesn't offer any information about therapies or the latest research into brain tumours but through this post I wish to wish everyone and anyone who reads this a blessed Easter weekend. Smile, laugh, show and accept love and make sure you eat a hot cross bun or three!
There are few modern day worships songs that really resonate with me, the one I have I shared below is one of those.
You were as I
Tempted and tried
Human
Romans 5:6-10
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps
for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love
for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since,
therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we
be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we
are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
