Isn’t that what we are all searching for after cancer?  Some space, some place where there is an escape from the everyday repeat of the fact that we have been ill, are ill, or may get ill again?  So I have decided that I will embark upon this journey to fix up my little house and large yard.

When I started out, two years ago, the yard was quite wild.  For a big corner lot, it was mostly covered in ivy, which in itself is quite nice to look at and doesn’t require much maintenance or updating.  However, after awhile it gets boring.  So I decided to add a few items, and trim a few items.  Enter the workers that I hired to trim the bushes.  Before embarking upon such an experiment, make sure the person you are speaking to understands exactly what you want done.  Unfortunately, I did not communicate correctly what it is was that I wanted done to the three heather plants in the front yard.    I assumed he knew what a trim meant.

Let me look up trim ….recortar is the word in Spanish that I used.  It can be trim, cut back, lop off, remove ….oops.   Okay, so he cut back and dug out the roots of my heather bushes and removed them.  Now I was left with a big hole in the middle of an entire side yard of ivy.  That was a year ago.  The hole is still empty.

It was an interesting removal.  Heather is out of my life.  In more ways than one, if any of you know me.  Quickly, unexplained, surprised, empty and a total degree of other adjectives.  I find it an interesting thing that has happened, which I won’t go into here.  But my search to replace the Heather bushes go on.    Isn’t life interesting sometimes?  Its like mother nature just laughs at you.  Hmmmmm

So what to put in the empty spot in my life. Whoops…yard not life!  Interesting how God always replaces something when something is lost.  However, back to my ivy spot, I have decided to recycle some old tires.  Everything about my house is recycled.  I don’t know why I took on this effort at this time in my life.  It is sort of like my life, it’s being recycled.  I am taking the old body and trying to make something out of what is left over.

The garden has an empty spot.  Many neighbors comment.  They wonder what is coming next, or if anything is coming at all.  Since I am the first person in the community that you see as you enter, I do feel a great responsibility to replace it with something beautiful.  We are now in month number nine of me thinking about what should replace the heather.

Its all so applicable in my life.  If you only knew the story of the missing Heather.

What will I replace the missing Heather with?  Old tires?  Painted old tires?  Perhaps.  Flowers, perhaps, but they are fleeting….they would die down in the winter and look again, like an empty spot.  Sort of like relationships, don’t you think?  Seasonal.

I like the tire idea.  So I got some used tires from a friends daughter-in-law.  They are not to big, but this morning I will spray paint them.  Sounds fun?  Me and my paint!  For those of you that don’t know me, I like to paint everything.  I do it all the time.  Its part of me.  Painting has become what I do since I had cancer.  I clean things up.  I make them new.

Its who I am.  Who are you?  Do you know who you are?  Am I painting over the layers of my life and moving on?  Try it sometime, it’s wonderful.

Next topic, Have you ever given away any ‘eggs’ or ‘sperm’?  Did you wonder where they went?  Have they ever showed up at your door?  Do any of you think this might be an interesting topic?  Let me know!

Have a great day.  I am off to paint my tires!   (thank you to whomever took the picture!!)

Bonnie

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My cancer journey is new, just starting this last summer. I am continually reminded how lucky I am. Its only Stage II, hormone positive, invasive without lymph node involvement. It will only be a lumpectomy and you will be on your way to radiation, and home free. I can do this I thought. No problem.

Well just like the cancer came unannounced in the night like a thief, it didn’t work out to be one lumpectomy either. The sneaky little cells just wouldn’t give up the good fight. Okay, ‘it will just be one more lumpectomy’ and then you’ll be done. Nope. Bad margins again. You will come to learn these terms. Its amazing how cancer or disease can increase your vocabulary almost overnight.

After the third try, it was determined I had to have a total mastectomy. Now there is an interesting word, because I was told I had already had the mastectomy earlier…turns out it was only partial. Read up on mastectomies for late night horror reading. Sigh….how many ways to remove a breast!

The strange thing for my case, and I don’t mean to be sarcastic or flip here, because it is a serious topic, but my cancer was here and gone before I even adjusted to the fact I had cancer. They tell me now, it is gone. But, it isn’t over, until it’s over. I have to take hormone therapy treatment for five years. More on that later. So, supposedly, and I guess I believe it, yes I believe it, my cancer was removed. I still have what caused it though, high levels of estrogen. I still have one more breast. It’s supposed to be okay. But there comes this little word…doubt. It hides and lurks in the shadows at night. That’s what cancer does best…cause fear.

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