Anything For A Friend Event

Anything for a Friend is just that....anything for a friend.  My event was magical at best...filled with more love and support than one heart could hold.  What a wonderful opportunity to experience the goodness of others as they did 'anything for a friend.'  I could spend hours sharing the many, many acts of service rendered on my behalf.  I could share the laughter and the tears that are a part of this experience.  With pictures and words, I could string together a chain of inpenetrable friendship and love.  Right now though, my mind lingers on my greatest insight...'and a little child shall lead them...'

The week of my event I answered my front door to find a sweet little toddler standing there holding a pizza with a card clutched tightly in his tiny hand.  As he and his mother entered the door, he immediately ripped open the card as he excitedly announced that he sold pizzas for me.  The 5, one hundred dollar bills that fell to the floor were unmatched by the obvious joy that this little one felt at doing something for this woman he had just a minute before met.  Two years old and his mother had already taught him that service is full of love, excitement, and unadulterated joy. 

The night before my event a young girl came to my door with 114 cupcakes she had spent the entire day making.  As we talked about my event and the upcoming ones, she extracted a promise from me that I would let her help with those who follow me.  She too had the vision of what it meant to spend her time and energy on something even bigger than what she knew it to be.  At a young age, she saw an opportunity to do something for someone else and she took it.

Not sure how to begin to describe the two young men who have touched my heart in such a profound way that I struggle to contain the emotion when their faces flit through my mind's eye.
Tyler, who came to the event, became ill, went home to take some medicine, and returned to be there.  As I introduced him and acknowledged the goodness of his heart, he turned his head into my shoulder and began to cry.  Tyler is 14 and cancer is ravaging his young body. The love I felt from such a young person battling such a deadly battle is now permanently etched in my heart.  Follow Tyler's story at  http://fight2thefinish.com/todays-tender-mercy/

Then there is my sweet Dylan who is the 9 yr old son of one of my 'other daughters' who is fighting a losing battle with brain cancer. His time here on this earth is short and he seems determined to fill it helping others in spite of his physical limitations and ailments.  Dylan was there at the event, money in hand to contribute.  Dylan won a raffle item...a large stuffed animal and when his name was read as the winner, I couldn't have been happier.  That happiness quickly turned to tender awe as I watched him being pushed in his wheelchair to Samantha...a little 6 yr old also battling cancer.  Without hesitation, he gave her his winnings and watched as she hugged it close.  He returned home and spent the next week putting together a lemonade stand and bake sale to make money for his new friend Tyler.  He was successful beyond measure.  Love always prevails...even if it is for someone you just met.  Dylan's life is the ultimate measure of that. http://www.dylandshaw.blogspot.com/

So when I say that my event was a success...this is what I am referring to.  These are children whose hearts have been changed through a challenge that as adults, we run from.  The world has not yet taught them to run from their fear and anguish so they embrace it with the purest forms of service and love.  They have taught me so much about love by the innocence through which they give to others in the midst of their own fight to survive.  What a wonderful word this could be if we could all return to that place of innocence that allows us to forget ourselves, love more freely, and share who we are with those around us.  Through the eyes of children, I am reminded how simple life can be...even in the wake of a storm, when we reach out to others.  As a result, the winds have quieted, the storm subsided and my hope renewed.  How does one adequately express gratitude for that?   

Never underestimate the power of the simple acts of kindness we all hold in our hearts. 

Gratidue and love always....Cyndi

One more surgery...

Today I went into surgery for the removal of my port. As Katie and I sat waiting, memories of my last surgery flooded me. I found emotions that I have avoided feeling surface as we talked and shed a few tears. It wasnt until I felt the bright, sterile coldness of the operating room that the emotions fully reached the surface. Fortunately, there was only a few moments until I drifted off into the safety the anesthesia provided. I will never forget the day that I had my double mastectomy. I waited to go back to surgery under the watchful, protective eyes of my children and family. I was heavily clad in courage until I left the security of their love and was wheeled down the hall towards the operating room. As I rounded the corner, there leaning against the wall was my youngest son Mitch. He smiled but it did not hide the tears running down his cheeks and the sadness in his glance. How grateful I was that his sweet face was the last I saw before I went into the operating room. Katie was unable to be there that day and although the reason that kept her away was important, I missed her. It was after I recovered the anesthesia that I realized that through the windows of my heart, I had seen her there, with Mitch, as I was wheeled by. That was a blessing from a Heavenly Father who knew the heart of a mother that needed to see each of her children before she underwent such a major surgery.  On that day, as the doors to the operating room opened and the starkness of the room hit me, my own tears began to fall. The anesthesiologist asked the reason for my tears and I remember feeling surprised that he would even need to ask the question. I cried out I didn't want to do this, placed a hand on each of my breasts and drifted away from the emotion that was choking me.

After that, there wasn't a lot of time to think about the loss I had experienced. There was recovery and preparation for chemotherapy. It just was what it was and I avoided the emotion attached to the experience. Even the scars, the drains, and the pain were unable to distract me from the denial in which I protected my hurt. I was surprised by that but greatly appreciative of the shelter it afforded me. My surgery today cracked my shell and opened up avenues for the pain to begin creeping though. I felt vulnerable and insecure for the first time as I made my way from surgery to my first radiation treatment. It wasn't until I was lying on the cold, steel table under the colder machine above my head, bare from the waist up that the reality hit me. What was once a most intimate, personal part of my body was now the drawing board for two radiologists as they marked with red ink the pathway for the radiation to follow. They were sensitive and kind, professional and confident... but still, unaware of the emotion I was feeling.

I left the hospital with a heavy heart, longing for the time that my body would become my own again..private and sacred. Life is hard and we are faced with loss and disappointment that time often forgets to give us the opportunity to prepare for. I am not sure I could have dealt with these feelings as I entered chemotherapy. Often we are blessed with a delay in the full awareness of the gravity of our experiences until we have the strength to process and embrace it. To me, that is yet another evidence of the tender mercies that are a part of being a child of a loving Father in Heaven. And when we come face to face with the tragedy we have experienced, He is there with His eternal promise of peace and comfort. Truly, He has never left me comfortless when I have prayed for His peace to remove the sadness, fear and anxiety that on occasion, nipped at my heels with every step I took. So, as I shed a tear or two, I reflect back to the words of one of my favorite songs that I shared early in my blog....'my tears are not a surrender....but for now, just let me cry.' My own tears are not a surrender...they are the means by which my heart will heal from the losses I have experienced these last six months. It would be foolish to sacrifice so much so that my body can heal and avoid the tears that will heal my heart. So for now...."Just let me cry. I know its hard to see but the pain I feel isn't going away today. So just let me cry, til all my tears have fallen. Don't ask why and don't ask how.  Just let me cry."

Gratitude and love always...Cyndi

Lady Antebellum - One Day You Will...

Now that the worst of chemo is over, my thoughts have turned to 'living' again.  Mostly, I find my mind wandering back to what life was like before I was diagnosed and what it meant to be diagnosed with cancer.

Prior to my diagnosis, I was in a dark place.  Life had taken its toll on me and without realizing it, I had let hope for a brighter future slip from my grasp.  My heart was slowly giving up and letting the light of hope dim.  I was able to hide it from others but my family knew it and felt helpless to help me. I had held fast to hope as it pertained to others but at the end of the day, I would slip into the numbness of hopelessness for change to ever occur in my own life.  A devastating divorce six years prior had cast a spell of disillusionment around my heart. The initial years of loneliness had caused me to pray for the silence of the need for love.  Professionally, disappointment and false starts had earmarked all my efforts to succeed.  Some of my children continued to struggle with poor choices as they ran from the heartaches in their own life.  The others were bearing the heartache from their own disappointments and heartaches. My prayers often echoed the words from one of my favorite songs as I questioned how heaven could remain silent when I was out of words. 

I had found the lump in my breast late summer.  From the moment I found it, I knew I had cancer.  I remember laying in bed that night saying my prayers with a sense of bitterness as memories of the battles I had fought most of my adult life flooded my thoughts. I cried thinking that my life would end without the promised blessings of love, success, and happiness becoming a reality.  I didn't have health insurance which in my mind, meant that I would never recover financially.  Without even thinking about it, the lump became the private fear that completed my plunge into hopelessness.  It wasn't until December that I found the courage to begin the process of validating my initial awareness that I had cancer. My physician, Dr. Tom Matthews, is a personal friend and spiritual leader who has been with me as I have experienced some of the greatest disappointments and heartaches of my life.  With tears in his eyes, he told me I had cancer.  With tears in my eyes I looked at him and all I could say was a broken "Wow...I just can't get a break can I?"  I will never forget the compassion in his eyes as he shared my sorrow. Katie was with me and neither one of us knew what to say as we walked to our cars. I sat in my car as Katie drove away, not knowing what to feel.   Slowly, tears slipped from the broken places in my heart as I allowed them to escape down my face.  As I sat there, I heard a voice as clear as if someone was sitting there with me say.."Cyndi, you did not get cancer to die, you got cancer to live."  I can honestly say that in that very moment, fear left the equation my diagnosis had established and my heart felt light.  And I can add to that honesty that it has not returned.  I've cried tears of fatigue, discomfort...and tears of joy but hope has burned bright.  I credit that to a Heavenly Father who loves me and surrounded me with spiritual and temporal angels.  I humbly acknowledge that the goodness of others have held me up when I wanted to fall and sustained me when I doubted my ability to continue in the process.  Truly, I have been surrounded by the goodness of family, friends, and strangers who kindly kept the light of hope glowing.  On the times when it was merely a flicker, there was always someone there to gently blow on that flicker until the glow was renewed.  As a result, in the midst of these past difficult months, I was able to emerge from the darkness that had previously taunted me.  For that I am eternally grateful.

I've learned that fear is the beginning of hopelessness.  Fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of life, fear of love, fear of success and countless other fears that life exudes, are all the catalyst to an absence of the hope we need to secure our hearts desires.  On the eve of my last chemo treatment, fear taunted me with the possibility of being susceptible to a recurrence of cancer without the treatments.  And I cried...tears of uncertainty for what my future might bring.  I realized that in the presence of fear, I had no faith to maintain the hope that had sustained me during the long winter months.  I made a personal commitment that I was not going to live my life in fear.  Most likely, I will one day die from cancer.  In the meantime, be it a year or thirty years, I choose to live.  I realized that if I am entertaining fear, I can't live with hope.  I can only exist.  And I have wonderful children and grandchildren who adore me, friends who love me, and family who sustain me.  And I never want to go back to the darkness that was consuming me.  I believe in that quiet voice that spoke above my tears and the fear associated with my diagnosis.  I believe in the source from which that message came and in the love that accompanied it.  I trust in those comforting words...

"Cyndi, you did not get cancer to die, you got cancer to live."

Gratitude and love always...

Cyndi

On Tuesday, I will have surgery to remove the port through which my treatments were delivered.  It has been painful and appears to have embedded into the vein.  I look forward to the removal.  I will also begin radiation that day which I will have daily for the next 8 weeks.  Onward and upward!

Race for the Cure

On Saturday, the day after chemo, we participated in the Walk for the Cure 5K Race in Salt Lake.  Friends of my sister Amy who walk yearly, sponsored me on their team 'Bookin it for Boobies.'  My daughters and my sisters excitedly joined them and insisted on pushing me in a wheelchair.  I was apprehensive at best, unsure of how I would be feeling.  How grateful I am that they encouraged me to come.  I was tired, a little out of it but so humbled by the experience.  As we walked the distance, we were surrounded by over 16,000 other walkers who walke for a variety of reasons.  Some to support the cure, some as survivors, many to honor a loved one who had lost their battle with breast cancer.  Irrespective of the reason for their attendance, there was a comradary and sense of unity that I have never experienced before.  The majority of us were strangers to one another but for this cause, the barriers that might have otherwise separated us merged into a wall of compassion and service.  As I looked forward, all I could see was a wave of white and pink t-shirts representing a committment to humanity.  Behind us...the same.  As the race ended, the survivors were positioned to walk together in order of their years battling and surviving the disease.  As I took my place among the newly diagnosed, I was overhwelmed with a sense of sisterhood and strength.  The sight was incredible but what it represented was a committment to the hope that allows us to continue to fight when our strength was gone.  It was only fitting that as we lined to stairs that we were surrounded by those who had walked with us.  Those who selflessly gave of their time and resources to show an outward gift of support and courage to those who were living with this disease.  At the end of the tribute, white doves were released into the air symbolizing the hope that was inspired in each of us that day. I felt honored to be among these great people whose lives had been touched in some way by the tragedy of breast cancer and yet had rose above their fears of the uncertainty of life and 'walked' to make a difference.  I am so grateful that because of my diagnosis of cancer, my eyes and my heart have been opened to the many, many opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others.  This experience has added dimensions of service and compassion to my life and to the lives of my family that have changed our hearts forever.  A special thank you to my daughters Katie, Angie, and Amy, my sweet friend Aubrey, my sisters Linda, Amy, and Donna for supporting me and making it possible for me to be a part of this event.  There was laughter (silly t-shirts) love, and a spirit of sisterhood that is forever imprinted in my heart from that special day.  How grateful I am... 

 How funny were our t-shirts?

Baby Sophie walking for gramma!

 Newly Diagnosed

 Love my girls....!

 16,000 total...

 Sister of my heart....Becky

 Donna and Linda

 Who cares what we're wearing!  Support from a stranger!

Gratitude and love always....Cyndi

Below is a link to the song that was played in tribute to the survivors at the race.  There are some images that are real, that represent some of the harsher realities of breast cancer.  Most of the images are of hope and love and support.  I hope that this is the message you will glean from it.  I apologize ahead of time if any of you find them offensive.  The video included carries a power of the realities that were represented by those who supported and walked today.  It is a song sung by Melissa Ethredge entitled 'I Run for You.'  I loved it...Cyndi

http://youtu.be/sEZHISEL4lk

Last Chemo Tx!

 My last chemo treatment was definitely a celebration.  I was surrounded by the people who have loved and supported me and whom I consider in every sense of the word to be my family.  My parents, Katie, Angie, Steve, Sophie, Amy, Mitch, Amy, Carissa, Nate, Derrick, Joe, Tammy, Brylee were all there to cheer me on and celebrate the end of this part of the road with me.  Amy brought flowers and chocolate strawberries, Brylee gave me a pink toy, mom brought doughnuts and there was enough joy to share with everyone there that day.  It feels like a blur to me but I do remember a lot of the usual Tangren teasing, laughter, love and support that has made me who I am.  There is no question that without the love and support of such wonderful friends and am family, I would not have been able to endure this with the positive, hopeful attitude that has been with me.  A special thank you to those who took of their time to stop in with a hug and a congrats on this final day of chemo!

Gratitude and love always...Cyndi

Final Chemo!

Tomorrow I will complete my last  round of chemo.  My last treatment left me physically and emotionally tired...dragging to make it through the responsibilities of each day.  Tomorrow comes with mixed emotions.  One one hand, I am grateful to be able to put this part of my cancer journey behind me..to regain strength and the spunk that makes me who I am.  Now, my thoughts turn to living with the knowledge that I am susceptible to a recurrence in the years to come.  That thought ignites some fear...the fear that occupied a place in my heart before cancer rescued me and restored hope into my life.  Funny thought isn't it?  That cancer restored a hope for my own personal life that had been lacking? 

I have learned that irrespective of the hope that we have for the challenges others face, if we are lacking our own..life can feel empty and lonely.  No matter how much good one may be surrounded by, without hope, the experiences lack the lustre that love and goodness should and can add to our earthly experience.  I am grateful for the hope that has lit the way for me during these long winter months.  Hope that came in the form of service and sacrifice of others.  I can honestly say that without it, I would be in a different place than I am right now. I have been blessed in ways that I could never articulate and not once have I doubted the source from which those blessings came.  It is so true that God uses each of his children to do His work on this earth.  Any disappointment that I may have experienced has been compensated for by the charity of others...often times strangers.  Never underestimate your ability to make a difference in the lives of others.  Just knowing that someone "sees you" can make an unbearable day tolerable.

I am committed to living life again, to sharing the lessons that I have learned and to live life to the fullest and trust that someone wiser than I has a plan for me.  I am hoping that plan is cancer free but if it is not, I have been blessed by the goodness of others to know that I can and will have the strength I need to face anything placed in my path.  I don't want to live my life under the shadows of what might happen or what could happen.  I am grateful to those who have moved past their own pain and allowed their lives to strengthen and support me as I have faced this difficult time.  I hope that in doing so, your lives have been blessed as well.  That has been my prayer.  More than anything, I pray that you will know of the eternal gratitude I feel.

I haven't written much these last few weeks.  I have been emotionally and physically spent with little left to offer at the end of the day.  I am grateful that those days are coming to an end and hopeful that radiation will a smoother ride. 

Gratitude and love always...Cyndi