The Hummingbird

This story has been on my heart for a year. Last summer, I was visiting my sister at her cabin in the beautiful West Virginia mountains (there’s a reason people call it “almost heaven”). As usual, I woke up before she did one morning and went out on the porch with my daily dose of caffeine. It is so quiet and peaceful there! As I watched the morning sun starting to shine its rays through the trees and listened to crackling twigs as wildlife wandered around, I couldn’t help but want to commune with God.

However, this time was a bit different. I tend to do a lot of talking in my conversations with Him and don’t spend enough time listening, so I said, “God, I’m going to shut my mouth this morning so you can tell me whatever you want to tell me.” I closed my eyes, felt the breeze, and listened to nature’s rustling. Almost immediately, I heard a fluttering and opened my eyes. There was a hummingbird right in front of my face! Just as quickly as it arrived, however, it flew away. When my sister awoke, I couldn’t wait to tell her what I saw. Her response was that there were no hummingbirds in the area. Very strange.

When I returned home, I started seeing hummingbirds all the time. If I was sitting on my porch, they would fly right up to me, as if to say, “hello,” and then go next door where the nectar was. They became such a frequent site, I finally looked up the meaning of the hummingbird. On a website called “Spirit Animals and Animal Totems,” this is what I found:

“The hummingbird generally symbolizes joy and playfulness, as well as adaptability. Additional symbolic meanings are:

• Lightness of being, enjoyment of life
• Being more present
• Independence
• Bringing playfulness and joy in your life
• Lifting up negativity
• Swiftness, ability to respond quickly
• Resiliency, being able to travel great distances tirelessly”

Well, I was speechless. Everything I read applied so accurately to my battle with cancer and the lessons I have learned from living with a terminal disease. The details on each bullet point could not have rung more true. God truly did speak to me that day. He reminded me of all these things through the fluttering of tiny wings.

The story does not end there, however. A couple months later, my sister came to visit and as she was looking around the living room, she let out a gasp and turned around to give me the strangest look. She saw something I had never noticed before. She was looking at a picture of our mother, who died when I was 19. The picture had been in the same frame for decades. On the frame was the painting of a hummingbird.

“Be still and know that I am God” — Psalm 46:10

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Mea Culpa

Or perhaps I should have titled this “She’s Baacccckkk.” In either case, after a prolonged hiatus, I’m hoping to start writing again, thanks to the urging of family and friends. This first post of 2016 will be a bit different, however – more of an update than one of my thoughts brought to life on paper – and I apologize upfront for the length of the post. I am covering 10 months, after all!

During the early days of summer, I was at a family function at which I was greeted by a lot of relieved-looking faces. I was surprised to learn how many people had been worried about me because of my absence from the blog and Facebook. I’m so sorry to have caused such concern, and I’m going to do my best from letting that happen again.

When the new year started, I was strongly feeling the effects of chemo, which made me tired all the time, among other things. Still, I went back to school to teach full-time. I was able to do it, but not much of anything else. As a result, writing – whether it was on a blog, Facebook, or communicating in general — went by the wayside.

So, here’s the latest (which means rewinding a bit):

At the time of my last post, I had just started a clinical trial at Roswell Park Cancer Institute that combined an approved chemo drug with an experimental one. The purpose of the trial was to see if the experimental drug would increase the efficacy of the approved one. In my case, it worked – for a while. After two months, my tumors had shrunk, overall, by about 25 percent. One of the biggest tumors was shrunk in half. However, by that time, the drugs were starting to take their toll on my body. Welcome, 2016.

The next five months would be a roller coaster ride (see the About Me page if you want details). My body was so battered by the end of May that I was sadly taken off the clinical trial, which I was convinced had given me an extra seven months of life. My body was in such bad shape that my oncologist said I had to stop all treatment for at least two months – not something a Type A cancer warrior wants to hear! I made the best of it, however, and the best was great!

As my body healed and I became stronger, I was able to have a WONDERFUL summer! I finished a long-held dream to drive all of Route 66, nearly 2,500 miles through eight states – a dream I started making come true 12 years ago. I got to visit with family and friends near and far as I “road tripped” to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. I sat on my patio to watch the sun set over the lake, hung out with friends at the beach, watched scary movies with my sister, and enjoyed quiet moments at her cabin in the West Virginia mountains. Last weekend, I attended my 40^th high school reunion.

Now I’m back to work – in more ways than one. I am once again teaching full time and, as a write this, I’m in the hospital receiving a new chemo treatment. It’s probably no surprise that since I was not undergoing any treatment during the summer, the cancer progressed. Several tumors are now at 2cm, a “line in the sand” if you will. When they get bigger than that, symptoms can start. I have experienced some already, but they have been short-lived. Our goal now is to stabilize the tumors so they don’t get bigger and to stave off new ones. I am on the waiting list of a couple clinical trials focused on immunotherapy, which the oncologist says is my best option right now, but they have yet to open and I’m at the stage where we can’t wait any longer to do something, so I’ve started a new chemo drug that was approved by the FDA less than a year ago for my specific type of cancer and has had some success in Europe. I’ll return to the hospital to get it for 24 hours at a time every three weeks.

In the meantime, please keep praying for this drug’s success and for a clinical trial to open soon and, while you do that, I’ll be writing.

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