Salty Zebra

  Bring us back to yourself, O LORD, so that we may return to you; renew our life as in days before. Lamentations 5:21  Do you ever think back to the “Good Old Days?” Times when things were easier, happier? When your children lived at home, or when they were little? Before some major health or job crisis? Do you ever long for that joy to be restored? Jeremiah did. This book I’ve read through over the last week, Lamentations, catalogs the hurt and degradation of his people. This was all well-deserved, as he often mentions, because of how the people had turned away from God, but that doesn’t make it good. Jeremiah knew what life could be like, and he wanted it back.   The title of this book, Lamentations, means, “Expression of sorrow; cries of grief; the act of bewailing.”* This is not sadness. It is not a mild depression or feeling down. This is a desperate, gut-wrenching expression of distress. Jeremiah’s whole world had been turned upside-down, as indeed it had for h...

  Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .  From the time I was given my setup appointment for June 2nd, my husband and I felt like a clock was ticking. On the one hand, we felt like we would get more information at the appointment, including a promised schedule. On the other hand, this appointment would start to make it all real, and it certainly did! I think I came out of it feeling a little shell-shocked. For those interested, and perhaps those who might come after me and want to know for themselves, I'll walk you through our day.  As per usual, we arrived for my appointment about an hour beforehand. My husband is a big proponent of being early! I factored this in, though, and packed us a lunch to eat since my appointment time w...

  Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .    When I learned that I had about four and a half months before I started radiation therapy, I wanted to take advantage of every opportunity to both do the things that were important to me, like my trip with my son, and prepare for the road ahead. They tell you a little about what to expect, but treatment hits every person a little differently so they can't say much for sure. My primary symptoms associated with my tumor (I have lots associated with other illnesses but we're hoping they won't be affected) are nausea and vertigo. My doctor has warned me that these will likely increase as treatment progresses because radiation causes inflammation to the area of the tumor, effectively...

   God knows. He knows what we need and when we need it. Five days after hearing that I was going to probably need radiation therapy for my brain tumor, this book shows up in my mailbox. I am a regular supporter of the Love God Greatly ministry, so I receive their studies automatically and I didn't know in advance what it would be. Turns out, this one is a repeat (which they do occasionally). Turns out, God put everything together just right so that I would have the study I needed, when I needed it.  Radiation therapy brings a whole host of suffering with it. Exhaustion. Not just tiredness, bone-weary exhaustion. I remember that from after my brain surgeries. My body was so worn out that it literally couldn't stay awake for more than 20 minutes straight. Falling asleep sitting up wasn't just possible, it was the norm. Nausea. My worst enemy. I've said over and over, I'll take pain and migraines over nausea. Well, in this case I may not have to choose, I'll likel...

  Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .  There's lots to do before I start radiation in 35 days, and I have to prioritize. When looking at my list, one of the hardest things was cutting my hair. Three years ago, I had three brain surgeries which resulted in a shaved head at the end. That was a tough decision at first, but when I found that I would have several strange, shaved patches, and I had spent two weeks in the neuro ICU not being able to wash or care for my hair properly, it got a little easier. After surgery, I very much wanted to grow my hair back out. There's something about my body and brain that tell me I need to put my hair in a ponytail. If I can't, I just don't feel right. One year later (exactly one y...

  Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor,  check out these posts . So... Crazy week. I wrote my first post in this series last week under the impression that I had four and a half months until I would be starting radiation and I had a lot of things I wanted to do to get ready. I already have ten other posts in this series started in my drafts folder - so much to do. So much I want to take care of. And this week, well that timeline shrunk significantly. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what happened.  Last weekend I had an amazing time with my family. We talked a lot about radiation, and I thought more and more about it. To say I started questioning myself would be an understatement. You see, the determination to begin treatment was made based...

Over the next few months, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation in the fall. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .    Last weekend, my family came together to celebrate my husband's 50th birthday. The timing of this was pretty special as I'd just received confirmation from my medical team that my brain tumor had officially entered progression (at least 20% growth) just a couple of days before, which I explained in my post last week . One of the hardest parts of this process has been having to communicate, at each step, what's going on to my family, especially my children. Don't get me wrong, they've been amazing about it! But I hate seeing the burden of knowledge weighing heavily on them.  Each of my kids have reacted differently to news of my tumor at different stages in thi...

 Have you ever asked God for a sign? How about a really specific sign? How about a flashing neon sign? Yep. That was me. I did that. You see, two years ago the radiologists' measurements on my MRIs showed that my tumor had grown, significantly. Between the MRI that we'd settled on as our baseline, taken about four months after my resection surgery, and the one taken in June of 2024, there was about a 76% increase in volume. Considering you only need to see 20% increase to be considered in "progression" and moving on to the next stage of treatment, this was a lot, even though the tumor itself was still pretty tiny, only about 1 sq cm, so the growth was pretty tiny as well. At that point, my surgeon referred me over to the Tumor Center and said that I'd likely need radiation treatment, though he wasn't an expert and deferred to their wisdom.   After my first, not great, appointment, we were assigned to the head of Neuro Radiology Oncology who was an amazing ble...

 It's coming up to that time of year again, my annual check in with the brain tumor center. This year, as I prepare for my visit, I thought I'd walk you through what it's like. They tell me that rehearsing the scene is helpful, so you get to do it with me! We get going really early in the morning. They typically have me do my MRI first thing so that the imaging will be ready in time for my appointment with the doctor. Traffic at that time of day is terrible, often 2-3 hours for a 35-mile commute, and my husband is a "five minutes early is ten minutes late" kind of guy, but on steroids. So, for an 8am appointment, it's common that we will leave around 5-5:30am. Much of the commute will be stop-and-go, but odds are we'll get there more than an hour early anyways. We do a lot of early! I guess that's better than late though.  We circle downward into a parking garage. Getting there so early, we can often get a spot on the highest floor, but sometimes we...

  Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood.   Exodus 7:20  In February of 2023, I was in a desperate place. I had dealt with migraines for years, but they were getting ridiculous. I got regular migraines, a few a month, but Starting February 21 st of 2021 I had a migraine that lasted over a month. This was terrible, I cannot tell you how awful it was because unless you have experienced something like a migraine and had it last for days and weeks on end you can’t begin to imagine it. But then, in 2022, it was even worse. Around the same time of year, I got another migraine that decided to hold on. And it held on, and it held on, and it held on. I tried a myriad of different medicines. I went all the way to Seattle multiple times a week for migraine infusions. I lived in the dark, with the lights dimmed and the curtains dr...