A HEALTHY CANCER PATIENT—THAT WOULD BE ME

Whatever the task at hand, it’s been my experience that approaching it with a determined attitude of peacefulness is the best way to achieve success.   

Throughout my first month of oral chemo, I’d thankfully experienced minimal side effects.  We’re hoping hard that this chemo protocol has been smashing cancer cells, which traveling through my blood stream, leave a tumor in its wake, here or there.  

Though my natural reaction to each unwelcome tumor is met with disappointed frustration, my chosen attitude refocuses my mind toward acceptance of the inevitable.  You see, my focus has changed from being cancer free to appreciating every day that I have left to freely offer and receive love from family and friends

Over recent months, the tumor in my left flank was surgically removed.  And we’ll not know the effectiveness of this current chemo protocol till mid December when my PET and CT scans are scheduled.  Until that time, we remain hopeful that chemo is attacking the tumor in my neck   Right now, I’m thankful for every day that, though fatigued, I don’t feel ill.

Last night, my two week hiatus from chemo came to an end, which means my second month of oral chemo has begun differently than had been true first time around, as nausea woke me, today, at 5AM, and shortly thereafter, I felt need to reach for the bowl that Will had placed at my bedside, just in case.  By 5:10, I was flushing the contents within said bowl down the commode, followed by rinsing said bowl (and my mouth) at the master bathroom sink, and having brushed my teeth and swirled mouthwash, I’d headed back to bed in hopes of resuming my night’s sleep, which thankfully  I did.

 Once my disappointment concerning nausea awakening me at 5AM had passed, my attitude of gratefulness refocused upon the fact that thus far, all of the components that make up my blood are within the range of normal, and all of my organs are functioning well.

A month ago, I’d worried about beginning with chemo, again, because during these past three years, my emergency hospitalizations had been exceptionally severe.  And that’s why I’m relieved to say that, thus far, this protocol, which awakened my sense of nausea, this morning, has been easily tolerated.  Now let’s hope this current chemo protocol has been as mean and ornery to cancer cells as it has been kind to me.

As it’s highly likely that I’ll be on chemo for the rest of my life, I sure do hope to find that my present protocol is working up to snuff, because as fatigued as I feel, once this morning’s brief bout with nausea had past, Ive not felt ill for the rest of the day.

In fact, other than hosting stage four cancer, which fatigues my source of physical energy, I feel like a very healthy person as long as I’m sitting or lying down.

We just returned from a wonderful week in southern California.  (The photo with Barry and David shows my sons encouraging me to walk back and forth through my house with the sound track to Rocky playing on David’s iPhone, in hopes of increasing my incentive to pick up the pace).  If there’s one thing I have consistently in abundance that would be loving, supportive encouragement on the part of family and friends, which, over these past three years has lifted my spirit and Will’s to float forward on a love boat made of leak proof hope.  Hope for what?  Hope that my lifespan will be extended painlessly via the innovations of modern medical science for as long as possible.

As for today, I wish you a Halloween with no tricks, all treats.  Over the weekend, Will and I enjoyed an hour on our friend’s patio, during our neighborhood’s potluck Halloween party, at which time we enjoyed friends whom we’d not seen in three years.  Beside our hostess, I was the only one who showed up in costume.

This funny hat showed up on line, and when I saw the ears wiggling back and forth, I knew it had to be mine.  Our hostess laughed and said—I knew if only one person showed up in costume that would be you!

🙋🏻‍♀️😊🎃👻😱Annie

EXPERIMENTATION WITH POSITIVE DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUES

Though our three sons did not always act as each other’s best friend, I, as their primary personality groomer, was actually consistently best friends with each of them most especially at times when parental discipline was called for.. (Sounds like the impossible dream come true—right?)

As to my husband’s role at home, Will, being a young surgeon during the 1980’s and 90’s, was rarely home from sun up till dinner time at about 6:30, gifting me with free rein to experiment with positively focused techniques concerning how best to tame natural outbursts of frustration, indignation and anger on my part as I made wise use of natural and logical consequences that led our rambunctious trio of boys to choose to follow my lead.

Other than when they were playing team sports, my sons pretty much did everything, together; the older two chose to include their much younger brother when play took place within our home or backyard.  Needless to say, brothers playing, together, would inevitably experience reason to engage in at least one intemperate ruckus and most likely more, every single day.  As for me  I’d tired of being referee with no idea of who did what or said what to whom being that my presence had been elsewhere unless I heard the younger of the two older boys yelling about a headlock, thus requiring my mediation before their baser instincts came to blows.

Let’s remember my having mentioned that during my sons’ developmental years, my experimentation with a creative bent concerning positive discipline techniques was experiencing stages of development, as well.

🙋🏻‍♀️😊Annie

IF A CHILD RECEIVES MORE FROWNS THAN EYE-TO-EYE SMILES, WHAT THEN?

 It’s essential to acknowledge that the power of suggestion (concerning the absorption of positive vs negative vibes) connecting parent and child is highly significant.  For the most part—it’s wise to consider that parental facial expressions offered up in judgment of a child’s imperfections is what you are likely to receive in return.

 Just as warm patient smiles beget the brightest of smiles as each new challenge is peaceably achieved, the early onset of unconscious disparaging frowns begets the same from a child whose spontaneous outbreaks of rebellious frustration precede deeply anguished temper tantrums (all too often as seen on both sides).

Here is what most parents new to my classes fail to see:  If you hope to tame a child’s temper the first temper in need of taming through tried and true self-disciplined techniques is your own.

Here is another success-oriented insight concerned with raising children whose bright-eyed smiles appear to be effortless more often than not:  Common sense suggests identifying whether your love is offered unconditionally or must the development of your child’s behavioral traits comply with your unconscious unrealistic expectation of achieving near-perfection (which does not exist naturally anywhere in life)?

Just as some children are born to be your kindred spirits, there are children who may be groomed with loving kindness and flexibility toward becoming your kindred spirits once a great deal of patience on the part of the groomer is practiced, moment by moment, because change for the better starts at the top where well groomed leadership inspires (not to be confused with ‘forcing’) youngsters to choose to follow the Pied Piper down the path where harmonic methods of self control are consistently role modeled at home.

How can such a welcome change concerning the taming of emotional reactiveness (on both sides) take place?  By leadership subscribing to an attitude revering 

‘Win-Win’.

Throughout the challenging development of my child-raising years, the imaginative portion of my brain created and experimented with the application of four comprehensive tools that encouraged open-minded discussions while we’d considered realistic resolutions of every conflict that had naturally arisen amongst family members within our home, so please stay tuned—

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

THE-LASTING SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR MOST LOVING SMILES

 Most every babe’s brain is born with an innate capacity to receive and give love in return.  We see this to be true within the delightful light shining bright as a sunbeam from deep within a youngster’s eyes every time we pay a child attention offering our own loving smiles so unconditionally as to win their brightest smiles in return for feeling loved (not being loved) beyond measure.

Offer a child naught but disinterested glances while caring only for his or her physical needs and witness failure to thrive deprive the child of his/her innate capacity to develop a loving personality, which having absented itself sees this unfortunate child growing toward maturity lacking in warm-hearted connections with fellow human beings as in—what goes around comes around.

As most children find themselves somewhere between these two poles, why did I awaken with this train of thought chugging forth from deep within the subconscious portion of my mind, this morning?  I do not know that answer, as of yet.  However, I have faith in the intuitive portion of my brain releasing the answer, sooner rather than later, so no worries, my friends

In fact,  rather than ruminating over why today’s insight-driven thought chose to make its way from within the depths of my mind into yours, let’s relax our processors, thus naturally stimulating the ease of releasing our brightest smiles so as to spread love all around until the reason for today’s depth of thought reveals itself to me, as I know will be true once my processor’s readiness to puzzle through today’s mystery reveals the answer we seek to the conscious portion of my mind.

And lo and behold—having relaxed my mind, completely, here comes the answer within less time than one blink of my eye-

Each photo below reveals love-beams shining clearly through the windows to our souls, offering us snapshots of our naturally interconnected, self-confident smiles.  When people lean in toward each other while taking a picture that says a lot about relationships.

Clearly, these adults offer love so deeply as to gift their children with sound reason to develop a healthy sense of bright-eyed self-love necessary to achieving a well balanced personal path toward many aspects of success (though everyone’s path is likely to encounter a somewhat disillusioning detour, here and there) as each one’s future skips down the yellow brick road until this lesson has been deeply absorbed—there’s no place like home to create the lasting bonds of love’s enduring flexibilities, which, over time, continue to strengthen our most positively focused character traits, immeasurably … Quoting Michaelangelo, whose masterpiece glorifies the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.  Genius is eternal patience.  Ancora imparo—  I’m still learning—and with humility and my sense of humor intact, the same is true of me… so today’s question asks—how often and to whom do you offer loving smiles so generously as to be felt, unconditionally?

🙋🏻‍♀️🥰Annie