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The world is amazing. People are awesome.

It’s true that there are some real jerks out there. The guy who cuts you off in traffic. The jagoff who doesn’t hold the door for you when you have your arms full and a four year old in tow. The cashier who seemingly joyfully closes her lane just as you walk up to the register. That Succop kicker guy who single handedly ruined the Steelers chances at the playoffs (ok, ok, it was their own doing, I know.)

But let me tell ya something. People are also really awesome. Here are some examples:

The nurse who jokes around with me when she pokes through my skin to access the port in my chest to administer poison and steal samples of my blood to the extent that I look forward to seeing her.

My mother who helps take my mind off the icky stuff going into my veins by chatting, letting me teach her stuff about her iPhone and playing games like Scrabble.

My dad who reads my mind and makes homemade, ridiculously good chicken soup.

My husband who plays pharmacist (did you take your pills?) housekeeper, chef and World’s Best Dad while I’m out of commission.

The owners of this place and the owner of these places and this web site who all donated to my crazy 5K fundraising project, which you can learn about here Seriously, go learn about it and donate. I am the number one fundraiser of the WHOLE MARATHON right now. Go look now before someone ousts me (which is definitely going to happen.)

This lady. She is ridiculously awesome. Excellent writer. Funny as all get out. Lover of Pittsburgh. Friend of the homeless and sick children. Generous beyond measure.

Also tons of individual friends have donated, bringing me significant joy. (and a sense of “oh crap, I really need to run this race to avoid public shame!”)

My friend who I haven’t seen in about 15 years, who made me two handmade hats for the cold weather!

The friends who have sent me tea – the only thing I can drink during Chemo Weekend. We are having The Pittsburgh Tea Party when this crap is over and done with.

The friends who have given me cool scarves to wear because the cold air just is horrible.

The staff on my team who have sailed the ship beautifully while the captain is barfing below deck.

Senders of cards and packages – you have no idea how this brightens my day!! Mail time (Blues Clues reference for the parents out there) is the best!

The friend who sent me the GREATEST LOTION KNOWN TO MAN that is keeping my hands and feet from horrific side effects from one of my chemo meds. This lotion is magical. So is this friend.

The friend who has three biological kids, five adopted kids and a full time job who cooked me freezer meals and got me a Wonder Woman snuggie – this woman deserves an award!!!

The friends who have whisked my child away to do fun stuff.

People who read and share my blog. I am still blown away that anyone besides my mom reads this.

So, you…I say to you…

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Fighting cancer and homelessness

Running has always been this elusive sport for me.  I’ve always been reasonably competent at any sport I’ve spent time playing.  I can hit the occasional 3 pointer in basketball and I can probably beat most of you in a swimming race.  But this body just isn’t designed for running.  Which is what makes me want to run.

I started running 5k races about two years ago.  I trained with an iPhone app and did ok.  I completed 5 races in about 18 months.  Some of them, I walked some of the way.  Those hills just kill me!!  

When my health problems became apparent, I backed off of the running.  When the surgeries began, I had to quit entirely.  I spent the whole autumn season retired from anything more than a walk around the block here and there.  When the chemo began, even that became impossible, partly due to fatigue and partly due to the cold becoming totally intolerable. So I’ve shifted from running to chemo treatments, lounging and cat snuggling.

 

I started to get really sick of this crap.  So I set a goal.  I would, come hell or high water, do the 5k of the Pittsburgh Marathon.  
The race commences four weeks after my (hopefully) final IV infusion and  two weeks after my (hopefully) final dose of chemo pills are swallowed.  This means I have to train while I’m getting chemo.
This is both exhilarating and terrifying.  What a badass thing to do!  What if I fail?  What if I have to crawl across the finish line?  
You know what, though?  I choose to reject fear and live out of hope.  The belief that by God’s grace and my determination and the support of those who love me, I WILL DO THIS.
I’m determined.  Look how fiercely determined my eye is.

Here’s the other cool part.  You can help in a big way.  By making a donation to my fundraising page you will 1. Motivate and encourage me.  And 2. Support my cause of choice – Light of Life Rescue Mission where lives of poor and homeless men, women and children are turned around daily.  
Here is the link.  If you can’t click it, just copy and paste into your browser. 
 http://www.crowdrise.com/lightoflifepittsburgh2014/fundraiser/jessimarsh
I am asking for your support.  It’s a good cause.
Also?  At this moment I am the TOP fundraiser for the entire marathon!!  Let’s see how long I can hold the title!!

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Suffering

I had chemo today.  So I’m suffering.  My body feels weird. Tired.  Achy.  Queasy.  Uncomfortable.  The cold bothers me in weird ways.  My hands and feet feel stung, or electrified and then go numb. My eyes sting. Sneezing is horrifically painful.  

I walked for ten minutes for the health benefits that movement can provide.  It was hard.  Icky and sweaty and not fun.  
I feel bored at the prospect of being confined to my home until the toxins dissipate or the weather warms.  I feel a little isolated at the moment.  I want soft, warm things around me.  I want to sleep for four days.  I want quiet.  But I want company.  Friends.  I want macaroni and cheese and good bread even though they aren’t really in my self-imposed whole food, semi vegan, semi paleo diet.  I wish I could drink something besides the thousand varieties of tea I have.  I miss sugar.  I miss ice cold drinks.  I feel like crying but tears physically hurt my eyes.  
So, that’s the real deal of how this point in the cycle feels.  I want to experience my suffering in a particular way.  I want it to be characterized by three things:
1. Authenticity.  I want to be honest.  I want to share the truth of my heart.  I want to live out loud and let you see.  We can benefit from each other when we are authentic about our fears, anger, frustrations, limitations, failures and need for one another.  A falsely positive person is a fraud and of use to no one.  I want to be as transparent as I can, especially about the rough stuff.  
2.  Hope.  Yes, I suffer and experience fear.  But.  I have significant hope.  Hope that I will grow old.  Hope that this will become a significant chapter in a long, dynamic, adventurous life.  Hope that others will glean important truths from my experience.  Hope, because God’s ultimately got me.  I am loved.  I matter.  I bask in the glory of hope.  No matter what, I have hope.
3. Wisdom.  I intend to become wiser…deeply wiser…through this.  I don’t want to miss a single lesson.  I’m paying attention to how I operate, how I think, how I love, and how I can grow.  I’m watching for how God moves and how He answers prayers and when He seems silent.  
So, in the name of authenticity,  I’m suffering.  And it sucks.  In the name of Hope, it will be better in 5 or 6 days, thankfully.  In the name of wisdom, I trust God with my suffering.  He is down here in the midst of it with me.  What a blessing.  

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Peace that Transcends All Understanding

When you have cancer or are facing any number of frightening, threatening, tragic or devastating circumstances, it shakes you.  Why?  

Probably because we have some pretty well defined notions of what life is supposed to be like.  We should be healthy.  No one we love should die before they are 90 and then, only peacefully in their sleep.  No one young or good or talented should become ill or injured.  We should not ever be fired.  We should not experience unrequited love.  We should not get fat.  Our beloved goldfish should not go the way of the city water system.  (Well, maybe most of us have come to terms that goldfish have expiration dates.)
But seriously.  We have this idea that if we follow some rules like:
Don’t kill anyone
Don’t steal anything
Don’t cheat
Don’t move someone’s parking space saving chair in Pittsburgh
Don’t say mean things about Aunt Millie even though she is SO awful
…and maybe a few more regarding sex, drugs and listening to Nickleback, we deserve a pain free, tragedy free life.  Where does this garbage come from?  I mean, it’s just simply not true.  Look around you.  I bet you know someone nice and sweet and good who has cancer.  (What? Me? Awwww…thanks.). 
So…if you believe that stuff, I’m asking you to really think about how that belief system holds up.  I don’t think it does for two reasons.  
The first is, umm, reality.  Tragedy befalls the righteous and the wicked just about equally, from where I’m sitting.  Sometimes as a direct consequence of someone’s poor choices and sometimes for reasons we can’t see and must wrestle with.  But there isn’t a naughty and nice list, where the nice escape the tough stuff.
Secondly, The Bible tells us that’s not really how it works.  Look at Job.  And Paul.  They went through crazy scary, bad stuff.  And God loved them an extra special lot.  Think about that.  God allows terrible troubles to fall upon His beloved children.  Weird, huh?
I’ve discussed at length this topic in previous blog entries.  Basically my perspective is that what we tend to experience as “bad” (while it may be terribly painful and not how God originally intended…blame Adam and Eve) God can and will ultimately work it out for our good.  And the point I want to make here is about peace.  I am learning that it is possible to be so confident in God’s loving sovereign nature that one can become virtually unshakable.  Peace that surpasses or transcends all understanding.
I’m not there yet, but I’m growing fast.  I am seeing a new way of looking at difficult circumstances.  Instead of panic, I think “hmm, I wonder what God is up to, here.”  And I watch and I wait and I look eagerly for His hand, for Him moving.
Of course, I still want to take the reins and control this crappy cancer situation like I do with everything else.  I’m quite tempted to say “ok, so the cancer is gone, never to be heard from again and let’s get back to reading books by David Sedaris and worrying about chipped nail polish and if my jeans fit.”  But as tempted as I am to stand up and insist that God turn this wagon around and head for The Gap’s denim sale…the path ahead is the one He chose for me.  It’s terrifying, yes.  But it’s also alluring.  And exciting.  It’s an adventure.  I’m in.  

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Outrunning Cancer

Of course you can’t outrun cancer.  But running while you’re attempting to kick the crap out of cancer is an interesting challenge.  I’ve decided to sign up for the Pittsburgh Marathon’s 5k.  This race takes place at the beginning of May.  My treatments end in the middle of April.  So, I have to train now.  While getting chemo.  

I’m exhausted, just thinking about it.  This might be a bad idea.
But it’s not.  Because physical activity, while it feels like the last thing in the world one wants to do, is actually good for cancer patients.  Many simply don’t feel up to it.  I don’t feel up to it.  But I’m going to do it anyway.
Running is hard for me.  Even in optimal health.  I am a woman of some stature and, let’s just say it, boobs.  When I run, it’s not pretty.  I kind of trudge along.  There is a lot of jiggling.  You could probably beat me in a race on a pogo stick.  Or walking fast.  But whatever.  I run.  
Yesterday I ran/walked (mostly walked) one mile.  It was hard.  I was tired. My body protested.  And I’m in the best part of my chemo cycle right now. I am feeling anxious, imagining three days post chemo, shaky and nauseous, climbing onto that treadmill.  But you know what?  I’m going to do it.
Want to help me?  One of the ways I can employ my aversion to public shame as a motivation tool is to invite you to support my effort by making a contribution.  I’m raising funds for the very excellent Light of Life Rescue Mission as I kick cancer, fear and doubt in the backside.  Would you encourage me by making a donation? 
http://www.crowdrise.com/lightoflifepittsburgh2014/fundraiser/jessimarsh
The more money I raise, the more determined I’ll be to cross that finish line even if I have to crawl.  Thanks for your support.  

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I matter. So do you.

Yesterday, a group of people did something thoughtful, kind and sacrificially generous.  I was floored.  Later, I thought about how it made me feel.  Like, specifically.  

It made me feel like I matter.  A lot.

Feeling like you matter is such a fundamental need.  Feeling like your existence makes a difference.  That you are loved.  Thought of.  Prayed for.  Over and over, through cards and texts and scarves and shoes and flowers and food and snuggies and everything, I feel like the world is whispering to me over and over and over that I matter.  

It is such a galvanizing, strength giving feeling.  When you have cancer, there are moments where you feel like you’re at the bottom of a well and someone is putting a heavy lid on the opening.  My moments like that are mercifully fleeting because people constantly remind me I’m not alone.  That well isn’t real.  And even if it was, there would be a hundred people tossing ropes down and another hundred who had just said “oh screw it” and jumped down, too.  Just so I wouldn’t be alone.

People I’ve never met are praying for me.  Sending me deeply thoughtful gifts.  And the people I know well…you guys just pour out the love.  In word and deed.  And the really really really close people…it’s a wonder you put up with me, let alone lay aside your needs and wants and priorities to serve me and meet my needs.  Over and over.    

And then I think about how I matter to God.  I matter to The Lord.  The Great I Am.  The Prince of Peace.  Alpha.  Omega.  Christ.  The One who made everything…created you and me and lightning bugs. I matter to Him.  And so do you.  

I read recently that God is my biggest fan.  Like…someone else was in awe that God was their biggest fan.  And I thought “can this be true?”  I mean, he sees the grumpy, undisciplined, unpolished, selfish, uncertain, irritable parts of me.  He knows it all…and he could still somehow be delighted with me?  Well He can.  Because of Jesus.  I don’t know exactly how it all works.  Like if He can’t even notice the bad stuff because my righteousness (through Christ) is so glorious.   Or if He sees it all plain as day but it’s instantly forgiven.  I mean, He knows everything and sees everything.  You know what…true theologian I am not.  I’ll leave it to smarter people to try to explain the whole deal with the biblical principles of forgiveness, justification and propitiation.  (Nerd alert.)

The point is just that I’m freaking amazed that people love me like they do.  So I’m kind of astounded that God could possibly even like me.  Let alone love me.  Let alone leave the rest of the flock to go find me…the dumb sheep who wandered off to munch on some yummy-looking clover down the lane.  The only thing the sheep is responsible for is to follow the shepherd.  Because…you know, wolves and whatnot.  And yet…off we go on our own way.  

More than ever, I just want to snuggle up to the shepherd.  Because I matter to Him.  And that’s what matters most.  

You can snuggle in with us.  There’s room.

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A Field Guide for navigating Christmas

My heart is grateful.  Yes, I have cancer.  And I’m getting chemo.  But Christmas is still awesome.  Santa is still coming.  🙂  Still, Jesus was born.  And God is on His throne in heaven.  He is worthy of our trust despite these challenging bumps in the road.  He makes us strong when we are weak.  He provides just what is needed.  Even when that isn’t what it seems like. 

So, when the dog bites, the bee stings, the Scotch tape gets all stuck together, the piece of wrapping paper you cut is too small, your kids are being jagoffs and don’t appreciate anything, the phone will not quit ringing, you burn the turkey, someone else gives your kid the gift you couldn’t wait to give him (oh, no she did NOT!) you forgot the asparagus (that’s a real thing I did) Aunt Martha says something rude about your daughter’s hair, Uncle John has had too much egg nog.  You spill wine on your white shirt, that stupid inflatable snowman will NOT cooperate, someone points out you’ve put on a few pounds.  You’ve run out of money, you’ve run out of breadcrumbs, gas and baby wipes and you’re about to run out of patience…we’ve all been there.  
Breathe.  Acknowledge the frustration.  Notice if you can improve the situation or if it’s outside your control. Fix it if you can.  If not, let it go, move on.  Now stop.  Look around the room until you begin to see the good: your kids enjoying each other and sharing toys.  A hard working hostess flawlessly serving her guests, a gift given out of love and generosity.  New love.  Old love.  Delicious cookies. A teenager helping his grandmother.  Warm glow from the fireplace.  Togetherness despite our differences.   
So, quit your bitchin’.  Look for the good.  It’s right in front of you, Silly.  God is on His throne.  You are blessed.  And you are loved.  

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It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Getting things done around the holidays when you’re healthy is enough of a challenge.  This is my 35th Christmas season and things are a little different.  I bring you…Christmas splendor: the chemo version.

Sleigh bells ring…are you kidding me?!  I don’t know who is making that racket but Mommy is trying to sleep because she was up three times last night maybe almost but not quite having to barf.  So. Shhhh!  Shush!  Everyone just please knock it off with the sleigh bells.
In the lane, snow is glistening…crap.  Snow means cold.  And cold means crazy neuropathy hands!  If I have to walk more then a block in the cold during the bad chemo week…it’s kind of horrible.  My hands and feet go numb and my bronchial tubes spasm.  It’s a carousel of delights, for sure.  
In the meadow we can build a snowman…are you nuts!? I can’t touch snow.  My hands will fall off. 
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…so far, Christmas looks like me hurrying through the mall sweating profusely because I have so many freaking layers on to protect me from the cold. Sweating, vaguely nauseous, seething with rage at the woman ahead of me with seven different Macy’s coupons. It’s real cute.
Bring us some figgy pudding…or anything about egg nog…good heavens.  Stop.  I will puke directly on you.  I’ll do it.  
Here comes Santa Claus…nope.  He’d better not be on his way yet.  You just wait right there, Sir.  I am So not ready.  It takes me twice as long to do everything!!  Sometimes my fingers are paralyzed.  So wrapping gifts is like an immunity challenge on Survivor.
I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus…damned right.  Because “Santa” is basically doing everything.  Like baking the cookies while I sit on the couch with this:
…so it’s not ALL bad.  🙂

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Chemo weekend #3

Well I figured out that last time things were so rough because I was dehydrated.  Well, duh, just drink more water, Fool.  Yes.  But.  

See, when I drink anything cooler than lukewarm, my throat feels like I’m swallowing a porcupine.  So it has to be warm.  You try and drink a bunch of warm crap all day when you already feel like puking.  One can only drink so much tea!!!  I have about 7 different kinds and I’m sick of them all.  

Don’t get me wrong.  They are lovely.  I’m just tired of them.  I want a frosty glass of ice cold seltzer water with a juicy wedge of lime!  Or maybe a margarita, honestly.  But that’s not happening this weekend, that’s for sure.  
The upside to feeling rather crappy is that I do stuff I never do.  Like sit in front of the Christmas tree and stare at it.  
I mean, look at that thing.  It’s glorious!
I’m also reading more, although I don’t always have the necessary concentration.  And I’m sleeping when I’m tired instead of the normal routine of chugging coffee and pushing through.  I reward my body with rest instead of telling it to “suck it up.”  And I take a hot bath with this yummy stuff whenever it strikes my fancy.
Oh man.  You haven’t lived until you’ve treated yourself to this stuff.  It’s like taking a nap on a giant vanilla bean.  (Don’t nap in the bath, though – obviously.)  
So, I’m covered on the bubble bath front, I’m in the market for new warm beverages, and looking forward to the energy surge that will arrive in the next couple of days.  I’m about a 4 on the 1-10 scale today but I’m confident that I’m on the way up.  
You wanna know what’s fantastic, though?  I’m done with chemo until 2014!  So I’m free to enjoy Christmas and New Years like a normal person.  I just need to kick a little ass the next two days or so and then…hand me a Santa hat* and turn up the Holiday jams!  It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year!
*not really – I look absurd in hats!