It's Been Awhile....

The Cancer Care Center waiting room

It's 9:30 in the morning and I am sitting at the Cancer Care Center at St. John's Hospital.  It's Friday, chemo day. On on a normal day my mom goes to work at the hospital extremely early for meetings and such before I meet her for her chemo between 9 and 10 am.  Today, because she was feeling very tired, I decided to drive her into work myself and just wait in the waiting room until her appointment.  It's the first time I've had the chance to observe the waiting room, to really take in what goes on around here.  Immediately my eyes are drawn across the room to a couple in their 60's. They are sitting on one of the benches in the waiting room, the husband with his arm tightly around his wife, her hand on his knee as she rests her body on his for support. (I'm writing this as I watch!)  They are laughing, staring into each other's eyes and even share a little kiss.  So sweet!  My eyes drift to another woman in her 60's, alongside her is her mother, probably in her 90's.  The daughter so lovingly gets her mom coffee, takes her book out for her and they chat about trivial things waiting for their appointment.  She was doing little small simple things for her mom, but it is the little things, right? I can feel the love between them!  It was one of those moments where your insides smile.  Do you know what I mean? There was so much love in this waiting room this morning, what a blessing I came early!

Women's Day article

The room started to clear out so I picked up a Woman's Day magazine from March.  I opened it up somewhere towards the beginning, right to the page titled, "tender loving care, one family, three perspectives on what it's like when someone you love is chronically ill."  What are the chances.  Well, I better read this I thought to myself. someone wants me to.  The story was about three generations of women and how caregiving for the grandmother, who was ill, affected all of their lives equally.  My favorite part was the daughters account, she essentially gave up life as she knew it to care for her mother but found that it was exactly where she needed and wanted to be, "As the years go by; I am more and more convinced that I have been at the right place in the right time doing the right thing.  How often in life do we get to acknowledge that?...I have been stepping in my mother's sun, absorbing all the light I can," she says.  I LOVE THAT.  I think I love it so much because it hits so close to home for me.  My mom, and my grandma, are my light and she said it so perfectly, I just want to absorb all the light I can.  When it comes to caring for others, most importantly our family, my mom has been the greatest example I could have every dreamed of.  For as long as I can remember, my mom has been the first to jump and make a trip to Duluth anytime my Grandma or Grandpa had an appointment or something happened, on a moments notice.  It's one of my favorite, of her many amazing qualities, putting everyone else first always.  The magazine article was just so fitting for my life today.  There are so many little things like this that have been happening to me for quite some time.  At first I played them off as little coincidences... after so many of these kinds of things, I now know better, and give the credit straight to God.  God is so good.

My mom and I are now sitting in her chemo room, it's kind of weird, we've been here so much that it begins to feel like home around here and most of the time we really enjoy our time there.  We just got done with a really good belly laugh.  She just randomly turned to me and said, "I told Grandma, that sometime this summer I'm going to take her up the Shore and we're going to stop at any gift shop we want!" Well that's something that we all three have in common, my Grandma, my Mom and I cannot pass up a good gift shop!  This is just another example of my mom's amazingly wonderful personality.  She always turns to me and states completely random things that make me gut laugh.  The conversation turned to how I've always loved to buy things. We got the biggest laugh after she told me, what she says, is one of her favorite stories.  I guess I was 4 or so and we were in a long line at the grocery store.  We got up to the line and I said, "Please, mom, let me buy the bread, please mom, please!  I really want to buy the bread."  The bread? Why does my 4 year old want to buy the bread my mom asked herself.  She tried to tell me that I didn't need to buy the bread, that she could definitely afford to buy the bread, she said laughing.  I guess I begged and begged her while starting to put my change on the grocery belt and even the clerk said,"just let her buy the bread."  So I bought the bread with my allowance and saved my mom a dollar off her her $100 grocery bill with a big smile on my face.  Too funny.   My Aunt Kathy just got here and my mom told the story again, laughing even harder this time.  There is no better sound to me in the world than hearing my mom (and my grandma) laugh.  I'm glad it was at my expense too ;)

My mom's spirits are high and her attitude is great, which is so important.  However, the side effects of the chemo are becoming too much.  Last week we went through the problem of not knowing if her chemo was available because there was a shortage (she got it), and now this week they decided to give her a week off of one of her chemo's because of all the side affects.  I pray that was the right decision.  She has just been too exhausted, nauseous and having a lot of neuropathies, which is essentially numbness in her hands and feet.  We are going to assess how she is over the next week and take it from there.  But she is now on the home stretch for her first round of chemo!!  Up next is surgery and then more chemo.  The great news is that next Friday could be her last treatment for awhile, but it is going to be really hard for me.  It will be the first chemo I have to miss.  I will be leading a group down to Haiti on a mission trip.  I know that my Aunt Kathy will be there but it still is hard.  She always has visitors too, which is so nice.  Two chemo's ago my mom's friend Cheryl came to visit.  She is a breast cancer survivor and such a great friend to my mom, helping and talking her through all of this.  That was also the day I played the Reverie Harp for my mom to relax her... haha, lets just say it wasn't likely the best music she's ever heard, but she claimed to like it.

Playing the Reverie Harp

Cheryl and my mom

As for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, it is now under a month away!!!! THANKS to all of you,  my extremely generous family and friends, I am now the #1 individual fundraiser for the Twin Cities walk!!!  I wish all of you could have felt my heart beat with joy the night it happened, it was such an incredible feeling.  So thank you for that.  It was the best I've felt in a long time, knowing that all this money will truly help and affect so many for the better, and hopefully one day lead to a cure.  I am currently a little over $9,000.  Our team is doing fabulous, we are just under $16,000 with a couple thousand that has yet to go through officially.  I dream of a world with no breast cancer, I pray to God that this will happen in my lifetime.  So if you are reading this and you haven't donated, please consider doing so.  Every single dollar helps.  I am serious, and I am thrilled with every single donation, no matter how big or small.  If you guys only saw the look on my face when I get an email stating a donation came through.  I light up inside and so does my mom.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE!!!

So the training continues, I'm thinking I've walked somewhere around 300 miles so far...Gracie is my main walking partner, I think she's more ready for the race than anyone else!! She's walked up to 17 miles with me in one walk! Not bad for a 4 pounder ;)  All in her pink harness and breast cancer ribbons.

Walking around Lake of the Isles

I will be at the White Bear Lake Cub Foods starting at 11am tomorrow, Saturday, July 23rd giving away bracelets and necklaces (from Patina!) for donations!  Hopefully we'll raise a lot of money and have a little fun.

Please feel free to "share" my blog on Facebook or invite followers...you can also put the link to my 3-Day page on Facebook or email it to family and friends...all in the name of ending breast cancer forever.

www.the3day.org/goto/sarahfrakes

www.therackonteurs.blogspot.com


THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!