So today is a new day....

Hello again, I’m having some problems with the font size again so I’m praying that this works.  My accident was 8 weeks ago this past Wednesday & there has been so much improvement in my level of pain, unfortunately, not as much as I was hoping for as my Dr. had told me it would likely be 6 weeks and I am on week #8.

I have completely stopped taking the morphine.  I’ve nursed a couple headaches now with Advil🤕.  My shoulder still hurts & has brought the left one along for a painful ride as well.

I desperately need a massage on my neck, you know that cartilage that gets really tight when you’re overly stressed out or very anxious?  Well every time I turn my head I have to be so careful because if I turn too quickly it feels like I’m going to rip my head off. No doubt from my fall so it’ll settle (lots of ice & muscle relaxing cream)

Something else I figured out, well, I kind of got to know what can possibly add to my dizzy spells; I do too much in one day, I let my self get run day (I skip my ‘me day’, [self-care Saturday’s]) & just the other I was successful at cooking salmon & rice at the same time which I have not been able to in a few years.  WOOHOO, I lost my ability to multi task not long after my radiation.  But me being me I rebelled & was convinced that I could conquer it again, but nope so salmon AND rice massive win.  


However, as I spun around to grab my cloth I spun back around & with that came a massive dizzy spell so I grabbed my helmet, my mum & Vancouver dad bought me this cool red & black helmet for when I’m dizzy so when I fall I stop injuring my brain.  It’s gone thru enough I’m sure you agree.

So it does not come outside with me.  I do have walking poles that do come with me to help me with my balance.  
I had a friend ask me once why I never worry about falling while walking down Lonsdale?  I thought for a moment to think about that & realized that it’s because I’ve never fallen on Lonsdale before now.  I’ve fallen iIN places on Lonsdale but to my recollection I’ve never fallen on the street itself.  The big ones Have al ways been in my own home not anywhere else.

I guess I can take comfort in that.

So, I’m not playing the cancer card but I am going to play the ‘I’m getting older and I’m out of shape’ card to say goodbye, my back is starting to hurt now.

God bless you all for your continued support.
Melanie 

The Fall Finale PLEASE READ THE FALL 1st

So here I go again;


Let’s see if I can finish the story, there’s not much left to tell.






So the intern(?) finally said “ok I’m going to get the Dr. to come and see you now”.






Well I’ve been very (blessed???) through my trips to the hospital via ambulance &/or firefighters with the exception of this ride because they were 2 women. For some reason I have always had handsome men.


This trip was no different the Dr. walked in & because I wasn't put on any pain killers yet I was very limited as to what I could get away with, so I simply said as usual “Did you just graduate med school?”, he gave me a beautiful smile and said “No but thank you ”, I’m thinking ‘ok either I’m getting older or these Dr.s are graduating much younger then the ones I seem to remember.’ So I decide, ‘nope it’s not me they’re graduating younger.’






They put me through for an x-ray because their CT-Scan was broken was broken.


On the way to X-ray my nurse Susan, not Susie or Sue but Susan,we


laughed at how people shorten names but when they’ve done it for yrs you have to let it go but your new friends you tell them the


name you want to be called, I asked her so I knew hers was Susan.






She knew the stinkin’ pain I was in so as we were on our way back


my curtained room, she said “as soon as the Dr. sees your x-rays I’ll see what FUN stuff I can put you on.” I thought ‘Alright I scored a good nurse, friendly, humorous & soon I’ll be pain free-that part, sadly, not so much.’






After seeing my GP the following day she thinks what I’ve done is badly bruised my ribs and obviously done some serious damage to my tissue & muscles, she prescribed Morphine which I only took when the pain was very bad in the beginning & here & there as needed.






My mum took the 1st week off work, God bless her, was with me because every time I moved it hurt so bad, engaging core and my oblique muscles were excruciating; getting in & out of bed was the worst part. Being mobile to go anywhere was out of the question. The following week she worked 1/2 days & then came over to feed me & put me in bed. Thankfully a friend came & spent 2 nights so my mum could have a break.






My church set up a meal plan for me so some ladies at church we’re bringing me meals as I wasn’t really able to stand for too long & my entire right side was pretty much useless. I can totally feel Gods healing through this entire process & even now as the pain still settles in new places in my back & neck that I have no doubt are from my fall, I know he’s still healing me. So many people are continuing to pray for my body.






Now my brother is staying with me while he works on the North Shore so he’s a big help, he’s doing my dishes & making dinner because I still don’t have a lot of staying power with my right arm. I’m still finding towards the end of the day my right side especially under my shoulder blade is quite painful.






So that’s pretty much my fall story.


I would like to thank everyone, all my friends & family that have prayed for me, fed me, and have been an encouragement to me during this difficult time.


May God bless you in the abundance of blessings that you have blessed me with.


I’ve re-read this 3X so if there’s still typos-I’m blaming cancer🤪






Ever so grateful,


Melanie.

The Fall SORRY NOT SURE Y SO SMALL

In my last blog I left off mentioning a fall I had that for once wasn’t caused  my cancer, (Seizure).  so here’s what actually happened.


It was The 1st Wednesday of Lent & instead of having our Bible study group we all decided that we would go to the Lent service at my Church. I hadn’t been to church in a couple weeks so instead of wearing my usual jeans a toque & hoodie, I decided to go all out (for me it’s all out) dress boots (no tread), did my hair nice I even wore my dress coat, minimal padding.
So I had arranged to get a lift from 2 people in my home group.
So the ambulance came and I asked my friends wife to come with me to the hospital.  Well as soon as they find out you have head trauma from a previous fall (oh yeh, I’ll get to that on my next blog).  They put you right into a bed & into one of those little rooms that give you curtain privacy.  I then had a,  resident Dr. or a Dr. who’s possibly doing a practicum?  Either way he was very entertaining.
I’m sorry but my shoulder is starting to really hurt, 6 weeks later & I still can’t do anything that makes my shoulder muscles engage for too long.  It’s a very gripping story😉 just bare with me.
I will finish the story, I promise.


When we got to church, I should probably mention that it was snowing & had been all day;  well as much snow as Vancouver gets in an average winter.    
So we got to church & I opened the car door & put my right foot down & the moment I turned to put my left foot down I went down head 1st hitting the pavement and rest of my body followed crunching the right side like a piece of paper you throw in the garbage bin.  The worst part was the sound of my head hitting the pavement as it was literally the 1st part of my body that came crashing down & in that moment the crackling crunch ricocheted through my ears.  My friend came running around from the drivers side as I was screaming in agonizing pain and I told him to grab my head we were both fairly certain I’d cracked it open but, by nothing short of a miracle I didn’t.


So his wife called 911, my Vancouver dad & ran into my church to get someone to come out to help me.  Fortunately for our church we have a lady that’s an ER nurse so she new what to ask me and how to keep me calm while I lay on the wet cement in the parking lot on wet cement and in snow that kept coming down.  I was shaking like a 9.9 earthquake had just hit, I was so cold & no doubt in shock as well.  Well The ambulance came within 10 mins.  We are on a direct route for police, fire, ambulance & hospital.  Very close.



Bless you all for hanging in with me,
Melanie

The Aftermath....We’re Back

I need to find a better way!

The MRI results came back clear.  This is all jumpy so that the important stuff I'm having some effects of radiation on my left side strength & balance but nothing really important but I'm gonna stop here because this cursor is jumping all over the place here.

Thanks got all your prayers.
Me

Ocean

I don’t have a lot of time so this is going to be a summed up version of the good stuff, my friend Kim and I were boxing for about 6 or so months give or take until it no longer worked for Kim. I figured I’d keep going but the winter hit and it got dark and cold and rainy and it is off the beaten path and not close to a bus route so that soon came to an end and so did my exercising. So from approx. August’ish until now I’ve sat around complaining how I’m getting bigger and doing nothing about me and that it’s not my fault there’s nothing out there that I want to do!  I want to do my karate and kickboxing again but there was only one place I could do that and for many years they were my competition and I knew I was not at the physical level I was when I trained all those years which would mean swallowing some….a lot….ok…. a ton of pride and straight up that is not easy for me I know I carry way to pride in my accomplishments.  Anyway, I called the school and I’ll say the name cause it ends good for them well and me too.

So I had an initial meeting at Champions and went over some old technique, pitiful,  Toronto Dad remember when you guys were here and I was sure I could still do a ‘round off back tuck’?  Well like probably most people my mind thinks I can still do things that I could do in my teens well nope!!

Anyway, I didn’t feel it call it pride or whatever, I call it not the right time.  A couple months later I called my training buddy Kim again and asked her if she’d consider checking out Champions with me cause the only sport I want to do is Karate and kickboxing and no other school offers it and it has a great and she said sure but I want to make sure everything works out with my schedule because why she stopped boxing so I agreed and we went for another intro and we both felt really positive about it so we signed up right there.  So that was the beginning of March and I am so happy that I’m finally getting off my butt and doing something that is so good for me.  SOOOOOOO happy. And I thought about what my reasons were for wanting to go back into martial arts and came to the conclusion its not to get my black because I already have all my belts I want to look in the mirror and like what I see, I want to feel healthy, I want this new weight of 130lbs (which BTW would’ve be a perfect weight if I could still fightL ) but I want the 130 to turn into muscle not be my jiggy jiggy. 

Other great things have happened, many great things God things,

Through 3 people praying for healing of my fractured ribs (that I got from a very bad cough I had) started to heal the next day and within a 2-3 week period the pain was gone, just gone.

I’m probably missing more.  If you’re someone that knows of a story I am forgetting please post it as a comment.

Alex is working at COBS down at the Quay so for all your bread needs please go and support COBS and you can get your fresh produce and fish as well.  They should be paying me for this.

Ok I have to go, bless you and pray for someone you’ve met for the first time today.

Check out ‘can I pray for you’ on face book a prayer group that started when I returned from my Mexico missions trip.

Thank you.

CLICK ON TITLE 'OCEAN'

I’m dedicating this song to a dearly loved mother, wife and friend to many who recently went home to live with Jesus.

 

Sorry guys

I just wrote you guys an awesome blog, like I mean it took me 15 mins to type because I'm using my iPhone but my screen went blank and its gone so I'm sorry but I can't Retype it so ill try to get to work earlier tomorrow to try to do it then.  But bottom line is I had an MRI on Friday and results on Tuesday.
More good fun non cancer related stuff to tell you but it'll have to wait