For this post, please watch this video. It could change your life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRi4VwcrYmA
A few days ago, I went downtown to Vanderbilt hospital for my scans and check up that makes sure everything is okay with me and the cancer isn't back. I had to get a CT scan of my chest, where they give you an IV (ouchhh, i HATEE those!!! :[) and inject this dye into you so they can see certain parts of your lungs and insides better in the machine. They always said if the cancer comes back... it will come back first in my lungs and then spread other places. After that, I was scheduled to meet with an Oncologist/Surgeon who checks up on my right leg, where I had alll the surgeries (biopsy, bone replacement& knee replacement). He has to make sure all the "hardware" (literally, thats what is it! Creepy.) is in tact and... not falling a part. :P Now that's a thought i love to think about!
In the surgeon's patient room, the doctor sauntered in to give us the results from the CT scan and prognosis of overall...
1. CT scan (my lungs) was CLEAR! Ugh, That is something i'll never tire of hearing.
2. My right leg is weak... 2 inches weaker than my left. So he needs me to really work to strengthen it.
3. We are moving my check ups to ONCE A YEAR! Andd, no more CT scans! Only x-rays& that good stuff. Thank GOODNESSS!
Yes... my parents and I walked out of there with such an enormous sense of relief and gratefulness. Going back to a hospital always brings back the memories of what it was like to live in it... be trapped in it... unsure of whether we'd ever be able to get back into the world outside of it. As I walked the halls and saw patients attached to countless tubes and IV polls, being wheeled in their hospital beds with scared or half-unconscious faces, wondering what was happening to them... I couldn't help but ask this: Why do we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, to realize our lives are so precious?
How many of these people, i wondered, are finding themselves in those hospital beds, possibly their death bed, mourning not nearly as much the pain of needles& treatments& surgeries as they are when they think about their life... and how they know they have wasted it. Oh, what they would give to get it back and do things right. To truly live for Something greater than themselves.
You know... it's not easy for me to go back to the hospital and be reminded of my life there. However, when I look at those patients and remember so clearly being one of them... I rejoice! I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, but my God has brought me through because He wasn't done with me on earth yet. And with whatever years of this mist of life i'm given... I will USE them to live out the purpose& flaming passion He has created me for.
>>> What about you? <<<
Will you wait until it may be too late, to realize what life's about? Will you be content to waste your life, because it's "easier" than truly living? And above all... Will you continue to just not care???
These questions cannot go unanswered.
Talk to me. I want to hear your struggles and doubts.
I want to hear the dream that God's putting on your heart that you're too afraid to go for.
I want to hear you refuse, to waste it.
So, i've decided to break it up and just share my Thanksgiving this post... and then adventures from our last iShine date in Wichita another one. That cool?
Since i moved to Nashville last year from my hometown in Pennsylvania, most of my family is either up there or in Florida. Soo, this Thanksgiving we just had it with the family that we have here. My brother Scot, his wife Marie and their daughter, Savanna who is 2 live here in Nashville. They moved here from California when my parents and i did last year. (the rest of my family, 2 sisters, brother, brother-in-law, nephew, and grandma are coming here for Christmas! incredibly excited)
A Thanksgiving day tradition for me is ALWAYYYS watching the parade! It never gets old to me. I love it every year. It's the only reason i'm out of bed that day close to 9 (and THAT'S a sacrifice)... trust me. ;]
Scot, Marie and Savanna came over a bit later and we all got the dinner ready for that night. Then they stayed over night with us for the next few days and we did little family outings like going to see the Grinch on ICE, taking Savanna to see Santa, practicing my football handling skills with Scot (ha!), and.... our yearly tradition... making gingerbread houses!
My parents and i with Savanna in front of a lovely tree in this crazy huge hotel near us!
