Precious Moments

If you are joining me for the first time, please take a few minutes to read through my archived posts.

The Hartford & Re/Max Results Breast Cancer Ride is THIS weekend, 8/6 & 8/7. I am overly excited to say that my brother-in-law Travis has volunteered to ride with me. We have officially formed the team "Nanny Nanny Boo-Boos". Keep us and all of the riders and event crew in your prayers for safety as we complete this amazing journey. Thank you for your support - love to all!

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It's a long one but it's almost my last post so humor me!

How in the world can it be August already??? And far more importantly and shocking - How in the world can The Breast Cancer Ride be this weekend already??? Oy Vey!!! It seems like yesterday I was pondering whether or not I could find the strength, both physical and emotional, to take on this journey and now here we are, six months later! I can say I honestly don't know how ready I am physically (ok, well to my credit, MUCH more ready than I was in February!), but I do know that over the last six months I have found amazing emotional strength. In part this emotional strength has come from my own soul searching and healing, however the majority of my strength has been built through the amazing support, love and compassion I have received from so many family members, friends old and new and even strangers. I am a very blessed woman, yes I am!

So when I started this blog I was determined to post once a week, at a minimum. Now I see that a little over a month has gone by and I haven't put on so much as a hello. Although I have thought about sitting down, it just hasn't happened because for once in my life I am taking things day by day and finally allowing myself to relish each and every offered moment. Life has been happening the past several weeks and I've been doing my very best to enjoy every second of it. This is something that my husband taught me during my cancer fights - to just stop and take it all in. This isn't easily done for an overacheiving perfectionist with OCD but boy howdy does cancer and all the nastiness it brings with it have the ability to change a person forever! A piece of advise I'd like to give:  coming from someone who never stopped, who always felt there was something more important to be doing, to be accomplishing - JUST STOP! With or without cancer, we all need to just stop and take it all in and live our lives second by second. Don't wait until it's too late! Don't say "that will never happen to me" or "I'll have tomorrow to do that". JUST STOP! Am I perfect at this way of life - heck no, but I'm trying with everything I am to live my life in just that way.

It seems that each and every weekend has been filled with activity this summer. I know I over-committed our family with events but coming out of a year of hell to be blunt - a year of rarely seeing the sun and not being able to smell the first spring showers or summers first blooms or rarely seeing falls gorgeous foliage and missing winters ice-covered shimmering trees; coming out of a year of disconnect I felt very strongly that I wanted to not waste one minute of our time. The times we desparately needed to build happy memories and wash away the bad. And as blessed as I am, I have a husband and children that have been more than happy to go along with my wishes.

We've had several weekends at our cabin, just Darin, the kids and I. We've also had two weekends there with friends from Iowa and an extended 4th of July holiday there with Darin's family. I had forgotten how increbily relaxing it is there. I remember early on in my treatment, Darin would make the drive just to let me sit outside in the forest air even if it was only for a half hour. He knew how at peace I felt there and no amount of arguing with him would keep him from putting in that drive time. I look back on pictures taken there: kids at my side with my blotchy puffy face, hair wrap on, eyebrows thin, cracked lips - oh Lordy Lordy how terrible I looked!  It's amazing, even with blogging and the fundraising of the ride on my mind daily, I still have found a way to put those images out of my mind. That is until I see them as I browse through our photos. It's quite shocking to look back and to instantly feel inside how I felt then. The panic fills my chest and I find that I have to remind myself to breathe. I can talk about my battles until the days are gone but to see it makes it real again. The first time around I didn't allow pictures to be taken and feeling what I've felt in the last few days after seeing pictures of this past fight, well I guess I remember why I didn't want them the first go around. With that said, what hurts us can only make us stronger and even though the anxiety is there when I see myself that sick, I also see the love of my children as they hold my hand and put their arms around me. I can see the love in their eyes and also the ferce loyalty that they have for me. I'll take the anxiety for that.

Jumping back a little bit:  A few months after my one year remission anniversary (the first time around), Darin and I went to Sturgis. He's road motorcycles all of his life, me not so much. We enjoyed the fabulous company of a very dear friend of mine and her husband. Well, to be honest, Sturgis and the Black Hills was their honeymoon and we tagged along! Anyway, after that amazing week I decided I wanted my own motorcyle. This was nothing more than big girl talk until we moved to Minnesota and I saw woman after woman riding their own bikes. So in true Darin fashion, he bought me a small bike to start out on. This was the summer of 2009. I was instantly addicted and ready for a "real" motorcycle. We put hundreds of miles on just putting around our beautiful state. There was just nothing like being free. Wind in the hair, thoughts floating - just free. So when the spring of 2010 rolled around, I saw a Harley Davidson that I just LOVED! The idea of buying it came and went when I relapsed that same month. I remember calling Darin after everything had been confirmed and a co-worker brought him home immediately. I met him in the garage, hugged him tight and when he asked me what I needed from him I said "let's ride". We got on our bikes and just went. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to talk, I just wanted to float away and that is exactly what we did. He didn't ask any questions, he just said ok and away we went. I have no idea how far we went; I honestly have no idea even where we went. And when my bike turned us towards home, I guess that was my minds way of saying it was time to cope. But for those couple of minutes or hours or whatever it was - I was free from it all. Two months later Darin bought me that Harley Davidson Softail that I just loved and the poor thing sat in the garage with a little over 200 miles on it for nearly a year. When the snowed melted this spring, when I had gotten the green light to go out - oh boy did we go out! We've enjoyed putting on almost 1,000 miles this summer and hopefully a few more hundred to go! It's a family affair. Emi rides with Darin (she moves around too much for me!) and D rides with me. Absolutely positively wonderful!

In June my training kind of went belly up. The kids went to stay with their dad for a little over a week and as they are my existence, my life went a bit off kilter. I wouldn't call it a problem necessarily, but when you put your every effort into making sure your children and husband are happy, content and protected - well your life becomes more about them than about you. I know many women can identify with this, especially the empty nesters. Unfortunately when you have a divided family the empty nest comes and goes and comes and goes and is extremely hard to deal with. I have found since my second fight with cancer that I am even more effected by the kids being gone than I ever was. I had three solid months of dedication and focus with my training and my overall health and the day I woke up and D and Emi were not home, I just kind of said the heck with it. My normal was gone. I guess a little of me felt my worth was gone. Afterall, being a stay-at-home mom means my job is my children and husband. So for a week I slept until 9 or 10 a.m. Darin and I ate out more than I cooked. I trained maybe, maybe half as much as I had been. I pretty much shut down. And then they came home - oh thank God they came home! The problem was that even though they were home, I found I was having a hard time finding my motivation again. I had been feeling very tired and headaches were coming nearly every day. My body was hurting, joints aching and the like. I ignored it for a couple of weeks but when after the 4th of July holiday the icks were still nagging me I decided to go to the doctor. I had picked up an infection somewhere that my body was not liking at all. My levels were tanking and as I feared, the doctor wanted to do an infusion. By the grace of God, the infusion proved successful and I rebounded quite nicely. Nasty blood disease 0, CJ 1! HA!

In mid-July Darin and I were blessed with a night in Minneapolis with the Kolling family. Joe, Angela and their son Andrew and Darin and I had supper together and a great few hours after sipping drinks (ok, well maybe gulping drinks ;). The laughter was the most theraputic action I had felt in a while. As you might remember, the Kollings lost their eight year old daughter, Morgan, to cancer a few years back. We formed a fast friendship with them, one that will only continue to grow. What I thought would be an emotionally spent night was an evening of laughter and joy and pure love. The Kollings are truly my heros, undoubtedly my heros.

Many more activities have come and gone and each one has been well preserved with tons of pictures. This is something I have learned to embrace whole heartedly. I was never one to want my picture taken. I'm too fat, I'm too short, my hair doesn't look good today, I have the wrong shirt on. Not any more and people - if you are anything like I used to be just put your big girl panties on and take the darn picture! When I blew up nearly 30 pounds during treatment because of the side medication I was going to fight Darin tooth and nail about any pictures being taken. That is until he told me through tears that pictures may be all the kids have of me. After the initial shock of hearing him concede that I may die I realized he was right. Good hair day, bad hair day, no hair day - bring on the camera. God forbid I be too vain to give my children and husband a material piece of me should I pass on. Lesson learned.

One special moment that I feel the want to share was making the choice to attend my family reunion after eight years of being a no-show. I've had my reasons for not going and in my mind, even up until a few months ago, I felt those reasons were justified. Nonetheless, my heart tugged me in that direction the third weekend in July. As we walked up to the picnic shelter in that small town in Nebraska that I had avoided all of these years, I saw my aunts and uncles, I saw my great aunt and uncle, I saw my cousin and her family and I took a step back when I realized how much older everyone had gotten. And then I realized how much older I am. And as my aunt hugged me, I felt her body start to shake and she grabbed me closer and with an unsteady voice she told me how thankful she was that I was able to be with them this year. It was then that I knew why I had to be there.

Well I know there are several more precious moments of my summer to share, but if anyone is still reading this I'm sure you are about crossed eyed by now so I'll attempt to bring this post to a close! I'm going to sign off with a little story of mishap from my training..........

Tuesday morning I woke early to the sound of thunder. I haven't been riding very much so I knew this week leading up to the ride I needed to be on the road every day, even if for a short ride. So I drive the kids to school through a little mist but nothing too terrible. When I got home I checked weather.com and saw that the precipitation percentage was only 10% up until 10 a.m. I thought - no worries, I can easily get in 15-20 miles before then so I got ready and set out on my ride. I was out about 11ish miles when I looked west and noticed what appeared to be lightening in the far distance. To be safe I turned around and started riding towards town. I was about five miles from home when I turned onto a county road to head west. I was nearly stopped dead in my tracks by huge gusting winds that seemed to come out of nowhere. I shifted to my easiest gear and made it about 100 feet when I looked ahead and saw it - a wall of rain coming straight at me. And before I could think of what to do I was being pelted with grape size rain drops. Not being able to see two feet in front of me, I unclipped from my pedals and darted for the ditch. I found a grove of trees and bushes that I was able to burrow under and I held on for dear life as the wind blew the trees nearly horizontally over me, the rain pounded on my back, the thunder shoke my body and lightening flashed all around. At first I thought, "ok, this totally sucks but it'll be over in 10 minutes" but after twenty minutes I realized I may be in trouble. I dug my cell out of my back pouch and realized the weather had knocked the cell service out. So I calmed myself down and thought, "ok, this totally sucks but it'll be over in 20 minutes". Well, 20 minutes came and went and as I desparately tried calling out on my cell with no service I found my resolve fall apart and the tears started to spill out. I remember thinking, "Seriously God? I live through cancer twice and am living with a deadly blood disease and you are going to let me die in a ditch in a storm that wasn't even supposed to happen for another hour, in a place where no one will find my body for years!!!" Well, after exactly 42 minutes the rain lifted enough for me to crawl out into an opening where I finally got cell service. I called Darin, totally fell apart when he answered and proceeded in begging him to come and get me. At the same time I'm talking to him I turn and look to the right and about 100 feet ahead of me is a farm house with a huge garage and a nice huge awning. I found very little humor in that moment but in looking back I think it's very fitting that I say "yep, this is my life, bring it on"!

Please remember my mission and the reason I started this blog.

*** The Hartford & Re/Max Results Breast Cancer Ride***

Fundraising Goal: $1500.00

Donations Received: $1830.87

(Donations can be still be made online by following the link on this page or by mailing a check made payable to “Breast Cancer Ride”, Charity “CJ” Bartels, P.O. Box 425, Cambridge, MN 55008)

PLEASE remember: even if you can't donate, spread the word and make people aware - cancer is still killing adults and children at an alarming rate. We all CAN make a difference!