Life is Precious

I have spent the last four weeks in chemotherapy, two weeks on, one weekend off. It has been relentless, painful, emotional and a downright energy drain. The standard "Ara-C" for two weeks in order to "induce remission" in leukemia patients, didn't scathe this nasty cancer beast.
It left me feeling like a failure, having to come home and tell my sweet husband that it didn't work. Each day he awaited the results patiently, only to find that nothing has worked as of yet. I could hear the tears in his voice and the pain in his heart each time I had to explain for four weeks straight, that nothing was indeed working.

So...home I came, each week, drained, defeated, feeble in mind and spirit, exhausted, nausious, with pain in every bone in my bone of my body and tears in my eyes. Defeat was beginning to take it's toll on me. I mean, there I was, on top of one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, in close to four feet of perfect powdery white snow, in a beautiful cabin. But all I could think about was how I was letting my family down. I am the main income provider. Me not working has cost us so much: we are about to trade in one of our vehicles, we have this beautiful cabin that we cannot afford and we're behind on rent. The electricity bill is on it's second notice. Quite frankly, I am scared out of my mind, and so is everyone else around me.
And then to make matters worse, my toddler brought home bronchitis from preschool, and has given it to me. If I don't beat it VERY soon, I am sure I will be hospitalized to prevent it from causing a more drastic dip in my blood cell counts (when one has cancer, any small illness can escalate and take over one's entire immune system).

So, as you can tell, I was at the point today where I had just about "had it". Have you ever reached that point? Where any single thing, even a trivial thing, could occur at any moment and automatically become the "last straw" that causes one to either scream at the top of ones lungs, or just burst into tears and fall into one's pillow, crying for hours? Well, today I was there. And you know what? I didn't do either of the above.

As my husband and I drove home together in the snow, and I was so tired of everything. I quickly meditated upon a small prayer asking God to help me be more grateful and give me something to help me understand life more. Two seconds after my humble prayer, a HUGE pick-up truck came careening down the mountaining out of control, sliding in the snow sideways towards our small Jeep, taking up the entire road. There was no way to avoid him. My husband slowed down and pulled over, but there was no way to avoid the truck. He glanced at me like he knew what was coming, reached over and held my hand tightly and just waited. The truck continued to slide all the way down the hill towards us, still out of control. Approximately two feet in front of us, it finally came to a halt as my husband and I glanced at each other in amazement that we were ok, and that the truck had not hit us. We continued up the mountain in silence for awhile, and then he said, "You know, we should get out and enjoy this beautiful weather. Let's go home and play in it." So, just like my Las Vegas vacationing neighbors, there I went, careening down the hill in the snow in childlike oblivion on a huge, rubber innertube. I breathed in the cold, refreshing air, screaming like a child as I enjoyed sledding, then pushed my toddler down the hill, too, and enjoyed watching him as he ran back up the hill again and again for more. A tear came to my eye (and probably almost froze there in the 30 degree weather) as I watched Carly, my Mom's dog, prance around in the snow like a gazell and then run up the hill to play and tackle me in it. We walked hand in hand, still just as in love as we always have been, and even though I was physically challenged with it all, emotionally I was in my glory and I felt more whole and more healed than I have in a very long time. Life is precious.