Lucky us!

I forgot to show Jolea the picture she won. OneCowgirl sent this to Jolea because she was chosen as a winner of one of her photos. Click on it and it will get larger so you can see it better. It's so pretty and goes great in the entry of our house. Jolea can have it when she has a house to put it in....

I know I've said it before... we are such a lucky family... we win photos, knives, cancer treatments. Maybe you think cancer isn't a real good thing to 'win', but hey, we're winning the battle. Jody's whiskers are starting to grow back! They are growing back in the cutest polka-dot pattern with a slight green tinge. Just kidding! Why is it everyone says their hair will grow back a different color?

I'm sitting here watching Barbara Walter's special on Patrick Swayze's battle with Pancreatic Cancer. A Doctor on the special said, "it's the worst cancer." But Patrick Swayze has such a fantastic attitude toward such a hard fight. He says he's 'kickin' it' and if it takes an attitude to beat cancer then he's got it. He cusses it, calls it names and fights it non stop, yes with the cancer treatment but also with his non-stop attitude. It's all in the attitude.

My dad had an attitude like that through something like 13 or 14 major surgeries in his life, then he was diagnoised with Pancreatic cancer.... I hope Patrick Swayze keeps that attitude. He says one of the biggest battles he has is with people and their gloom and doom attitude, the tabloids. I know this was one of the reasons Jody didn't want anyone in our hometown to know that he had Hodgkins (no Jody's not in the tabloids...) He didn't want people to see him on the street and they get all mopey around him. Because he really doesn't have the illness and weakness associated with other types of cancer and their treatments. He really doesn't feel too bad, mostly uncomfortable and he becomes tired easily, other than those whiskers you can't tell he's sick. But isn't it weird how people hear someone has cancer and instantly thinks of a negative outcome? And when one neighbor knows, the whole town knows in a matter of weeks.

My advice to you if you find yourself living with, close to, or in any proximity of someone with this horrible battle to face, do them a favor, help them by giving them a boost to their attitude. Stay positive, stay upbeat, because they will have days when they don't feel like being upbeat, but they will feel like having someone upbeat to lean on. And no they don't want to talk about it all the time. They really want everyone to treat them just like they did when they were healthy. I think if everyone was asking me how I felt all day long with a mopey undertone, I'd probably start feeling bad.

I had to remind Jody (not many times) how lucky we were in this, somehow he was chosen to have his cancer found at such an early stage that he is now a case study, and his luck could wear off on someone else. What better boost to an attitude could it be to hear a doctor tell someone "we just found what we thought was severe sinus infections is actually cancer that can be cured because of some mandolin picking redneck in North Texas. That guy was a real hard case, stubborn guy, the biggest butt-head we have ever had in our clinic, but because of him... you won't have to go through a bunch of treatments, because of him we know we can get rid of the Tuma in 4 treatments instead of 8. " (Maybe they'll start referring to as The TUMA...)

Jody is getting better everyday, it has taken a lot more days than we thought for the side effects to start wearing off, but like the whiskers, we're seeing a change. The last treatment was only a week ago. His voice is still nothing more than a whisper, and his throat still hurts and nothing, absolutely nothing tastes the same to him. But... he had a Taco Bell combo burrito tonight(no sauce, no cheese, definitely no onions, it's still a vegetable)! We're getting there, it's all in the attitude.

Now I've got to go check on my buddy Carol, see if she needs a little boost.