The Room is Empty

I am aware of the space surrounding me.

Thanksgiving day passed. Everyone returned to school and work. The blind next to me raised halfway allows sunlight to shine on my face. I sit at my writing place. The Christmas tree lights shine across the room into the dark of the tree branches. I ponder finding joy in the loneliness of writing. 

A soul longs for quiet moments, but how quiet? How do you find the balance blocking out the chatter of the world, the chatter of the enemy, self-doubt, the lonely?

I am encouraged to ask myself first "did you pray" before starting a day of writing.  

Praying I know brings peace. 

The peace embraces the silence of loneliness. 

Communicating this to our souls as a writer brings the importance of writing to a higher understand. It's beyond us. It's an act of obedience reminding us to whom we belong, that we are loved, we are truly important, and we are secure in Him. 

So I ask you-the-writer, "Did you think to pray?" before starting a day of writing. 

View the time of writing as your time with God.

Focus on the need for Him.

Let Him fill you up.

He will equip you reminding you, you are His. You are secure. There's no room for lonely thoughts of doubt when the room is full of Him. We must not allow loneliness to consume our soul. Loneliness is known as a lack of purpose. As an obedient child of God's, we have all the purpose in the world of writing.  

Allowing the lonely time to strengthen our prayer life is refreshing. I am reminded of this in Isaiah 66:9, a time of loneliness (suffering) is also a time of something new being born. Writing is a form of birth. Laboring those lonely pains births a new writing, a new prayer life.

Shall I bring to the point of birth and then not deliver? asks the Lord your God. No! Never! Isaiah 66:9 TLB

Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the Lord. “Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God. Isaiah 66:9 NIV

In the same way I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born,” says the Lord. “If I cause you the pain, I will not stop you from giving birth to your new nation,” says your God. Isaiah 66:9 NCV

Let the lonely be a launching pad to your greatest calling.

You are called to write.

What I heard from a mother

(Jamie-picture provided by her mother)

As most of you know, I am very passionate about liver cancer awareness. Since October is liver cancer awareness month, I've set out to interview a few families about their journey with liver cancer. As I myself, a 14 year liver cancer survivor, this is a true means of me giving back. Today I have with me a mother, Sarah, from Colorado. Sarah's agreed to speaking with us in regards to her daughters journey with liver cancer.  

Interview with Sarah Crook mother of Jamie Crook from Colorado

 Sarah share a little with us what life was like before your daughters cancer diagnosis.

 My husband, Brad and I have two boys, Will - 11, Ryan - 5 and one girl, Jamie - 9.  Jamie is our middle child.  I was and still am a stay at home mom.  Before Jamie got sick she was a very happy and healthy 6 year old.  Out of my 3 kids she was the healthiest, almost never getting sick.  She was in first grade and active in dance and gymnastics.  Looking back, she wasn't growing much and had a very small appetite.  But at the time we didn't realize the significance.

Sarah share with us Jamie's symptoms and how she was diagnosed.

 In January of 2012, Jamie started complaining of intermittent stomach pain and nausea but it would pass in about 20 minutes.  Being a small child we didn't take it very seriously until it started to affect her activities.  At the end of February she got extremely itchy, to the point where she started drawing blood.  Thinking it was an allergic reaction, we took her to urgent care.  They assumed it was just a reaction to a virus.  They noticed her stomach area felt swollen and told us she was impacted and that we should give her laxatives.  I knew she was pretty regular so I never gave her the laxatives.  The itchiness continued for a week until we noticed that Saturday that her eyes looked yellow.  Putting together pain, itchiness and jaundice we assumed something was wrong with her liver and took her to the hospital.  We spent the day getting tests done and they told us it was just a reaction to a virus and we should go home and resume normal activity.  By this time her entire body was yellow and very itchy.  They said her bilirubin and white count were elevated and her liver and spleen were enlarged but they weren't concerned.  None of this sat well with me so I called an acquaintance who was a pediatric GI at Children's Hospital Colorado and read him the lab results over the phone. He completely disagreed with the first hospital and made an appointment for us to see the liver specialist at Children's that Monday, March 12th.  She had a ultrasound and could see something in there so they sent us for a CT scan.  They came out and told us it was most likely cancer, they were admitting us and scheduling her for a biopsy the next day.

Sarah share with us about Jamie's course of treatment. 

On Tuesday, Jamie went in for her first surgery.  Since the liver is so far back they had to open her up.  The surgery took 3 hours and they found a lemon size tumor in the left lobe of her liver as well as in the main bile duct (the reason for the jaundice and why we caught the cancer early).  They removed the bile duct tumor for diagnosis.  She came out of that surgery with an epidural, catheter and a collapsed lung.  She spent several days on oxygen until her lung reinflated.  After 2 days they told us it was FHC and that our best hope was to do a complete resection. We had several CT scans, PET scans and bone scans to try and determine if the cancer had spread.  Everything looked pretty contained.  They gave her a week to recover plus consult with other hospitals to create the best surgical treatment.  A week later she went in for her 2nd surgery.  This one was 6 hours long and required 2 blood transfusions.  They removed the left lobe of her liver, her left bile duct, her main bile duct and her gallbladder.  They re-routed her intestines to her right bile duct. They also removed some lymph nodes for testing. She came out of this surgery with an epidural, catheter, NG tube, 2 bile drains and a central line because her veins had started collapsing.  On March 22nd, they came back with the results that the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes and they considered her officially clear.  We went home the following Sunday and it took her about 2 months to fully recover physically.  

What about follow up appointments?

Jamie had a surgical follow up 2 weeks later and had CT scans and clinic visits every 3 months for the first year and every 4 months for the 2nd year.  In our 3rd year, our oncologist was concerned about the radiation exposure from the CT scan and switched us to MRI's and a chest x-ray every 4 months.  

 How did your insurance respond to this type of treatment?

Insurance covered everything but our deductible, about $5000, the year she was in the hospital.  However, once things started over the following January, we had to pay a $500 and then 20% every time she got scanned.  This usually amounts to about $2000 every few months before starting again.

 Emotionally, Sarah how did your family and yourself handle Jamie's diagnosis?

My husband and I were totally devastated when they came out and said cancer.  Never in a million years had we considered the possibility.  We tried to stay upbeat for Jamie throughout our time in the hospital.  I thought I had hid all of my crying spells from her but she told me later that she knew.  Jamie mostly shut down.  She's a very happy girl but as time went on she stopped interracting with friends and visitors.  She would sometimes start crying and saying she wanted to go home and dance again or be with her friends.  She was very shy and quiet for the months following our hospital stay.  She returned to fairly normal behavior by the summer but continued to have nightmares for a full year.  Her old brother was afraid he would catch cancer and then was afraid he would lose his sister.  Her younger brother slept on his mattress in our room for the next 2 months until he felt safe enough to return to his room.  

 Share with us what you have learned along this journey: what it's been like, how's life now, being a part of a cancer group, supporting awareness. 

Over the long term we try and stay very positive.  We are very involved in pediatric cancer awareness. We have gotten to know the pediatric cancer community fairly well because it is so small and we tend to all go to the same events.  We try and support each other as much as possible.  Of course, there is no other child in the state with this disease so we only have the online support group, Fibrolamellars of the World Unite, to connect with.  It was a huge relief to be connected with the Facebook support group, as prior to that we felt completely alone.  Jamie goes to lots of cool camps and is currently an ambassador for Children's Hospital Colorado.  We all have our moments of fear and breakdowns but mostly we try to enjoy each day for what it is because we know we can't predict when everything may change again.  

What would you say to a newly diagnosed family/person?

 I would just offer support and love. I no longer believe in telling anyone it will be fine but I can give you my wealth of experience and connections for information and treatment.  I try to listen and offer as much understanding and ability to share the fear as much as I can.

The Crook family from Colorado (picture provided)

Thank you Sarah for being with us today. Opening your heart, home, and family up to us, I know will provide such a road of peace and hope for other who have been touched by any type of cancer, mostly liver cancer. Again, thank you and many blessings to you and your family. Give Jamie a big hug from me, her liver cancer survivor sister. #gogreen

Art Journal Page 4

the word for page 4 was DREAMY

i wasn't real sure where i was going with it

i just started doodling

my kids loved it, they still say it's one of their favs

it's actually my least fav

hmmm to create what i like or what other's like !?!?

I have heard from a few who have started an art journal.

Have you, if so I would love to hear from you,

email me at ashleysartcloset@yahoo.com

here's a video I found the other day about art jounaling

click here for art journal page one
click here  for art journal page two
click here for art journal page three

Life can change in a flash

Friday April 30th '10 my mother was involved in a single car
accident. She fell asleep at the wheel on the way
home from work.

That afternoon, I had just talked to her.
We were making plans to attend
my step-cousin's wedding on that
Saturday.

Around 3:45 my cell phone rang,
a unknown number, which I am usually
guilty of not answering, showed up on my
screen.

When I answered, it was mother.
She didn't say hey this is mother.
She just went directly into, "I went to
sleep on the way home and I am hurt bad"

My mother is a woman of her word, what
she says she means.

I flipped out right in the middle of the local
shoe store. Both of my girls were with me
and we left the store immediately.

Making my way to the hospital, still so unsure
of her injuries, I tried to calm the girls and
myself. Her life flashed really fast in front of me.

When I was 20 years old my father died
right in front of my eyes. I had told myself through
the years if and when something happen to mother
I would be fine. If I could be so young and lose
daddy like that I could make it through losing her as well.

Wrong!

There was not one thing easy about this ordeal at all.

I paced the floors of the ER waiting for the ambulance
to arrive. When it did, I watched mother flat on a strecher
roll into a room. That I later entered, looking at the
bottoms of her shoes first.

All she could say was how SORRY she was.

That night turned into a week stay or longer in
the hospital. Test after test, looking for answers
to the case of the wreck as well as answers to her
injuries. Injuries was bang up literally from head to toe.
The first 24 hours she could not even left her head off
the pillow. Lastly, she ended with 3 compressed fractures
in her back. OUCH!!!! is really a little word for how she
has felt.

Although it has been two months now, she is doing so
much better.

We got her a car, hers was totaled, this past week and
her glasses, they were lost in the wreck.

I have tend to her as much as possible.

When she first came home she was on a walk.
Unable do do anything for herself.

showering
cooking
cleaning
grocery shopping
drying her hair
ect.

any daily chore you do for yourself
was out for her, but like I said she is
doing much better. Slow but better
is what I have to keep telling her.

I am not sure when she will return to work.

I am very thankful no one else was involved.

Her car left the road hitting a ditch, ramping a
cattle fench landing several several feet past the
fence. I picked at the ER workers, telling them she
was chasing cattle.

Cancer Chicks PJ Party 2009

Cancer Chicks, what?

These pictures reveal a special bond,
a bond no one can understand,
unless they have been touched by
the nasty monster,
CANCER!!!

Me having had cancer is not something
I want to talk about most days, but spring of last year
when I ventured out on a photography forum
sharing about my writing of my cancer journey,
a new door opened for me.

It was then and there, right among photographers,
I found others who have been touch by the "C" word,
it becomes exhausting to constantly say cancer!

A photography forum is not a place for cancer,
actually no place is, although the group of photographers
are like family! This is when my fellow photographer sister
said okay I am starting a small cancer group, wallah,
and we had Cancer Chicks.

Although most of the group is from the
photography forum, the door is still open for others,
and others are members.

A place behind close doors, we can share anything
and everything , from first being diagnosed, treatment,
to surviving, all because you feel misunderstood
in the outside world but yet we still are expected
and do keep on living, we even talk about death.

A fear we all fight once hearing the "C" word!
Like living in slow motion waiting to see if the plane
is to hit the trade center or not.

On April 24th of this year, the group lost it's first member.

A day that made me madder than anything, it's hard
for me to see others lose their life, due to the "C" word,
when my life was spared for now, just like it's hard to
see one still fighting. Why did I get the GO pass....???

After our loss, the group was rather quiet for several days!

Out of ragging desire of what the group means,
a PJ party was planned, in stone,
something we talked about before our loss,
but never took
place.

Quickly, most of the group made plans for the PJ party.

A condo was provided, free of charge,
by another fellow photographer sister, noncancerous,
lucky her, but lucky cancer chicks...
Whew Whee...!!!

Destin, Florida here we come,
unfortunately, I was unable to attend,
for numerous reasons,
I will spare
you!

Plane tickets as far as New Jersey, Indiana,
Kansas all were arranged free of charge also,
not certain of those details. Most of the group going,
had never even step foot on a flying metal bullet,
as they called it,
a plane.

Reaching the Atlanta airport, three of four,
all at different times, meeting each other for the first time
in person, said it was like meeting up with an old friend.
Aboard another plane together, all three members, flew to Destin.
The condo provider and the fourth member of the group,
who arrived a day earlier,
came to the airport with red rose in hand,
for pick up. A fact stressed, the drive to the condo
from the airport was longer than the flight down
and back!

June 18-21, Father's Day weekend,
late night talks, hot days,afternoon walks on the beach,
sand in between toes, group photo shoot,
in the ocean, dinner, all for lasting
memories.

Ones I am not part of but with open arms
I am still part of the group,for them, them for me, giggles...
They call me their cheerleader, please I am no where near
cheerleader material but okay, whatever!
Ask them how hard headed I am about the group, feeling certain
whether I belong in the group or not,
not because of not going on the trip,
but just in general...

The answer to that is for another blog entry! or is it???

Back home, each one reported to the group,
thrown right back into to reality, as they put it!

Just as I am honored to share their trip with you,
I am as honored to be a Cancer Chick,
thank you ladies....!!!



From left to right, back row,
Jane, Follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma,
Chris, Breast Cancer, second time active, metastatic
front row,
Brenda, Rectal, remission
Donna, Breast Cancer, remission
in the picture,
Lisa, Colon, our lost member.

Each one of these ladies, have families,
they are mothers, wives, sisters, friends, cousins,
aunts, nieces, workers, etc.....!!!