A Special Favor

I would like to ask a special favor to anyone who reads my blog.

 I have a dear friend who I have known since I was little. She grew up across the street from me and has always been a shining light of smiles and joy. Well that same girl is very sick. She has been for a long time now. The doctors can't figure out what is wrong with her, and her body is continually fighting.

Each day she is in pain with no way of knowing why. No one fully knows or can fully understand what she is truly going through or feeling. No one but the Savior. She has been relying on him every day for about five years now for this same problem.

My request to all of you is simple. That you keep this young woman in your hearts and prayers. There may not be anything physical gift anyone can give to her, but if many people are united in faith for her cause, I know Heavenly Father will strengthen her.

When I was sick I could feel the love and faith from others as they prayed for me. I want nothing more than for Whitney to feel that same love. She is such a sweet girl. Sometimes it is hard to be sick day after day, and not knowing why must be even harder.

So please, when you kneel down to pray tonight, keep Whitney in your hearts and pray for her to have comfort and to find out what is wrong with her. Pray for her family to be sustained and uplifted. I know that they will feel that power and love from our Heavenly Father.

Thank you so very much. I appreciate it, and I  know she will too.

Read more about Whitney here: Whitney's Blog.

I Love School

So here I am back at school at the most populated place on the face of the earth. Rexburg, Idaho. This will by my... about my seventh semester? It's hard to say because technically I should be a senior, but I have taken it very slow and you know. Got "delayed" for a bit. So lets just say I have about two years left.

Photo Credit: BYU-Idaho Ambassadors (aka... Google)

I have finally decided on a major and even a minor! I am going to go into Communications with a minor in Clothing Construction. I have finally found a drive for school and am so excited to be a student learning. Where that was all along, I don't know. But as long as I have it I am going to push on through. Who knows, maybe I'll go back to school after I get my bachelors or even continue on and get a masters. 

Last two semesters I have enjoyed and done really well in my classes. (Minus my math class which was the bane of my existence. I'm just glad I passed. Now I never have to take it again!) I got some really good feedback from my professors and some recommendations for internships. That was an amazing feeling just to know that I was doing good in something and that I could have a real talent for a communications career. 

This semester my classes are looking really good too. I think it helps to finally have your mind made up with what you want to do instead of sitting in general classes and worrying about what to do with all of them. I am taking Mass Media and Society, Visual Media, Family Foundations, Fitness for Life, and Textiles. I was also taking Fashion Design and Merchandising, but it would have been a bit too much as Visual Media is going to take up a lot of my time and I want to do well in my classes. So I'll just take it a different semester. 

I was looking at my degree audit this morning and I discovered that I am only a few credits away from being completely done with all of my foundation courses which is basically equivalent to an associates. I am so excited! Those classes are very tedious at times, and frankly kind of boring. Plus they don't transfer to other universities as easily so that will be nice to get them out of the way if I decide to transfer.

 My goal is to get at least a 3.5 this semester. Hopefully it will happen. I am very excited for this semester and look forward to doing homework and to continuing my education.

Thumbs up to BYU-Idaho and the chilly months ahead.

A Year Off

I'm trying to think of where to start... After taking basically a year off of blogging it is hard to think of where to catch up. I guess I'll start with the reasons for why I took a break.

One of the biggest reasons is that the recovery process is very long and complicated. It takes about two years to feel almost normal again, and even then you still aren't normal. Cancer changes you in so many ways than just being bald. It changes you physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. I didn't really know who I was anymore when I reentered society. I had become socially awkward and more reserved. This was very different than from the person I was before I got sick. I had been a crazy, vivacious girl who loved being in social settings. Now I felt awkward, self conscious and shy. It was very difficult to handle at times.

Chemotherapy had also taken a toll on my body in ways that are very hard to explain. The steroids had caused me to gain an enormous amount of weight and caused my body to become weak. I lost all muscle strength and was not able to be as active as I had always been. This was very frustrating as I have always loved playing soccer and doing other activities. Now those things I loved were not as easy as they had been. I was essentially starting at zero.

Sadly another reason for my absence was the fear of what others thought of me. I had some experiences when I went back to school that shook me greatly. Essentially some of the things I was told was that talking about my experience with cancer was annoying and a bad thing. These people made it seem as though it was my fault that I got sick and that I was trying to elevate myself because of it. This and other things that they said made it very hard to handle in trying to find myself again. Being the person that I am I always try to make people feel good and try not to offend them. So I stopped talking about it. Sometimes the words of people hurt so much that eats inside of you until you feel so insecure that you don't know what to do.

I shouldn't have let what others thought about me dictate what I did. Just because those people were cruel and selfish didn't mean anything about me. Everyone is different and those who choose to not be kind are doing themselves a great disservice. I think they said those mean things because they didn't fully know how to handle helping someone who had just beaten cancer. It's not a common thing in a younger age group to have people your age go through cancer. Now I know it was because they were only feeling threatened because of their own insecurities. That's okay though. I am finally coming to a point where I can forgive them for making me feel so bad about myself. They didn't know any better. All I can do is do as the Savior did and forgive. I don't have to forget, but I can learn from this experience and have it help me from now on.

I also had to deal with comparing myself to others. Everyone else my age was off doing things that I had always wanted to do. Getting married, discovering the world, having babies and graduating from college. I felt as though I was a step behind and as though I was missing something. Now I realize that everyone is different. I shouldn't compare myself to others situations as everyones is very different.

Because of these reasons I withdrew from the world basically. I have been on a journey of trying to find and recreate myself. I don't know if I went about it in the right way, but I think that now I am able to talk about it. I still am a little afraid of what people think, but I think that it will help me to understand everything more. Life after cancer is difficult and in a time of my life where I am figuring out what to do with my future, I feel as though I need to talk about it, and blogging is one way I can do that. I think it will help me and maybe help others as well.

It isn't necessary for me to hide anymore. It wasn't then either, but it still is a struggle to talk about. I have come to the realization that life is about living and not being afraid of the world or what others think. I don't need to pretend that having cancer never happened. Cancer was a great struggle and trial, but it also made me a better person and has been a small blessing in some cases. I am grateful for the challenge that Heavenly Father gave me because it allowed me to come closer to Him and Christ. My goal is to use all of the knowledge that I learned to help others and to become the best person that I can be.

Growing up my family has had only a few rules that we often had to recite when we broke them.

We Talk

We Share

We don't Fight

We Respect Ourselves and Others

We Do the Things that Make Us Stronger Physically, Mentally and Spiritually

Now that I am older I can see how they were not just something to recite in the heat of the moment, but something that would help us grow and develop into becoming good people. Now I more fully understand how I can use these as tools to become the best me as possible.

So here's to a new year full of new opportunities, learning experiences and continuing a journey of more self discovery. I hope that I can become the best that I can be and continue learning about living after cancer.