One of the best things of the past few weeks, has been going for my morning walks. As soon as I started feeling stable enough after my brain surgery to walk, I have been having either Lily or Derek take me to the nearby park to go for a walk. It is beautiful, we see the sunrise, and having wildflowers and nature all around me helps me feel peace. And depending on the day, the meds I am on, or the way I am feeling, I can do more or do less, but at least I am moving every day. And sometimes I get to have someone special come with me – like a friend or Kevin, or how on Saturday, my amazing Aunt Linda drove over from new Braunfels to join me on my walk – I so wish I had gotten a picture.

One of my other bests have been all the wonderful visitors I have had, whether it is friends from work, church, etc, it is like I am being charged by getting to have good conversation and company. The other day, my friend, Melissa, who was Arthur’s GT teacher at Las Lomas, came to visit. We had the best time talking, and she gave me the sweetest gift – a stuffed buffalo along with a story about how when storms come, buffalos face into the storm and walk through together. And so I can be a buffalo and face the storm. And it is seriously makes the most wonderful pillow – so comfy!

I also got the sweetest giant card from the fifth grade classes – many of which were my students, and many of which I taught in my intervention groups. It was the best!

There have been some very frustrating and hard things lately. One of them was finding out that Typepad was shutting down, and suddenly I was going to have to not only find a new place to host my blog, but that I had to get 20 years of posts moved over too – thank goodness for Lily.

And then, over Labor Day weekend, all of the teachers in our district got word that a law was passed in Texas that eliminated classroom libraries. It was a way for parents to have full control over what their children can read at school, and while I understand parents wanting to protect their students from inappropriate books, but eliminating classroom libraries is not the answer. Eventually they gave us a “solution” of a very complicated method of cataloging and then comparing all of the ISBN numbers to any books that are in the school library. At least there is some light at the end of the tunnel, but with almost 900 titles in my classroom library, and with me not being able to go in my classroom while I am on medical leave, it makes it extra frustrating.

There have also been some very sad and hard things happening in our country – divisive and tragic. But in the middle of the sad, it just happened to be the celebration of our prophet, President Nelson’s 101st birthday. People from my church had been sharing their favorite teachings from him throughout his life, and so my social media feed was filled with wonderful, uplifting quotes. I shared the following quote – something that has been a daily comfort and reminder to me over the past month especially:

“My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation . . . and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening – or not happening – in our lives. Joy come from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy.”

One hardest and best thing of the past week and a half has been having my brain radiation completed. It was one of the most disconcerting experiences of my life. They had molded a mask to fit on my skull, made out of plastic that hardened into a rock hard material, and they would put the back into the table where I would lie down on. Then they took the front of the mask and tightly locked it into place over my face – locking me into the table. It was painful, super tight, and made me feel more than a bit claustrophobic – think “medieval torture device”. All that, while being in a room with one of the most cutting edge and technologically sophisticated radiation machines on earth. (After the final treatment, they let me take the mask home, and I put it on my face a final time, just to get a picture 😬.)

I had one practice round that took about 40+ minutes – so not fun, and then five treatments over the course of as many days, with only the weekend as a break. During my first treatment, which was about 45 minutes, I knew that my sister, Cheryl, was praying for me at that exact moment, so as I tried to breathe deeply to calm myself down, I repeated the words in my head, “Cheryl is praying for me right now,” over and over. As I calmed down, I noticed music playing in the background, and it was an answer to prayer, as soon I was able to focus on a song playing. What a blessing, and something so simple.

After the first time, I found out hey could turn the music up and change the channel, and so I had a 90’s station play most of the time. The best day was when Hootie and Blowfish’s song, “Hold my Hand,” played, and so I just pictured me singing my duet from Madrigals, senior year of high school, with Keegan.

There were side effects from the radiation, as not only did it end up making small bald patches in the areas where I had treatment, it caused me to have terrible brain swelling again, and the first night I woke up in such horrific pain, that I could barely move. It felt like my brain was going to explode, while at the same time, my skull was being crushed. Luckily, once I got on steroids, it helped the swelling go down and kept the pain manageable.

Truthfully, in spite of all the hard, it truly seemed miraculous that after five radiation treatments, I no longer have brain tumors. As I sat in the car with Kevin as we were driving home from the final treatment on my brain, I was holding my creepy mask in my lap and turned to Kevin. I said to him, “I know this wasn’t easy, but did this feel too easy that I no longer have brain tumors?” Modern medicine almost seems magical and made up sometimes. But truthfully, I know that I am being incredibly blessed – all the prayers and all the tender mercies of the Lord are surrounding me every day. And who can beat the literal sign we came across when we stopped for dinner after my first treatment. “Everything is going to be alright.” Definitely the truth.

PS. One side note, and other very “best” things, has been the incredible generosity of so many of our friends and family around the world. Kevin and I are truly overwhelmed with the generosity. In fact, because of the “Go Fund Me” that my brother created, we have money set aside to pay the medical bills that have started pouring in. It may not be enough to cover the lost wages I will have from not working for half of the school year, but wow, it was above and beyond what we could even imagine, and gives us an extra measure of peace. What an amazing blessing. https://gofund.me/2527d77e9