A record (of sorts)!

Well, I am half-way thru my 6th day in a row of FEELING GREAT!
This, my friends is definately a milestone.
One that I knew would come -- but am still so grateful to welcome!!

Last Monday we went for a check-up with the surgeon and found out that I have Gastric Dumping Syndrome (great name, right!!).  Kind of not a surprise because of the part of my stomach that was removed.  We were so grateful to find out that there is something we can attribute the sudden "crashes" to and so far the treatment (which is basically dietary and separating liquids from solids) has been really helpful.  Wow!  It's hard to describe what a relief it has been to have almost a week free of those seemingly random episodes that would lay me low and really make it difficult to get up and face my day!
Really, really grateful for this insight (which is what, I'm convinced, has lead to these 6 good days!!).

I also got to speak at my first "post-Whipple" retreat last week.
As soon as we found out about the tumor and the surgery this Summer, I started canceling everything I had said "yes" to for the Fall.  It was difficult, because I really enjoy prepping for and then spending a day or 2 sharing with folks who are thoughtfully and sometimes desperately in need of respite.
But for some reason, this retreat stayed in the "I'm going" column and let me tell you, what a huge gift to get to participate.  I don't know if they got anything from one word I said (I'm trusting God on that one!) but I sure received a lot from them. 

And now, as I'm looking back at my week I am once again undone by all that has taken place in my body (literally) and life over the past 5 1/2 months.  This morning the first thought I had was DELIGHT and I knew without even really having to think about it much, that this came from such a deep place of gratitude.  Not just for the lack of Cancer -- although I am so grateful to not be fighting that battle right now -- but for the MANY ways I see broken things in me being restored. 

Things like...
Relying on ME to get thru the day.  My energy, my stamina, my passion, my ideas, ME, MY, MINE.  Such a fractured way of living.  The truth is, eventually I'm going to let me down.  And so it's been such a gift to learn to rely on the One who is THE only source for everything that's good and perfect.
Trying to do it on our own (see above :)) -- all of it.  There are not words to tell you what it means to come to the realization that the life I had been trying to live and manage on my own was not working.  This is so clearly a season of Community for our family.  We are experiencing the joy that comes from allowing others in, asking for help and then receiving it, and learning how to trust in ways we never have before.
Having contempt for my seemingly unreliable health.  This is a biggie that has been not just broken, but shattered and I have carried it around for years this way.  Like so many shards of glass that I swallowed, I have long believed that my propensity for "getting sick" was something to be ashamed of.  Of course, always grateful that I have survived all these years -- and yet, at the same time somehow, embarrassed to be "that" person.  And now?  I'm learning that this is my story (and I'm sticking to it!) and it is mine for a reason.  There is a reason (or maybe 20) that every decade since I was 15, God and I stand hand in hand on the edge of a cliff called "Suze's survival". 
Sometimes things can be broken so long you forget their fractured. 
That's just not going to be true about this -- anymore.
The pieces are moving back into place and I'm learning to call my health,
     my biology,
        my genetic map...
                                     BEAUTIFUL!!
Yep, it's been a great week.
I hope yours was true.
Even if you were, like I have been recently, coming face to face with some places where you've been limping a bit, because something might be a little "off" inside.

Still, so much more than grateful!
Suze