When You Are Too Sick to Write

A few days ago I was too sick to even write in my journal.

It seemed to be a combination of several treatments and new meds that I hadn't quite tweeked. 

So every day, to keep cheered in between hard days, I look for beautiful things--like sunrises. They are so right under our eyeballs here! 

And this was such a beautiful sight to me, my daughter Rose (who is here for a week to take Jonathan's place who went back to South Dakota to take care of some things) having her morning quiet time with God on our front patio 

under the pineapple palm.  

She does all the dishes, and helps me decide whether or not to buy this darling dishtowel set at Tractor Supply nearby, where we strolled around one day just to have somewhere cool to stroll when I was not feeling good at all. 

(Shh. Don't ask me if I bought it or not. That is a secret.)

She even made me some dairy-free, sugar-free icecream. It wouldn't win a prize or anything, but it was something cold I was allowed to eat.

She found a darling battery-run candle at a souvenir shop and bought some autumn lights to cheer up my kitchen counter.

And how grateful I am for Sundays when we get to worship with our new friends at either Mesa Bible Holiness church or Paradise Valley.  "Under His Wings" was one of the songs they sang.

And this one was played for an offertory by Pastor Luke Forsee at the Mesa Church. The words were so beautiful. I didn't remember hearing it before.

 

Yesterday when we came home from a long day at the clinic, I looked out our patio window, and there was part of a rainbow. In the distance a bit of rain was falling.

Later the piece of rainbow became a full one, which hovered for a long time out above our patio. 

"Oh my Father!" I whispered. 

How can you thank a loving heavenly Father enough for His beautiful rainbows so full of His faithful promises when you arrive home from a cancer clinic?  

Fun Despite Cancer--Musical Instrument Museum

Today I was done at the clinic by two o'clock, so since I was not having a bad day, I decided that Rose and I would visit the Musical Instrument Museum that a lady at the clinic had recommended. 

A sweet friend--oops, I almost said her name--had sent some money along with Rose from Colorado for "spending money," she said. And so I spent some of it for tickets to a place that would at least be cool, and maybe in more than one sense! 

This fountain was bubbling outside, and a little flock of doves were fluttering at the other end. 

I found just enough shade to stand in to take a picture and then made a run for the entrance to the museum through the stifling heat hoping not to have a heat stroke on the way!

 

 After having my bottled water confiscated and put in a locker for later pickup (they didn't know about the almonds in my purse in case I needed a pick-me-up after not being able to eat much for lunch due to a queasy stomach after chemo yesterday)  we were given headsets to wear which would pick up on the videos being played in each display. Click on the picture above and enlarge to read the sign.

Needless to say, since music has been so much a part of my life, I enjoyed this museum very much! And even though there was more than one time that I hoped I would not keel over or pass out, I stayed upright and made it all the way through. Here there is a handbell display.

And here were various autoharps, with little signs by each one telling where it was made or by whom. 

But basically the entire upper floor of the museum was laid out by continents and then by countries of the world--with typical instruments for each country represented.

This made for a far more fascinating museum than I ever imagined.

You can guess which country's display was one of my favorites--with the familiar bandura that my friend Linda Sturtevant used to play.

Since we have either been to or have friends in so many countries, this was especially fun for us.  We have missionary friends in Senegal.

And here were instruments from Mongolia--where my brother Elon's family spent so many years, and the country that has been on his daughter's mind so much lately as she faces tough treatments at a Lyme clinic in Mexico. 

Something I noticed was how often cultural or otherwise special dress often accompanied a country's music.

And this instrument was made from mulberry wood, so of course I had to take a picture to show my friends in White River who let me pick from their mulberry trees.

Don't ask me what this instruments sounds like. You make a guess!

 

 Guatemala's marimba brought back pleasant memories of playing my vibraharp in years of yore!

 Quite unlike this one with gourds underneath each key, mine had brass pipes. 

One of the countries had a grater with a fork--probably a folk instrument. 

 I couldn't resist a photo of the artwork on the back of this banjo in this display. And more pictures coming in another post. I don't want this post to be so long that it is hard to upload.

I just know that after coming out of this fascinating place, I thought to myself, "Who thought that being down in Arizona for cancer treatment could be so fun?"

I praise God for every day that I am able to be up and around and totally enjoying life, making new memories with my sweet daughter Rose who has been taking really, really good care of me.

(I don't even have to do dishes while she is here!)

Recycled Orchestra--My Favorite Spot in the Museum

Today I'm exhausted from a hard day after a night when I'd not been able to sleep for a few hours. (I got up to blog, because why not when you can't sleep anyway.) I only weighed 91.8 pounds this morning. I called a friend because I needed some encouragement, and then I am sitting down here to blog about my favorite part of the music museum yesterday. 

It was a spot called "Recycled Orchestra." And it showed replicas of several instruments that had been made out of trash.

A poster told the story of how "amid a massive landfill in Cateura, Paraguay, children find hope in musical instruments built from recycled trash."

In a slum town where families survive by collecting and reselling garbage, music teacher Favio Chavez was undaunted by a shortage of musical instruments. He gathered a team to plunder the landfill for  materials to construct an ensemble similar to the instruments you see above.

This innovation led to a thriving music school and a youth orchestra that performs around the world! 

I

All I could do was stand there in awe. 

Always intrigued with treasures made from trash, I thought how this is just one more example of how God can pick up the broken things in our lives,

the garbage,

the trash,

the mistakes, 

the failures,

the disappointments,

the cancer,

the lyme, 

the diagnoses,

the losses and griefs,

the misunderstandings and hurts,

and make something wonderful out of them.

If a music teacher could turn an old barrel into a stringed instrument, and a piece of metal and bent fork into parts for a violin,

can't God also bring some kind of beautiful music out of the garbage piles of our lives?

Can't He give a cancer patient a song in the night, even if it is made with a bent fork connected by bits of wire to a tin can?

Arizona Hippopotamus Scare!

 "Better watch for snakes!" I mumbled. 

Jonathan and I had just arrived at a picnic spot in Tonto National Forest a week ago on Saturday afternoon. It was several miles away from where we are staying, and most of the "forest" is saguaro, but then there is a strip of wonderful green down by the river, where citrus orchards and pecan groves are. 

I was not in any shape to hike, but we thought we might find a spot by the river to just wade or sit.

So, after seeing gobs of other people wading and boating in that Needle Rock spot, Jonathan drove back a little ways and followed his nose to a spot in a picnic area where he thought the river was just behind.

Turned out he was right. 

He came back out of the woods with a satisfied grin on his face.  "You've got to see this!" he told me. "It's like jungle in there, and the river is very close!"

Since it sounded like there would be shade, I managed to get myself out of the Honda and headed gingerly down the trail behind Jonathan, checking each step for possible snakes or other Arizona surprises. 

"Like Vietnam!" he squawked, noting the palms and fronds and vines and other foliage growing thickly along the trail.

In the shade of all those trees, the temperature was approximately ten or fifteen degrees cooler, and we felt cooler yet when we stripped off our shoes or sandals and dipped our feet in the river water. We expected the water to be warm in that Arizona heat, but amazingly, it was cool, almost cold, apparently runoff from the mountains. 

Jonathan took off his big boots and looked at that Arizona river water. The river's name was Green River, but it was way too brown to figure out why it was called Green. 

He dabbled his foot in the water, getting used to the cold, set it down in and started to put the other one in.

And that is when it happened. 

There was a mega roar of sound somewhere, how near or far we could not tell, just that it was a big animal sound, and all at the same time Jonathan felt something around his foot!

With the scaredest squawk and the quickest move I've ever seen in my life, he pulled his leg out of the water, while I was in the middle of trying to decide what that scary sound was. Was it downriver on the other side of the river?

All I could think about was Crystal having been in Africa, and all I could think about was hippopotamuses. The whole jungle appearance of this Arizona riverside lent to the idea of some sort of African monster that was about to get us!

As for Jonathan, he thought what had his leg was a snake, and sure enough, when he yanked his foot out of the water, a long black vine or root of some kind was around his foot!

How that snake of a root and the mega animal noise occurred at the very same time is beyond my imagination, but it happened just that way! I laughed so hard I nearly choked!

Jonathan was much relieved to discover that the snake was a root, but it took some courage to put his foot in the opaque, brown water again. We sat down in the sand on the bank for a long while, with our feet in the cool water, listening to birds galore, watching butterflies of one color or another, and just being quiet.

Listening for the Arizona hippopotamus which obliged us several more times with its enormous "Garumph!"

True, it must have just been a hippopotamus-size frog, but combined with a snakey root around one's leg, it provided us with a very fine laugh for the day!

 

 That hour by the brown Green River was one of the highlights of our nearly four weeks here in Arizona. Not another soul was in sight except a couple who trotted down the trail and discovered our "hidden gem" of a spot, as the man dubbed it. 

It was just us, gentle butterflies, twittering birds, dragonflies, palm fronds, and the cool river flowing--

and God.

It was one of the those Saturday afternoons when we could for once slow down and just be instead of do. 

Like a slow vehicle pulling over so the fast ones could speed by.

We've been the fast vehicles, always speeding from one activity to the other.

Cancer made everything come to a screeching halt--

only to start going faster but just with different activities!

So it was pleasant to pause for that brief hour by the river, to breathe in warm sunshine and sit very still,

listening for the Arizona hippopotamus to do its blurping again!

Arizona Gila Monster--or Is it Just a Toad?

Last Sunday morning Rose and I were up as early as I've ever been up here. I had gone to bed early and had a good night of sleep. 

So when I woke up at 5:10, I decided it would be better to take our walk sooner than later.

And so we did! And we were richly rewarded with a beautiful walk at sunrise, with pictures I already posted in another post.

The night before, we had made a little trip up to this trail to check it out before Sunday, so we'd know where to go. 

And Rose had seen a movement in the trail! It had been dark already, so the moving creature was difficult to see, but we quickly ascertained that it was no usual creature. It had the dragon horns around the top of its head, and the first thing I thought of was a gila monster.

Leave it to me to always be imagining a monster when there is any movement!

But do gila monsters have the dragon rays? 

T

Rose tried to get her camera to cooperate to do a flash photo, but the creature was so camouflaged in the dirt, it was hard to see it even in the photo. 

"A horned toad?" she wondered.

Yes, on the way home I looked up "horned toad," and sure enough, there were pictures exactly like what we'd seen! We were quite proud of ourselves for seeing an Arizona horned toad, or at least a horned toad in Arizona.

And the next morning as we started out along the same trail, hurrying so we could get up high enough around the hill to capture the beautiful sunrise, I laughed, "I wonder if we will see that gila monster again!"

And just like that, as if on cue, something moved on the path by  my feet, and I jumped! Rose thought it was hilarious. It was the very same horned toad, dragon horns and all. 

But it was not a gila monster. 

Not at all. Most things we think might be monsters end up being quite harmless. 

As the saying goes, "Most things I worry about never happen anyway."

And when they do, we have a Hand to hold, a shoulder to be carried by, and a Lord Who walks with us--on thorny paths, in sunshine and darkness, in pain or joy. 

The dragon spikes that look so rough are harmless--because He is there with us and has promised nothing shall in any wise harm us.  

Grace for Chemo and Cancer--But for Cactus?

Yesterday evening I saw on the kitchen counter a prickly pear cactus fruit that our son Danny had cut in half to look at. (He and Hannah had flown down here from South Dakota Wednesday with SIM President Keith Lavery.) We understood these fruits were edible, and he was eager to check it out while on a morning walk.

Now here it was on the counter, and I was not interested, despite trying tart wood sorrel and raw yucca in South Dakota. Prickly pear cactus fruit just wasn't for me right now, especially when I came home having spent hours sick to my stomach at the clinic after some tough treatments and taking new anti-parasite meds at not quite the right time with food. 

Maybe that is why I wasn't thinking straight when I picked up the cactus fruit. I forgot that even the fruit has prickles on it, and suddenly my fingers felt like I'd been stung by a bee!

All day (except for a moment in the restroom), sick and all, I had been a big girl at the clinic. 

Even when Mr. Exercise Man (that's what I call him) had me doing some exercises I wasn't used to, and my legs were quivering and I was almost in tears. 

But me in tears in front of Mr. Exercise Man? Not on your life!

I had been told by my nurse one day this week that I had "taken it like a champ" when he had to pull out the large port needle he'd already stuck me with because it was misplaced by about one-eighth of an inch, and then had to stick me a second time and push hard to get it to go in. The titanium backside of the port keeps the needle from going through into your chest, but the push on a very fresh and tender port surgical site had me literally nearly passed out with pain. 

"Like a champ!" he had said.

 Yes sirree! 

I must have been a champ. 

I had handled even chemo with grace and glory, even when Jonathan and the husband of the lady next to me had been told they couldn't be in the IV room anymore. A new machine for another kind of treatment was being used that day, and the room was too small for all the nurses, patients and caregivers. So the caregivers had to go--and this was the day of my first chemo!

I had expected to have Jonathan beside me to hold my hand, but that went to the wind (and besides, my hands were in or on ice mitts the whole time). But I had reminded myself that I was a big girl, and and the nurses told me how strong I was.

Yes sirree!

I could do this chemo thing on my own, without holding someone's hand.

But when a couple dozen prickly pear prickers exactly 1/4 inch long stuck in my finger, this big, brave warrior crumpled into a whimpering mess. 

I was pleading with Jesus as much over the cactus prickers as I ever had with chemo. I tend to carry heavy things with more strength than the little pin pricks. 

It reminded me of the statues just down Avenue of the Fountains near here--a cowboy looking for the pebble in his boot while the horse gets a drink at the pool.

(Except Danny thought the cowboy might have been checking for scorpions, but I think he was was looking for the pebble that was bothering him.) The cowboy, you know.

The big, brave, horse-riding, lasso-throwing, steer-branding cowboy--worried about that pesky pebble in his boot.

So often it's the little things that bug us as much as or more than the big ones.

 I pulled and pulled prickers out of two or three fingers, but one pesky one is still in there. And I couldn't find our needle-nose tweezers in the travel bag either--or at any of the stores we checked in around here.

So I just lift a prayer today.

A little prayer for all those who are searching for the pebble in their boot,

or are bothered by the cactus pricker in their finger--

\the relationship stings,

the gnats of ordinary troubles that are small but real,

and the zaps of fear and regrets and little hurts that bring the whimper out of us before we remember to be a big girl.

Please calm the sting, compassionate Lord, 

and may the pebble drop out of the boot,

and slap the gnats, 

and quiet our worried and bothered and quivering feet, fingers, and hearts.

Because of Your love Who bore hurts both great and small on Your cross and in Your heart,

Amen.