I love this...

Guest blogging is beautiful! I love the idea of getting to know people better - and I love the whole idea of weaving a strong web in interconnected links to support us all... Thanks Baldylocks for being the first and for having this great idea.

I would like to invite someone else to come forward and write a blog for us... Baldylocks has offered to help and any questions or interest can be directed either to her at: http://baldylocks.blogspot.com/ or to me at: julie@ReBuildingYou.com

Step on up!

With love,
Julie

Guest Blogger -Baldylocks

Today I thought I would add a post from a guest blogger. She was diagnosed with Leukemia at 33 in the last two weeks of her university degree. After several rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant from her brother, she is now trying to get back to a new normal. You can visit her blog at Baldylocks.com

Da Funk
I've been floundering recently. Almost three years of being ill in bed has taken a huge toll on my body and my psyche. I've gone through a long cycle of fear, anger, hope, and an endless waiting for things to get better. I started out with a very solid belief that I would be fine. But after 3 years in my bed and struggling to get through every day I eventually wondered, will I get better? No doctor would say.

The prednisone and all my other drugs have made me so ill. My strong band of hope that I would see the end of this has grown thinner and thinner until it was only a battered thread.

This whole cancer dealy was only supposed to be a bump in the road of my life. One day I would wistfully look back at it, throw my head back and laugh in a conquering sort of tone. Now I know I will never be the same. I realize it's been said a hundred times over by a hundred different people in a hundred different contexts, but it's new to me. I will never be the same.

Sadness has crept in. Frustration has seeped into every inner corner of my being. With it came listlessness and apathy. Pain, medication, severe sleep and fatigue issues have clouded my brain making it feel like it's stuffed with cotton.

I feel like all the control I've had over my life has been taken away from me. My body has become my betrayer.

I felt a little like putting my head in the oven.


Perfect :) I find being severely at the bottom a real catalyst for change. There is no place to go but up. I've decided to kick this suck hole despondency.

I made a plan. Despite all the things I struggle to get done every day, I am going to come first. I took myself straight to the doctor and to a Cancer Agency counsellor as well as a massage therapist. The doctor made a priority of sorting out my lack of sleep. The Amtitriptoline made me so much worse. I tried it for about 5 days but after a midnight online shopping spree I had no recollection of, I went back to the Dr and stopped taking it. The upside of that is I have been receiving nice little "presents" in the mail for the last two weeks. My GP upped my current sleeping meds which don't give me any trouble. I've also been off my main tormentor (prednisone) for 4 months.

Getting a better sleep has made me feel a bit better which in turn has enabled me to do a little more. I been forcing myself to go twice a week to my arthritic waterfit class. No matter how suckathetic I feel, I go. When a friend asks me to go for a walk on the beach at an unGodly hour, I say, Yes. I was asked to go to a salsa dancing class. I said, Yes, and went but was only able to sit and watch. At least I walked up the stairs. In short I am stretching my boundaries and if I suffer after, at least I know I tried.


I hurt, I feel awful, my body is protesting but I feel hopeful again. I have goals again. I feel like I have some control in my life again. My body is my goal. It's not my betrayer, it is a part of me that has had a hard time and deserves a little compassion.

If I'm not going to save me, who will?

Light The Night Walk for Leukemia

Hello! We walked for little Jobe - and my beautiful friend Rosanne too who was with us - this year and last year. She's a survivor (we're searching high and low for a new term instead of that one? If you have any ideas, we would love to hear them...) Survivors caried white balloons. We had red ones and there were gold balloons to commemorate those who are no longer with us. Events like this really help - not only in the money they raise but just because 'they're there'... I chatted with a father who was there with his wife and 2 other kids while their young daughter was in hospital undergoing her second round of chemotherapy. They were so glad to have somewhere to go where they felt they could go... They just felt too 'shell shocked' to be anywhere else... I was very happy to be there. After the walk - and 5km is a long way when you're still recovering - we partied with a firedancer (above) and music and snacks... Thank you very much to all the generous folks who sponsored us - we really appreciated it. Here are some photos:

Sponsor little Jobe and help support the essential support services...

Please sponsor Christine's walk for Jove - if we all donate even the smallest amount we could help to spread the Light - and Luck... Click Here for Christine's sponsor form. All the assumptions that we naively make about our luck are all relative. If we feel lucky, we feel alive and loved and blessed and just all-round warm and good. We feel wonderful. My daughter-in-law and 3 of my beautiful grandchildren (on the left) are walking in this year's 'Light The Night' walk (for the 4th year running) for leukemia and blood disorders for little Jove (on the right). Ironically, Jove's mom, Iris, walked in Light The Night too - before Jove was even born... My hope is that if we all pitch in and sponsor her - and little Jove - he and hundreds of other precious children like him will be a little bit luckier. Click Here for Christine's sponsor form and more information about the walk - we'll be there and we would love for you to join us too!

Degrees of Luck

Luck is a funny thing... One man's luck is another man's nemesis. If you are in a coma, then 'luck' is to recover consciousness. If you are a well known film star, luck is to land that best-ever role. If you're a teenager without wheels, luck is to win even an old car. If you already have a car, then luck is to win a year's worth of gas and new brakes...

And so on.

The last few weeks have been strange... A brilliant friend of mine was diagnosed years ago with diabetes. He is a gifted stock trader and hopeless entrepreneur. A few years ago one of his legs was black and rotten from the knee down and, despite his doctor's advice to have the leg amputated below the knee, he dived long and hard breathing pure oxygen at the Hyperbaric Oxygen Centre until his leg was pink and healthy again. This last couple of years he's been working long hours and his foot and leg became gangrenous again. He feels lucky that the hospital only had to amputate part of his leg last week and he is learning to walk again already...

NAIG - North American Indigenous Games A day of joy...

We need more joy in this world...

Lives are broken and smashed by trauma - racial, physical, emotional...

This day was a celebration of success...

The North American Indigenous culture was suddenly traumatized - much like an individual who suffers a stroke or serious injury - when the European settlers landed on these shores. As ReBuilding is where my mind is these days, I was obsessing about the similarities between trauma to an individual and trauma to a whole Nation...



This was a day for the First Nations... No mistake. A real celebration. It was also wonderful inspiration to all those who have suffered severe trauma of all kinds...








I've never seen so much hi-fiving in all my life!...







I felt gratitude, being able to applaud strong, young athletes... Taking over my generation's struggles 'to overcome' the past, with new energy and in such positive ways. They do it with apparent ease and grace...






Tribal journeys - which is a fantastic 'Outward Bound' kind of program that takes an active approach in attending to internal problems within the family/culture - had taken place all week with longboats arriving in Cowichan Bay from all over North America and Canada...


I was hoping and praying that the crowds would turn out for the celebrations planned for Sunday. As a Caucasian who is anything but comfortable with her race's history, I want so badly to create new history - a fabulous 'today' - founded on unity and hope and goodwill.

As it happened, thousands of people turned out on this hot, sunny day to cheer the four-and-a-half THOUSAND athletes in the North American Indigenous Games - teams from Alberta and Arizona to New York and Nova Scotia...



I was delighted! The choir that I sing with, One Human Family Gospel Choir, were there, helping to line the route. Here our director Eric (below), is being shaded with a parasol...





Along with the thousands of participants and spectators was a craft fair...

Again and again I saw a lovely blend of tradition, present and future.


This was a mom-and-daughter business making herbal creams in the traditional ways but marketing them in today's way - on the internet...


TheHul'qumi'num group was there promoting education about this land and its First Nations and history.

Representatives from the police force, Canadian Forces and Government offices were recruiting and a great example, to me, of the old and the new in perfect harmony was a beautiful 'today' black silk business-woman's suit with traditional First Nations markings...

The best story of all I discovered on Saturday...

A handful of experienced security men and women have been volunteering their services for First Nations events - including this one...


Supported by local business interests, these guys had been training with First Nations people to provide their Morning Star security for all their events.

They were delighted to show off the beautiful thank you gift that they'd received for all their hard work - and fondly remembered their founder, Lumpy Joe.


To me it was one more example of a community ReBuilding - taking the present and creating the future...

Real and respectful co-operation between people of all cultures.
The feeling of unity and love and an accepting generosity... (I appreciate this, even though the injury to the First Nations people was years before my birth)

I believe the secret of the future lies in unity...

As the great example we were shown here, we can learn from and respect history, seize today and embrace a new future... I pray that the future-builders - our sons and daughters - will be much wiser than our ancestors were and forge the future in peace.

ReBuilders must do the same thing...

I hope the day will come soon when there will be unity in the world: complete harmony, equality and acceptance between men and women of all colours and faiths and histories.

I keep finding examples of this these days - there's a feeling of goodwill and it's spreading!