Dear Reader:

*** It is finally here- the RACE FOR THE CURE! And BOO IS HERE! Photos and fun on tomorrow’s blog! We are so close to our goal we could sneeze and slide into home base… so if there is anyone out there who hasn’t donated and would like to…here is the link: You can be the one to take us over the top!!!!

Link: http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/CHS_SouthCarolinaAffiliate?pg=entry&fr_id=6930

Thursday evening as twilight turned to darkness I sat out on the deck staring at the beautiful Confederate Rose. Once again…it had started out the morning with mostly white blooms slowly changing to pink by afternoon. Now in the late afternoon hours the purple shade had finally emerged but only as a closed bloom…it was gone and would fall beneath the tree when I checked Friday morning.

I started thinking about my cancer journey starting two weeks following Mandy’s wedding in May of 2008.

The white blooms reminded me of the reason family and friends were concerned at my appearance at the wedding…I had lost a lot of weight and my skin tone was white…later found out I was severely anemic. Due to chemo infusions it remained that way for awhile but slowly my natural coloring returned and I still remember the day I looked in the mirror and saw me again…not a pale, ghostly face staring back.

Like the traditional white/pink transformation that goes on daily within the Confederate Rose’s blooms…my skin tone did the same…sometimes healthier looking than at other times…depending on the treatment I was undergoing at the time.

And then when my breast cancer came galloping back following surgery in January of 2013 and more infused chemo treatments following that…for the first time I felt how the purple remains of the once vibrant Confederate Rose’s pink bloom must feel. Dried up and withered.

Like the legendary Confederate soldier who is slowly dying of blood loss on a Civil War battlefield (legend of the origin of the name Confederate Rose) I, too, felt drained. But then came a new drug for another type of cancer and miraculously it worked for me until last year around this time. Since then I am on two powerful drugs, one a  daily oral chemo pill, and luckily I am having minimal side effects to date.

So today, while you read this blog, I will be walking, running, and even playing a little football around Daniel Island…caught up in the shared moments of the race with family and close friends. Piling those memories up for the winter days ahead…

Life is a race and not one we want to speed through but to stop and smell the roses along the path.

So until tomorrow….Like the ever changing  Confederate rose blooms…I will remember that the idea is to bloom as brightly for as long as we can…because there is a season for everything.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Mollie gave me this decorative piece of home decor (except it was actually meant for the garden) several years ago… depicting four sides covered with words of hope and encouragement for breast cancer patients. I loved it so much I couldn’t put it in the garden to fade with time….so I put it on my bedside table in my bedroom. Every now and then I turn it completely around so I can read the sides and smile. Great comfort. Thanks Mollie!

Tommy and Kaitlyn and their two little loves…