Standing Up For Melanoma Awareness/Education Month

OK. In my last post I got a little punchy. Yes, me. I was on a topic that means a lot to me and I got a tad carried away with myself. I think I'm entitled. See, THIS time, THIS year, THIS May'y Melanoma Awareness/Education Month means so much more to me.

Talking 'bout a new attitiede! A new perspective that's, well, deeper, in your face and knows more that I did last May.

I began lodging at Hotel Melanoma Thuursday July 10, 2008 when I was told melanoma was in my mole. In August 2008 I was dianosed stage 3b. I realized then that I'm mortal. Up until then, I knew I'd die one day. EVERYBODY will die. We're ALL terminal...oh how I mortally despise that word...terminal. But I expected I'd be old. I figutred I'd die quickly. All that was theory, I guess. I had my thoughts and suppositions. I didn't have a clue about reality.

This time last year, things weren't good with me, but I had not been told there was nothinng lefft for me. I still had hope I could outwit melanoma in 4 places in my brain, mel in my lung, in my lumbar sacram (bottom of spine). I spread awareness of melanoma all this time, though I don't remember what I spread. Thankks to Facebook on the On This Day Paage I can rememeberr. All the years of my diagnosis, I was very active in the online melanoma community. I had connections, influnce and I used it all to help peiople. But I really didn't grasp the gravity of melanoma awareness and education until July 13, 2016 when the drs at Duke told me there was nothing left for me and I was sent home to die. That gave me a fresh way of looking at this.

We're in MAEM now...7 days in as I post and I'm not supposed to be here. But I am. So let me tell you how it's like to know you really ARE mortal and you REALLY will die...and it's not supposed to be like this.

I'm 57 years old. I may not see 58. I'm supposed to be going out with Mitch and us living our lives. Being man and wife, doing things together and tell about our day when we go in separate directions during the day as we pursue our calls. Him being a pharmacist and helping at the store and me beling a Methodist pastor. That's how it was supposed to be. Instead, he's at home with me all day every day. He does all the cooking and cleaning and shopping. He does everything. It wasn't supposed to be ths way. I'm either on the sofa or in bed all day every day. I can't walk. He has to help me get in the wheelchair and get out of it. He has to help me gey in and off the furnituire. It wasn't supposed to be this was. But it is. THIS is what melanoma awarenss looks like. It doesn't give a damn that we had a life and THIS ISN'T it!

I'm supposed to be part of my two churches. An active Methodist pastor, making a differnce, in people's lives. Helpong in the community. NOW I wacth church on Sunday morning on TV. I don't have a life to be part of. People have their lives. When I was first supposed to die, people were here. Now it's only some family and a few friends. I know they care, but they have stuff to do. They have lives to live and places to go and meals to cook and they don't realize Mitch gets lonely and needs to see faces other than mine. THIS is what melanoma has done. THIS is melanoma awareness and education is.

I'm sypposed to be a good Wife, Mom, Granny, Daughter, and Mother-in-Law. NOW, I'm a cause of worry and a burden. THIS IN NOT how my life was supposed to be. NOT at 57. NOT NOW.

But. This is how it is. Melanoma Awareness/Education is more than stats and info. It's real life. Life and death. wanting to live and doing your damned best to do that. No matter what. It's about God in the midst. I want YOU to live and choose life. I want YOU to take what I say to heart and make any necessary chanjges to your kife that you need to so YOU don't share this leg of my journey with me with your OWN advanced stage 4, nothing left to to do case.

I want YOU to live your calling, be there for your family, get moving and enjoy life, watch your children grow up and have their own kids.

I want so much for you. It's too late for me. It's not too late for you, I hope.

Do more than be aware. Do more than be educated.

Absorb my words into your life and look at your own life. Love it. Don't take it for granted. This isn't how it was supposed to be for me.

Prayerfully, it's not how it will be for YOU. It's just not how it's supposed to be.

We all think this won't happen "to me." The trouble with that thinking is we're all "other people."

I'm standing with you spiritually because I can't stand physically with you. But, together, we stand.

Against melanoma. Melahomies together forever. God with us and bless us all, everyone.

charis