A Place We Call HOME

This morning I’m home alone. Hubby is going to work, the kids to school and the maid to market. Usually there is another maid doing the house cleaning up, however she is not feeling well and going to the doctor today. So I’m all alone.

As an EX-perfectionist, I couldn’t stand looking at the messy house. Instantly I find myself busy doing the clean up like making the beds, sweeping the floor, cleaning up the toys, putting everything to where they belong.

I keep Mika’s track set, he just built last night, on the living room floor though. Just like I keep Alisha’s play dough, we just made yesterday afternoon, in her play kitchen. The kids will be happy to find their favorites where they are when they come home.

Being alone allows me to have quiet time to appreciate the things around me, like our home. Replaying the pictures in my mind about our daily life at home, the kids are playing, screaming, laughing, fighting, crying, the hubby is busy getting ready to work, exercising, asking my help to find his stuffs, etc… etc… somehow I feel what a wonderful life we are living right now. Every member of the family is happy just becoming their true self. They know what to expect when they are at home. The kids know where to find their toys, when to go to bed, what their parents will react to their needs. The hubby knows he can rely on me to assist him with his inquires, he can be sure the kids are well taken care of. I know the kids and hubby’s day to day activities and their related needs. We all know what to expect and we all know we will be safe, secured and loved at home.

So, looking at Alisha’s free hand writings on the wall I come to a conclusion that a house doesn’t have to be big and beautiful with luxurious furniture to be called home. It just needs to make the people living in there to feel safe, secured and happy to be their true self. A home is not about the material things inside. It is about the love between the people who live in there.

I’m glad that we have a place we call HOME.

Go Green Kids

I'm not going to talk about the environment and such. I've never been a green activist and am not trying to become one now. In this writing I'm just going to highlight the very importance of eating your vegetables A LOT everyday and to tell you several things I'm begging you to do. The things that I didn't do during my earlier years.

1. Eat Your Greens A LOT

I agree with you that vegetables are not the tastiest food. Only a handful of people can really have the pleasure of eating them. I remember how I always asked my mom (your late grand mother whom you never meet) to give me only white rice and chicken or fish or meat. I didn't eat veggies during my childhood.

Only when I was pregnant I started eating my greens because I wanted my baby to get the best nutrients 4 your developing body. The practice continues forward. I ate plenty vegetables during the lactation period, during the second pregnancy, and the lactation period again, during my treatment and beyond. Mommy finally realized the importance of phytochemicals in vegetables. They provides us with strong immune system to prevent and fight any sickness.

However it's a bit too late for me so unfortunately the cancer can grow in my body. Mommy is not broken hearted though, I still eat my greens A LOT so that you will eat them too, A LOT. ;)

2. Engage in Sports

Early in your life I already can see that both of you have a fondness towards physical activities. Well, I should pay tribute to daddy since he is the one who brings sports to our family literally (with his so may sport equipments and activities he3) and of course genetically. ;)

I want you to keep physically active. I want you to love doing sports. You may choose one as your favorite and master it or you may also choose many and just have fun with them. As long as your body gets enough exercise and you enjoy yourself doing it, you will be healthy and mommy will be happy.

3. Embrace the Sun

A ha, I can almost hear adek Alisha’s objection but trust me, having a fair skin is useless if your bones are weak. Well actually it’s not only about the bones, it’s for your immune system and overall well beings too.

We all know that sun light will help us with vitamin D supply in our body. It also provides us with stronger immune system. So don’t be afraid to get a tanned skin from your encounter with sun light. You will enjoy yourself much more when you are healthy with tan skin than have fair skin but sick.

Whenever possible let your skin feel the warmth of the sun light directly with no sun block whatsoever. Just remember to do it appropriately  and before 10 a.m or after 4 p.m.

4. Speak Up Your Mind

There are times I want you to be quiet but there are more times I want you to just speak up your mind.

No body can read other people’s mind. Well, some magicians show that they can, but I don’t really believe in magic and most of the people you meet are not magicians I believe he3…

In this regards, please… please… please… if you have something in mind whether it’s bothering you, disturbing you, making you upset or even the other way around when it’s making you excited, happy, curious, amazed, speak it out. Let us know, let others know. By speak it out, you are making the burden go away. Your mind will be calmer, your heart will be happier.

You will also be a better communicator so your relationship with other people will flourish. Just remember to do it properly.

5. Say No to Sugar

I’m aware that most people have sweet teeth. Almost if not all kids love lollipops, right? Even adults like them. I remember I always kept candies in my purse to come in handy whenever I needed sugar rush.

But, once again BUT it’s not supposed to be. It’s not healthy. Sugar in any form (candies, drinks, cookies, cakes, etc) is just empty calorie. It gives you calorie with no nutrient at all. It provides you with instant energy but also with a spike in the level of your blood sugar, a condition favorable for cancer cells to grow.

Please be aware that there are cancel cells in everyone’s body. They will not grow and harm us if we keep them dormant in unfavorable environment in our body. If we abuse our body by making it favorable for the cancer cells to grow then we will be in a BIG BIG trouble.

So if you are craving for something sweet, opt for fresh fruits instead.

6. Have a Good Quality and Enough Sleep in Complete Darkness

Sleep is just like food, we need them in the right amount in the right quality. Too much food is bad , so is too much sleep, so is too little. How much is enough? Everybody's need is different so listen to your body. If you feel fresh when you wake up and you don't feel sleepy during the day then you get enough.

How about the quality? Sleep should be regular every night. It will be best if uninterrupted in a completely dark surrounding. So invest in a high quality curtain/black out. ;)

7. You May NOT Make Sins But You Can Make Mistakes

It’s so tempting to be perfectionist. It might even be in our blood. However please be mindful that mistake is different from sin.

There is a clear guidance of what we should and should not do in terms of right and wrong in front of Allah SWT. I want you to obey the Qur’an and Hadits. This is a full stop. No bargain.

On the other hand, people make mistakes. From time to time we accidentally spill the water from the cups, break the toys, loose the keys, forget the lists, make the wrong decisions and so on.

As long as you have tried your best not to make mistake, it is absolutely OK to make mistakes. Just remember to learn from it. ;)

 

What Cancer Cannot Do

I got these encouraging words when I had my first chemos in Ochser, Jefferson, Louisiana. The copies were on the sign in desk in the chemo section free for anyone who came there. They are so inspiring I wanna share with you here.


W H A T   C A N C E R    C A N N O T    D O

It cannot cripple Love

It cannot shatter Hope

It cannot corrode Faith

It cannot destroy Peace

It cannot kill Friendship

It cannot suppress Memories

It cannot silence Courage

It cannot invade the Soul

It cannot steal Eternal Life

It cannot conquer the Spirit


- Author Unknown - 

Dear Mika and Alisha

Dear Mika and Alisha, buah hati mommy,

How are you my babies? I do hope both of you grow into healthy, happy, kind, fine and amazing adults. And most of all I always pray you become sholeh /sholehah and rahmatan lil alamin. Aamiin Ya Rabbal Alamin.

By the time you are reading this, I might or might not still be around anymore. My cancer relapses. It metastases to my bones. There are 7 spots suspected, cervical IV, right scapula, sternum, prosesus spinosus lumbal II, lumbal V, sacrum and right femur. Now I'm having my second chemotherapy cocktails. This time it is a mix of capecitabine and carboplatin. The first chemo back in 2013 was a package of taxol and FAC. What strage names aren’t they? If one if not both of you become oncologist(s) if not scientist(s) in charge of finding the cancer cure (well, that’s another prayer I’m reciting for you ;)), those names will be as familiar to you as ABCs ;).

It was January 2015 when we discovered the disease came back. Mas Mika was 5 year and 3 month old while Adek Alisha was 2 year and 7 month old. Both of you were just too little to understand, so mommy and daddy kept you unaware of the situation. We didn’t want to confuse/scare you with something beyond your beautiful world. We want to keep you growing happy and healthy in the closest normal surrounding possible.

I’m writing this letter to say hello to you, to apology, to let you know how much I love you, my dear Mika and Alisha.

If you vaguely remember that I always seem to refuse to carry you during our life in Balikpapan, that’s not because I don’t want to. Like all of loving parents in the world, I always want to hold you closely so your hearts meet mine. So your hearts’ beatings and mine sing together in harmony. And carrying you is surely one of my favorite activities accordingly.

However, the axillary nodes dissection and mastectomy left my left arm vulnerable to lymphedema. I was cheating here and there though because I couldn’t resist the temptation. Mas Mika and Adek Alisha, you were so very cute little kids back then. But when the cancer recurs and grows in my bones, my right arm is so weak it hurts me even when I’m trying to raise my hand. My backbones are not that strong either. The cancer cells are eating my bones there. That’s why I can’t carry you anymore.

But don’t worry kids, your mommy is a warrior and your daddy is my hero. We are fighting the disease relentlessly and so bravely. I am not afraid of what is going to happen with me, with our family. And daddy is very much on the same board with mommy. Alhamdulillah Allah SWT gives us a strong iman, faith that makes us believe that everybody and everything will be taken care of, that at the end everybody will be just fine.

Sending you love as many as the stars in the sky.

Pasir Ridge, February 16, 2015

Mommy

Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang

There’s been a lot going on in our life recently. To update with the February posting, Alhamdulillah the result of the biopsy was negative. It’s just a benign calcification. That’s really a blessing. I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world.

We went on with our plan. We moved back to our home country, Indonesia. To a small city called Balikpapan. We live in company housing so the accommodation is excellent. Several days after we arrived, we were reunited with our daughter. I couldn’t describe how I felt. It just felt surreal, like a dream.

However, things weren’t like a Hollywood movie where everything just stops at the happily ever after scene. Life goes loooonggg beyond that point. For us, here comes the adaptation time.

It’s the adaptation with the time zone, with the weather, with the surroundings and most of all with our little daughter. It was a hard time both physically and emotionally. A mind in a body with prolonged sleep deprivation would not tolerate chaos really well. The mind would just go wrong. That’s what I felt at least. I was extremely exhausted from so many days of sleeping only 3-4 hours each day. I could have slept well but as a mom with a little kid experiencing a jetlag, you know how impossible it is. Feeling sleepy all of the time, I had to manage the house and stop the kids from fighting every second. Managing the house was easy breezy, but managing the kids was a headache. I didn’t know why my kids just couldn’t get along well. Why they were fighting, screaming, crying every second. I felt like my head was just going to explode.

And that’s not all. My kids were getting sick. First, my daughter was having a mouth sore followed by a mild fever. She was crying all day all night for 2 days. We took her to the doctor and she got better. Next, my son was having a very high fever he was shivering. Something that never happened before. My husband and I were panicked and took him to the emergency room in a nearby hospital, twice. Once in the middle of the night and once the following day. He was better after couple of days. After that, our bathrooms ceiling were collapsed during a very heavy rain.  It was so bad the repair would take 2 weeks time and we had to move to a temporary housing. Moving in and out and in and out and in, packing and unpacking, and packing and unpacking and packing and unpacking. Gosh, I felt like I was about to collapse as well.

And there I was. Having a bad cough and runny nose for a week, I started to felt a pain in my right forehead. A pain that brought tears in your eyes without you need to cry. Another thing that never happened before. I went to the doctor, got an MRI and was even told to have a biopsy in my sinus considering my medical history. Oh my goodness gracious….

However, besides all of the terrible things we were lucky we had a very solid support system. Our big family was helping during our early arrival. They stayed several weeks helping us with the adaptation. Our big thanks to our beloved family! A maid, driver and baby sitter were also easily available for us.  So, little by little everything went into places. The kids even though are not always playing together nicely they fight a lot less.  Our sleep even though is not a straight uninterrupted 8 hour long is so much better. We started enjoying our new life here. Appreciating the beautiful landscape, the friendly and safe neighborhood, the fresh air and healthy atmosphere. So every time I wake up from my nap with the kids, I’m always grateful for the greeneries and blue sky I see over my windows, for the life I’m living right now. If you just hang in there and keep believing, there’s always a light at the end of a tunnel.

Life is Happening Right NOW

For so many times we wait for special moments to enjoy our best things. We wear the best clothes only for date night outs, holiday celebrations, family gatherings, wedding receptions. We use our best china for very special dinners, carry the most expensive purses for strictly limited occasions, decorate the home only when guests are coming. For most of the times, the best things are just sitting there, idle, unutilised, in waiting.

The worse is we also wait to show our best self. We wait for Ramadhan to give zakat, wait for Ied Fitri to ask for forgiveness, mind our manners only when there are people we want to impress. We wait for birthdays to say how special someone is, to give presents, to treat people. We wait and wait and wait.

I was happy, positive and having great expectation in my future when the radiologist told me the mammogram of my remaining breast was suspicious and I needed to get a stereotactic biopsy during my 3 month follow up visit after radiation. Tears dropped in my eyes, my heart was broken. I just didn't understand why. I have been doing my best to be healthy. I start exercising, eat healthy, cook carefully, sleep better, relax more. I have been doing everything in my control to stay away from cancer. I just didn't get it. I was upset, the plan my husband and I have designed for our future is in jeopardy. We don't know how to handle our life if the biopsy is positive. Just when we are ready to move on.

Later that day after hardly swallowing the news, my feeling began to calm down. My mind started recalling so many stories about other people who were also facing difficulty in life they didn't understand why that happened. A child who was diagnozed with terminal illness, a pregnant mother who was told that her baby was abnormal, a family whose one of its members was very very sick. Inspite of the bitterness I saw they were living their life gracefully, they were able to squezed the juice of whatever life they were facing. They were able to live their life inspiring others.

Tonight just after the biopsy this morning, with the preliminary result will only be available tomorrow afternoon, I start putting my hope together again. I will not let the biopsy result shatter my great expectation of what lies ahead for me. I don't want to wait for anything to get the best of my life. Whatever it is, it is the life God has given me. Let it be my present that I enjoy now.

A Flashback that will Bring Me to the Future

I was breastfeeding my 6 month old baby when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was thirty six years old. My eldest son was just 3 year and 2 month old and my marriage was not even 5 years long.

Yet, I wasn't too shocked when the doctor told me the result of the biopsy. Somehow I knew something was not right when we (my husband and I) discovered the big mass in my left breast. I did cry but not much. I knew I was strong enough to handle this.

On the next doctor visit, I told the doctor about a lump in my armpit so he ordered another biopsy on that site. I knew something else was going to come out. And yup the cancer had spread to the lymph node. After  many more exhausting tests they said it was a stage 3C and the treatments would include 16 rounds of chemotherapy, mastectomy with axillary nodes dissection and 6 weeks of radiation.

The first thing my husband and I thought was how we would manage our life when I was going through the treatment. We're both more of practical persons, not really the emotional ones. Off course we were sad but we had a baby and a toddler to take care of so we're like let's work things out. Hence, the first thing in our mind was how should we do this? Who would take care of the children? All of our families were in Indonesia. We moved to the USA only less than 3 years ago. We didn't have lots of friends here. Asking them to temporarily take care of a toddler was sensible but a 6 month old baby? We knew that would be too much.

So we came to a decision that we had to send our baby back to Indonesia so our parents could take care of her. That's when my heart was broken. I was devastated. She was so little, so pure, so beautiful, why should she have to be separated from us, her parents? Why she couldn't be raised the same way her brother was? Why I couldn't kiss her chubby cheeks, smell her fragrant silky skin, hold and cuddle her anymore? The tears only stopped when our rationality took over the emotion. We believed she would be better off being under our parents' constant and stabil care than staying with us with uncertain condition.

From then on I was strong. The chemotherapy and everything that went with that was alright. Loosing my hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, having dark nails, nausea, vomitting, were ok. I was ready. The surgery went well. Loosing one of my breast, a whole bunch of lymp nodes, never really bothered me. The radiation was done and I was lucky my skin, eventhough became darker, was not painful. No blister whatsoever. I knew I was strong. I could take whatever it was to regain my health.

However yesterday when I read an article about living with cancer in the perspective of a boy whose father passed away because of cancer when he was just 11 year old, I was saddened. My heart sank. I never knew how children's life would be affected after seeing their parent dying in front of their own eyes. I never thought that it would be a terribly horribly frigthening endless nightmare. How scared they would be. How their once beautiful world would turn upside down. How painful it would be that it would leave a scar in their heart forever. I was saddened. I don't want my kids to experience that. I want them to feel secured, safe and happy. I want to watch them grow, be by their sides, share their dreams, be their rock. This time I know more than ever that I need to STAY STRONG.