the broersma five

Stumbling Over Stubbed Toes

Monday, January 27, 2014

Why is it that we stub our toes? We know the coffee table, side table, or door frame is there and has been there for sometime, BUT we still run into it? May I say it..stupid really. Quite dumb that we do that. Well, I had a stubbed moment this morning as I ran into the sofa table attempting to simply open the blinds and turn on the lights.

The kids felt it necessary to laugh as Mommy was nearly collapsed on the floor clinging to my foot in pain. Best part…it's the same toe I broke years earlier when trying to hide Tim's Christmas present as he came home during gift wrapping. OUCH! Within an hour my freshly broken toe was fashionably shades of purple from all angles of my foot. Gorgeous.

It was quite the morning for foot problems. Myriam also shattered Leslie Love's glass foot in the hallway. Oops.

Later today as I was icing my pinkie toe, God showed me what sinned looks like. We live in a fallen world with sin as our human nature. We strive to do our best, to be our best and live out God's purpose following His instructions, but since Adam and Eve bit the apple, we will always struggle.

Some struggle with addictions in shopping, gossip, lust, food or beverage addictions, and many other worldly desires that dangle in front of us. Unfortunately, it's hard to play dodge ball when you have flaming arrows coming your way all day long in our media, TV shows, music, toys, and books we read. It's impossible to escape the rude ways of the world. And just like the furniture that's been sitting there in place for years, sometimes we might accidentally run into it creating pain and bruising. We don't purposely stub our toes but when life gets going so fast and we're not paying attention things can get in the way and guards go down.

The beauty in all of this is that God is waiting with an overflowing abundance of grace and forgiveness to offer to us when we run into problems. Doesn't mean we can just go and sin expecting to be redeemed. Rather, let it inspire us to keep our eyes open and toes alert as we walk through life. The devil is waiting for us to mess up but God wants us to succeed.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people." Ephesians 6:10-18

Before you get caught up in the busyness of the days demands, let's put on the Armor of God so we can better defend our faith as arrows come our way.

I learned my lesson the painful way and will make sure to take a wide U-turn around the table verses cutting corners and running through the morning check-list without my shoes on.

For now, I will ice my silly small, in-need-of-a-pedicure pinkie toe and thank God that he offers us grace and gives us protection against the tug-o-wars of life.

My Hero's Update

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Last week My Hero had another treatment and visit with her oncologist in Portland. Chuckles went with Papa and Nana as he LOVES Auntie time, but has caught on to the pattern of "spoiling" when trailing behind. It was really special for him this time as he lost his second tooth away from home!!!!!

Many times over the past almost seven years, this joy-ride of breast cancer has gone to extreme highs to rock bottom lows. There has been a village of people who have stood in support, prayed holes in the carpet, and been the medicine outside of the bottle to My Hero and our family. From the mission house right after the first surgery to fundraisers across the states; people have extended themselves to bring healing and encouragement to this entire journey. Recently, we've experienced some more set-backs, but are HOPEFUL in the new abilities of technology and education in medicine. We pray for super-woman strength for our sister, daughter, friend, and co-employee.

This weekend, I attended a Dare To Be event and was reminded to thank God for being "in the middle" of our situations. I can't begin to explain how many times I've felt like, as a family, we've been paddling in the middle of the lake against an upstream current in this battle. BUT, God is faithful and will give us the arm muscle to paddle against anything that gets in the way. As long as we can keep our eyes on the shoreline in front of us knowing that God will NEVER leave us, NEVER forsake us, and will ALWAYS have His will in His best interest, then we will be okay.

"I praise you in the storm…"

Here is My Hero's latest update for those interested and needing something to jot down on their prayer list. Yes, it's confusing, but you will see the faithfulness in this servants heart speak louder than any positive diagnoses.

God is SOOOO good!

"Had another treatment of Pamindranate for my bones yesterday with my buddy and parents at my side. Charlie brings me so much joy when he comes and I think he puts a smile on more than my face up in the infusion room!! Yesterday he was watching a movie on my computer so when he wanted to say something, he would shout due to earplugs being in his ear. He had quite the group of us laughing!
My tumor marker numbers are continuing to go up which is not the direction I want them to go! For two months they had been going down and I thought we had FINALLY turned a corner in beating this thing. But last month, they shot back up leaving the two months of decline erased. Yesterday my labs went up again, smaller amount this time, but they still went up. Although I am responding well to the chemo (combo of a daily chemo pill and every 4wk bone maintenance chemo), it isn't working hard enough to beat my cancer. It is keeping my bone mets from spreading, but not working enough to also kill what is there.
So my doctor is going to be sending my tumor samples both from my lower spine as well as the original tumor I found in my sternum back in 2011 to a lab where they will be doing a DNA test on the tumor itself! Crazy how far science has come in this area! If needed they will also look at my original, original tumors from 2007. The goal of these tests will be to determine the biological make up of the cancer in order to treat my cancer at a biological level. This is cutting edge cancer treatment stuff and I am thankful my doctor wants to be as aggressive as I do in beating this once for all!!
So what does this really mean? On a scientific doctor level, it means my cancer doesn't have a chance! I'm not going to try and explain beyond that since I'm still trying to understand how this works, let alone help someone else understand it too! All in know is that they will be looking at my tumors down to the smallest DNA levels to see what the most effective form of treatment will be. It kind of sounds like a dah-type thing to do but unfortunately scientists have not been able to do this up until recently. So this method of treating cancer really is cutting edge work!
On a daily life level this means that at my next Pamindrinate treatment, my doctor will be switching things up. He may start me on a new chemotherapy drug (lose your hair hard-core type chemo), or change me to a different pill form only type of chemo, or change the dose and frequency of the current chemo I am getting. It could also mean doing radiation on the most painful bone met areas, or any type of combo of the options above. I will also be doing another PET scan later February to establish a new baseline before I start a new chemo regimen.
For now I will continue taking Afinitor (chemo pill) on a daily basis and its sidekick drug at night. For pain I will continue taking a muscle relaxer but also adding a new pain killer for when the muscle relaxer doesn't work. Hopefully I will not have to take the pain killer too much but I have been experiencing more pain on a consistent basis and I consider myself to have a fairly high pain tolerance so you can do the math on that one. I am very thankful I haven't been experiencing mouth sores the last few months...you can only go so far eating baby food! In that regard, if anyone needs Gerber baby food I have some to spare and would gladly hand them off to you!
This has been a long journey so far but God is good!! Thank you to everyone who is on this road with me too!"

Welcome Mom

Monday, January 13, 2014

It's been the running joke at my parent's house when Dad frantically flips open his cell phone to answer a phone call, squinting to find the green button to press and sometimes saying "Hi" too soon or too loud as the speaker is going south. Dad can barely see the screen, can never seem to take a picture before the running object flees the scene, and a one line text takes a minute too long due to his fingers pressed against the number button too many times causing frustration to the original problem. If he had his way, I'd still be stuck with the big brick phone and tall antenna from the 90's!

Dad. Your phone is pre-historic.

So, as this problem keeps arising and as mom continues her journey south for My Hero's treatments, she finally put her foot down and sub-combed to the Apple kingdom and yep, she got a phone of her own. After a first upgrade failed to work in her car she was coerced into buying the Apple 4 which may require a free meal and lessons from her SIL! After church last night, Mom and Dad came here, with of course the flip phone by Dad's side, and the newly encased smart phone. Proper introductions were made: Mom, meet Suri. Suri, welcome to your newest challenge. After many attempts to record a voice mail greeting, Mom was left in tears laughing as she proclaimed she wasn't smart enough for the smart phone: HILARIOUS!!!!!! Why is it when you just need to say, "This is me, I'm not here, leave your number," you have to record multiple attempts as you flub-up your words, speak too fast, or get the giggles from your mistakes?

Tim ran through a few highlights as I shared contacts with her and sent her pictures. Oh the excitement! Oh the fun! Mom has finally made it into the new ages of technology while Dad trails years behind and is as stubborn as a horse about not ever making the change himself.

Welcome Mom. I'm so proud of you!

{Bare with me as I make changes to the blog by adding links to additional pages. You will notice a Navibar under our family picture which will link you directly to 365, our family project life, and other sites, some of which are still in process of being set up. Please be patient as I add, change, and figure out the computer language in coding these things. Redeemed 613 will be announced soon, 50 by 50 is almost done, and links to My Hero's story and adoption are almost in place. Thank you for following and reading through our crazy life!}