The sky's the limit.
The Cielem’el Survival and Growth Journal evolved out of two web logs I have maintained over time.
Begun in 2009 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32, The Cielem’el Cancer Journal documented my trials, tribulations, and spiritual growth during breast cancer treatment, with information on the diagnoses, surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, radiation, and hormone therapy treatments, as well as all the personal and professional life stuff that still goes on throughout living a life with cancer. As a breast cancer survivor, I endeavor to inspire other young women like myself to fully engage and manage their cancer and treatments, and know that there are many women out there who are experiencing a similarly challenging emotional journey. Life doesn’t stop because you have cancer, it just gets more challenging.
About a year after finishing radiation, while still posting to The Cielem’el Cancer Journal, I started posting The Cielem’el Personal & Spiritual Growth Blog, which focused more clearly on areas of personal growth, self-development, and spiritual growth. My life journey and growth as a person neither began nor ended with cancer, and the Personal Growth blog was more of a continual journal of life experiences and learnings along my ongoing life journey beyond cancer. The journey honestly began when I was a newborn, shuffled and abused in multiple foster homes before being adopted by absolutely wonderful parents, and my life journey, consciously and continuously seeking personal growth, self development, and spiritual growth continues to evolve.
Over time it became clear that these two subjects cannot be divorced and maintained separately, because it is everything together that makes my web log what it is, meaning, an online journal of life experiences, survival, and growth from the perspective of someone who has survived multiple severe life trials and nurtured a conscious approach to personal and spiritual growth and self development. Hence, The Cielem’el Survival & Growth Journal. :)
I read these lists of side effects in these chemo books, and they seriously remind me of this thing they have in a Catholic Mass called the Litany of Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim. It basically is a repetition of prayerful phrases asking for forgiveness and blessing, and they do it as part of the process of blessing the congregation […]
Continue reading »I got the nicest handwritten note in the mail today, from the CEO at Chain, Mike. He was my first boss at i2 back in the day, some ten years ago or so. Wow, ten years? Anyway, this was so nice, I just had to include it in the blog for my family to see . . . Cynthia, I […]
Continue reading »Uff da! We’d just gotten back from the blood draw and Mark decides to make himself something to eat . . . cheese quesadilla on Rusty’s jalapeno tortillas. They smelled bad to me even cold, so I started making a sandwich. Then Mark put the bad-smelling tortilla in the toaster oven, and the whole house filled almost immediately with the […]
Continue reading »I had maybe 30 minutes worth of work to do this morning, which took me a couple/three hours, then I was posting files they might need with me out, and by then it was time for a nap, or at least a little rest, so I settled into the LoveSac and watched my fish swim for a while before lunch. […]
Continue reading »Well, here’s an interesting twist for you . . . we’re probably going to move sometime in October, hopefully during the couple extra weeks recovery I have between the end of chemo and the start of radiation. Apparently the house we’re living in now is going to go into foreclosure or something in a couple months, and so it will […]
Continue reading »I’m shedding hair faster than my cats, I swear, and we buzzed my hair off last night so now it’s just all these little short hairs getting all over my shirt like pet fur. But, not for long, I’m starting to see little bald patches, tiny little spots so far, none grown together to make any big patches yet. At […]
Continue reading »OK, ok, I concede. I am definitely more emotional now than I used to be. Mostly because it’s so easy to make me cry now. Not at the hard stuff – pain, discomfort, the new unexpected side effects that are really bad but the doctors mention in a list as something simple like, “fingertips tingling.” That stuff has to get […]
Continue reading »Day 100.We’re in the triple digits.To quote my Norwegian Grandma Inez . . . Uff da!
Continue reading »I had THE nicest lunch with my old friends from San Jose today! They were going to Oregon to visit some other friends and go wine-tasting, and when they saw that I needed babysitters this weekend while Mark and Brian are gone, they offered to visit me today. Actually, Denise offered to drive up by herself on Friday night to […]
Continue reading »Thank you, thank you, thank you to the many people who have volunteered their time to visit me in person or check on me via phone this weekend! So many that I had to beg off some to see at the milonga instead in order to make sure I still rest a lot the weekend! Here’s how the weekend is […]
Continue reading »Wow, did I freak out today. I had a call from my insurance company, who told me that they’re going to pay the minimum $20/week in short term disability, on the assumption that I’d get the maximum allowance from the state, which means I’ll have something like 1/3 of my income on STD. I had planned out my finances expecting […]
Continue reading »OK all you Sacramento-based Cynthia-sitter wanna-be’s, here’s your first big chance to put your feet where your e-mail is!=D Mark (my primary caregiver, as I’m sure everyone knows) is leaving town tomorrow afternoon after my day 10 blood draw. He’s going to gone from Thursday afternoon through Monday night. My secondary caregiver, Brian, is also going to be out of […]
Continue reading »Did I mention I seem to have a consistently low temperature? By like an entire degree or more below the “normal” 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve been in the 97’s pretty much every day since the infusion, and I was under temp when they took it there too. Strange.
Continue reading »Spent thirty minutes on the phone with the nurse this morning, after a night completely void of sleep and wreaked with discomfort, a rash that seems to be progressing rather than receeding, constant gut pains, and some severe central chest pains if I slouch or lower my head . . . it was time to talk to someone who knew […]
Continue reading »I have to think to bring my camera next time I come to the pet spa to visit my cats. Mizzou of course is as always the nonplussed patriarch of every situation whether he’s been through it before or not. Everyone here likes to point to the top of the cabinets and tell me that’s where he likes to hang […]
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