Survivor's blog April 2, 2013....Do something to help someone.

Yesterday, I found myself once again in the waiting room at South Carolina Oncology Center . The staff  there is wonderful but, I find it so easy to sit there and be petrified about what is going to happen next. It is also a couple of short steps from sitting in the  waiting room to all out depression. I find it is really hard to let go, live in the moment, and let things happen as you go along. I always say that when you have cancer your "real" life stops and you are all of a sudden on your doctor's schedule instead of your own!

For me the simplest route to getting out of my own way is to concentrate on helping someone else. In  the past, the only charitable acts I ever did involved dropping of items to goodwill or donating a little money to charity (pitiful I know).  I felt we did not have enough of our own resources to be donating them to other people ( especially since I had been chronically ill for years before they finally found the real culprit.. an ovarian tumor.)  Cancer has completely changed my perspective. I  now I realize how blessed I am. I have a wonderful family, a supportive husband, and a home full of things that I love. So I try to focus on helping out when and where I can.

On bad days at S.C.O.A. I just try to do something small but meaningful,  like buying a Sprite for someone who looks like they were too sick to get out of bed in the morning. On good days, I try to use my couponing skills to help out my friends, family, and local charities with needed products. Amazingly with probably 15 hours of extra couponing effort, I was able to donate about half a truckload of food, personal care items, and pet foods to local charities or friends and family who needed them last year.  I also volunteered as a Master Gardener Intern and taught about 100 kids last year at Clemson Children's Garden.  Helping is actually what led me to this blog. If just  one entry  helps someone feel better or process what is happening to them, I will have accomplished my mission.

This week I am actually making some cooling scarves for all the ladies who will be in chemo treatment with me on April 10th. My mentor, Rebecca,  taught me how to make a simple scarf that will cool you down when you get the chemo sweats. Next week I will be bringing 10 of them to chemo with me for the ladies in the gyno. area with me. ( I will be posting an entry about how you can make some too in the next week or so.)

This was all donated to other families!!!
 

The point of all of this is not to toot my own horn! I want to
point out that no matter how sick you are, or how down you feel, you can help yourself by assisting someone else get through this cancer journey. It can be as small as a kind word or as big as you make it... 

Give it a try, you will be amazed at how good you feel.