HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!!!

Fight Like A Girl

Our beautiful cowgirl!

I don’t know how the phrase ‘You fight like a girl,’ became a classic insult. But after fighting breast cancer it has taken on a whole new meaning. Cancer treatment is like hazing for a sorority no one wants to join. I sometimes refer to others who have had a breast cancer diagnosis as my ‘sisters in the fight.’ But I recognize that I have sisters all around me who are engaged in the fight against this disease, including those who haven’t had that personal diagnosis. There are those that walk, raise money, get the word out, and encourage their friends to consistently do self-exams. And there are those who gather around the weak and wounded, and lift them up.

It was in the month of October – breast cancer awareness month – that I had to go in for a consultation with a radiation oncologist. I had already had a bilateral mastectomy with lymph nodes removed, and I’d gone through six rounds of chemo. I was unprepared for the news that I would have to have radiation. It was like reaching the top of a mountain after a long, hard hike, only to lift my head and realize I wasn’t actually at the summit – I still had miles to go. My appointment was on a Tuesday, a day I normally went to a local moms group I was involved in. My appointment was scheduled for early afternoon, so that morning, I went to my group having told no one about the appointment or how I was feeling. I was so discouraged – I felt heavy, and weary, like I was trying to walk through life with forty-pound weights on my feet.

But something amazing happened that morning. I walked into a room that had gone pink. In solidarity with me, and in support of breast cancer awareness month, everything was decorated in pink. Several of the girls were wearing pink bandanas. One was handed to me as I came in and I tied it around my bald head. A dear friend had done a photo shoot with me a few weeks earlier, celebrating my life, even celebrating my scars which stand as mementos of my survival. She had made a collage of the pictures, and the women had filled it with their signatures and words of encouragement. About fifty women stood around me as I was handed that gift. And later, in a small examining room in the hospital, as the doctor explained how vicious my cancer was, it wasn’t just my husband and me facing the road ahead. I sensed that group of women, standing behind me, cheering me on. This, for me, epitomizes what it means to ‘fight like a girl.’ Throughout my fight, I was surrounded by women who supported, encouraged, connected, babysat, cooked, cleaned, held my hand, cried with me, took me to the hospital for treatment, spent the night at my house, made CD’s of beautiful music, loaned me movies, gave me books, etc, etc.  They chose to become my sisters in the fight. They helped me survive.

So go ahead, tell me I fight like a girl. I couldn’t think of a nicer compliment.

http://breastcancerbites.blogspot.com

today I will live

Fall is one of my favorite times of year and today I happened to run across this picture.  It got me thinking for a moment about how easy it is to get caught up in the race of our daily lives and we forget to look at what we have around us.  To me fall is such a wonderful time of year.  The world turns to golds and reds, a cool breeze runs through the trees, leaves skip in the yard, pumpkins sit on doorsteps, and pies bake in ovens.  Sometimes I forget to just enjoy the beauty and delight that floats around me, but not today.  Today I will watch the wind make the grasses on the hillside dance, I will fully enjoy the smell of pumpkin pie, I will listen to the leaves crack under my feet, I will taste every sip of hot cider, and I will stop to just be.  Today I will bask in the glory of golden rays of sunshine and draw in the warmth of a warm fire in the fire place.  Today I will be thankful, today I will enjoy, today I will remember, today I will live.      

Cowgirl Dirt

I was surfing around Facebook and I came across one of our likes “Cowgirl Dirt”.  They are a make-up/personal care company for cowgirls.   I thought this company was unique because they understand that cowgirls walk a fine line.  We walk a line that requires us cowgirls to be tough, get dirty, and work hard but also, curl our hair, wear an irresistible smile, and rock those skin tight jeans on a Friday night.  Girls like us can’t ware just any jeans, any boots, any jackets, or wear any make-up.  We need clothes, shoes, hats, and make-up that is made for a kind of girl who plays hard, works hard, and has a spirit that can’t be tamed.

Cowgirl Dirt fanpage- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001500030103#!/pages/Butte-MT/Cowgirl-Dirt/191481909336?v=wall

Cowgirl Dirt Website-   http://www.cowgirldirt.com/          

Today – choose life

I remember, years ago, being invited to a house in the Colorado foothills. As we drove up the driveway, my impressions were all negative. There were spindly little trees, and dirt, and the house itself was nondescript. Entering the home, it had a shabby, run-down feel and everything was brown. I wondered how these people could stand to live here. Then, I was invited out onto the deck. The back deck of the house overhung a small cliff, and from it I could see the entire city of Denver, and miles and miles out onto the eastern plains. The view was extravagant, breath taking, and completely unexpected, and I felt my perspective shift. I now understood exactly why they wanted to live here.

A similar thing can happen when we choose to manage our thoughts and our speech, instead of allowing words to run rampant through our mind, unchecked. Words did not help me survive my cancer, but they dictated how I was to survive – with grace and joy, or with regret and bitterness.

When I received my first dose of chemo, everything went wrong. I spiked a fever, and the chemotherapy decimated my white blood cell count, which meant my immune system was non-functioning. I was hospitalized – the fourth time in two months. This was my second infection, and I was placed on I.V. antibiotics, and put in isolation. The level of physical agony I was experiencing was extreme – more intense than anything I had ever felt. And as I lay there alone in that hospital bed, these words came unbidden into my mind. “This is how it feels to die.”

We have the power to choose life or choose death. That may sound extreme, but every choice we make either leads us toward abundance, and life, or away from it. So, in my total misery, I said, “Today, I choose life.” I drug my thoughts forcibly away from death, and into a place of thanksgiving, thereby changing my whole perspective.

I live in the age of modern medicine, and the antibiotics are doing what my immune system can’t.

Thank you.

If my immune system had crashed while I still had a staph infection, I’d be in I.C.U., clinging to life, instead of here in this bed with the ability to fight. Thank you.

In spite of the brutality of the treatments, they will ultimately save my life. Thank you.

I have a husband who loves me, not in spite of my scars, but because of them. They serve as precious reminders to him of what was almost lost, and he never takes me for granted.

Thank you.  

I have people around me, to love and care for my children when I am unable to be there.

Thank you.

I chose to live that day. I chose to turn from anger, death, misery and suffering, and looked instead at thanksgiving, life, strength and victory. We can all make these choices, every single day. Where are you looking, today? Where are your thoughts taking you? Today – choose life.

http://breastcanacerbites.blogspot.com

Look here tomorrow

Post 3 of our Cowgirl Survivor story will be up tomorrw!! Come back to take a look!!

COWGIRL TUFF

Chrome Gypsy

Don't Fence Me In

We have talked before about how the right pair of jeans can make the outfit.  We know that cowgirls will not wear just any style of jeans.  They have to be perfect.  They have to fit just right, they have to be long, that have to be a little bit sassy, and they have to look good with diamonds.  They have to look good with work boots or “out with the girls’ boots.  They have to be able to get dirty on Monday but be able to clean up for your date on Friday.  Jeans that fit these requirements aren’t just any pair of jeans.  These kind of jeans are made cowgirl tough.  They have no parallel and when you put them on, you won’t want to take them off.  We here at Pine Country Feed live, work, and play in our denims.  We are tough, hard working, determined, and have a true blue American spirit.  We expect our jeans to keep up with us, that is why we carry and wear COWGIRL TUFF jeans.  Stop by Pine Country Feed to try your pair on.   

www.cowgirltuffco.com/    

"Stand" - Rascal Flatts Official Music Video

a beautiful warrior

A while back Reader's Digest held a beautiful warriors comtenst and asked people to send in their stories of brave breast cancer suvivors.  I was reading through these stories and this one caught me.  It is amzing the strength that these women have!

Beautiful Warrior: Carol Walker
Nominated by: Renee Wolfe
This is about my dearest friend, Carol Walker. We've known each other since 1961 and have shared so many life events. After numerous tests and surgery, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in October 1990. When Carol, who lives in Houston, Texas, found out, she took the next flight to Atlanta, Georgia and spent long hours with me at the hospital.

When I came home, she cooked, took me to the doctor and ran errands. She was an angel. In 2004, I found out that my mother, who lived in San Antonio, had terminal liver cancer. I went to be with her, but could not stay long because of job and financial constraints. Carol would drive from Houston to San Antonio (over 200 miles) monthly to check on her and bring goodies and clothing. Mother called Carol her "other daughter." She helped make my Mother's last months brighter.

Then, in May 2005, Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a shock to everyone, because we all felt that Carol was indestructible. Carol endured massive does of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, and still managed to go back to work. She also took care of her mother after a hip surgery in late 2005, all while undergoing chemo. She always thinks of others, even when she is exhausted. Carol is my inspiration, a person who won't allow bad circumstances to get her down. She is a true "beautiful warrior."

Part Two: I own my joy– cancer cannot steal it from me

There are many things cancer can do. It is a thief and a destroyer; but I found in my own battle with this beast that there are things that belong to me, and me alone. Cancer has no right to them. For instance, I own my joy – cancer cannot steal it from me. The only way I can lose my joy is if I willingly give it up.  Now, let me be clear.  I’m not talking about happiness here – that feel good feeling we get when circumstances line up in our favor.  Nor am I talking about spiritual joy, a much deeper and abiding thing.  I am talking about daily joy – that knowing that we get that ‘in this moment’, and ‘in this place’, things are right.

Now, this all sounds good and well, but in practice it’s a bit harder.  This is how it would go for me during breast cancer:  Here I am in bed, I’ve had parts of my body amputated, and I’m still full of pain, unable to even lift my baby.  I’ve had three surgeries, two life threatening infections, and now I’m so sick with the effects of chemo that I can’t even get out of bed. And I would say, “God, how exactly am I supposed to have joy here? How?”  I was so beaten and battered, and the road toward self-pity was a far easier one to tread than the road toward victory.  I couldn’t find my joy – it was somehow hidden from me.

And then something would happen – usually something small – and I would recognize that I was ‘in this moment’ and ‘in this place’, a moment and place filled with abundant, undeniable blessing.  I remember my two-year-old girl coming in with a board game. She climbed up on the bed, set up all the pieces, and we proceeded to play – completely disregarding all the rules. The game involved treasure, and my little one found the treasure every single time. Her face would light up with pleasure, and in that sweet face I found my joy.

Then there were times my nine-year-old girl would say, “Mommy, can we do something?” Well, there weren’t many things I could do, so we would perch side by side and watch movies chosen by my child – crazy, kid-friendly movies that would make her laugh out loud. I don’t remember the movies, but I remember seeing the stress slip away from her, and I knew that what I was really doing was giving her the sense that everything was going to be all right. In that simple act of mothering, I found my joy.

I have heard it said that joy is peace dancing, and peace is joy at rest. I found my joy in mothering, and in connecting. My husband would take my hand, saying nothing at all, and I would sense peace dancing about us.  I would mother my children, giving of myself when I felt so empty, and peace would dance.  Where in your life does peace dance? Where do you find your joy?

http://breastcancerbites.blogspot.com/

do it anyway

You can spend your whole life buildin'
Something from nothin'
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy
It's hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart
For all the right reasons
In a moment they can choose to walk away
Love 'em anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
Yeah - I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yea, sing it anyway
Yeah, yeah!

I sing
I dream
I love
anyway
~Martina McBride

Hay Bales and Horse Tales

We donated artwork and a
$50 gift certificate. This is a great organization helping people feed their
horses when they cannot due to financial hardship.

Please join Colorado Horsecare Foodbank

for a gala affair at The Pines at Genesee

To benefit Colorado Horsecare Foodbank

Keeping people and their horses together

saturday, October 30

5:30 pm to 11:00 pm • The Pines at Genesee

633 Park Point Drive • Golden, Colorado

$60 per person • $600 per table

Dinner and Libations • Silent and Live Auctions • Live music by Pete Martinez and Jon Chandler

Tickets: www.horsefoodbank.org • Information: 303-670-1474

Gary Allan - Tough Little Boys

Here's to more Birthdays!!

Happy Birthday to all of our survivors out there!! Here's to more BIRTHDAYS!!!!!!

my inner cowgirl

Over the next for Fridays we will be following an amazing story of inspiration, hard work, survival, and a true cowgirl spirit.  One of our local cowgirls will tell us of her amazing and triumph battle with breast cancer.  

Here is her first post: 

Okay – so, I drive a pickup.  And I can saddle a horse, and ride.  But I’m no cowgirl. I do, however,  know what it means to ‘cowgirl up’ – I learned when I was 38 years old, with two young daughters, and I was told I have breast cancer.  My friends, trying to be encouraging, said interesting things, like this:  “It’s not a death sentence, like it used to be.”  Another said, “I know someone with positive lymph nodes, and she’s just fine.”  But I knew it wasn’t quite like treating strep throat – I was facing serious and hard decisions.  I also knew of women who had lost their battle and died of this disease, in spite of following their doctors’ recommendations.  So what was I to do?  Cut the cancer out, and radiate the breast?  Cut the breast off, and be done with it?  Or, have a bilateral mastectomy, just in case?  Cutting off healthy tissue, ‘just in case’, seemed unbelievably barbaric.  At first, I refused to consider it.

Then one day, my husband came home from work, and told me a man he worked with had asked him to tell me something.  He said, “Tell your wife to do everything she can.  My wife had a single mastectomy, and five years later the cancer came back and took her from me.”  But even hearing this didn’t make the decision for me.  The clincher for me was when my eight-year-old daughter took my hands in hers, looked me in the eye, and said very seriously, “Mommy, please do whatever you can so that we don’t have to go through this again.”  We.  That hit it home for me.  I alone didn’t have cancer.  My whole family had it.  And I wasn’t making decisions for myself only.  I was deciding what lay ahead for everybody who loved me.  So I ‘cowgirled up’ – I had the bilateral mastectomy.

It was only later – after surgery - that we knew I had done the right thing.  Once the doctors could see my cancer ‘up close and personal’, they knew that it was aggressive, behaving in an unpredictable manner, and moving quickly.  In spite of being a very, very small tumor (smaller than a pea), the cancer was already in my lymph nodes.  Surgery wasn’t the end of it, like I thought it would be.  I was facing months more of treatment.  But instead of being terrified, I felt only a sense of resolution.  I was resolved to do whatever it took to fight this beast and survive.  That was the day I discovered I was tougher than I thought.  That was the day I discovered my inner cowgirl.
See more of her story next week or follow her blog at: http://breastcancerbites.blogspot.com

Thank you for making me a survivor

It has been said many times that horses have the power to heal.  They have a gentle, yet full of life, spirit that seems to touch the souls of human beings.  There is something in their grace that makes a person feel free, something in their eyes that shows unparalleled loyalty and love.  When you have the chance to run your hand  along the side of a horse, feeling him breath, feeling his strength, feeling his life, you have the chance to feel what being alive really is. 

Somehow a horse knows when you just need to be in awe of him and he humbly stands there and lets you embrace his beauty.  He takes nothing from the moment for himself, he somehow knows you need all of the energy from that moment for yourself. 

When you ride a horse you feel his power underneath you as he moves.  Sometimes he snorts, kicks his head back, or puts a little spring in his step just to say hi and let you know he hasn’t forgotten you.

A horse also knows when you are sick.  He may just sit there and look at you, silently telling you that he cares and would take your pain if he could.  He may rub his head up against your cheek to tell you that it will all be okay.  He may take extra care with each step he takes to say that he knows his passenger riding on his back needs a little extra concern.

Horses have a sprit that can heal physically, mentally, and emotionally.  There is something deep inside each one of them that can be found nowhere else.  There is a fire it their hearts that burns with a passionate love and a flaming elegance that reached right into my heart and made me glow again even in my darkest hour. 

All I can say is…thank you, thank you very much for pulling me through and making me a survivor. 

Author~ Breast Cancer Survivor               

NEVER GIVE UP

So I was sitting here this morning, enjoying a cloudy fall day in the mountains, trying to decide what to blog about.  As you all know our theme for the month is PINK in honor of breast cancer awareness month.  In an effort to waste time, I flipped through some pictures and came across the photo above.  If you read the words on the shirt in the picture, it says, “Never Give Up”.  This got me thinking.  We live our lives every day trying to make something of ourselves.  That’s just how we live life.  Our life, a life we have created and a life that is our own.  But what if one day you were told that your life was no longer you’re own and you have something going on inside that could take your life… and there is nothing you can do about but hope and pray?  Have you thought about how that would feel, how that would hurt, and how scary that would be?  As cowgirls and cowboys we have a fighting spirit a mile wide that makes us who we are but, we can learn from those brave women who have had to fight a battle that they didn’t choose.  This battle happened to be breast cancer.  We take pride in being strong and tough and able to handle anything but we need to understand that our strength is no match for those amazing who fought and continue to fight a battle that no one ever wants to have to fight.  This month we wear PINK in honor of all of you who have fought and fight every day for life.  The words “Never Give Up” will always mean a little more to me now.