HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year........... :-)

This year is going to be...... well, its going to be another year that will be filled with love and laughter, scareds and angers, friends and frustrations and many wonderful times. Its going to be a year that I really appreciate my family, my friends and others special people that keep me sane and laughing and treasuring the things that are important.

Its going to be a year that I look at the big picture, that I see beyond illness and when I do see the sad and difficult things, I am determined to be better than this past year in giving a listening ear, a crying shoulder and a needed smile and hug. I am going to actively look for the good, the smiles, laughter and light - the love that is all around.

This is going to be a good year. This IS going to be a good year.

This picture is one that "my three chickens" got together to have done for me......I think its about the most awesome Christmas present I have ever received! When I opened it on Christmas eve, many many emotions hit me and I was reduced to a puddle of mushy tears. I am so incredibly grateful that Steven is able to be with us in such apparent good health, despite having cancer, I am a grandma and my youngest daughter got to spend an simply wonderful week over Christmas with us all.

What a simply wonderful ending to one year and beginning to another. So many things to be thankful for, so many things to look forward to. So many opportunities and so many good memories, even if a good many of them were born of sadness.

May 2008 be simply the best year yet!

Love and light
Annie

I wish you Enough.....

Here's wishing everyone a simply awesome, relaxed and very happy Christmas. May the New Year bring wonderful things......... Here is what I also wish sincerely for everyone - it was sent to me recently in an email and I think it says it just right. Here goes:

I wish you Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.
I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hello's to get you through all your good-bye's.

Love and light
Annie

Safe mode

I have felt different for a good while now, not quite understanding what it is I am going through, nor understanding why. But I think it goes like this - I was in 'safe mode', as Lottie put it. I found myself staying away from the support boards, not responding to emails as promptly as I should and even forgetting to answer some! Thats just not me...... answering an email was like a ringing telephone - it's an automatic response to answer it! But the nights would go by, the clock ticking onward and my brain telling me to do something - anything. But no, I sat and let it all go by. For weeks.

Safe mode on a computer is a way to start it up without having all the programs engage or running - its a minimally functional status which enables me to get in and fix many problems in a computer. The machine runs, but only just. And as I am typing this, I see even more how I have been in that safe mode myself. I realise now that during this time, I have dug down deep, sorted through thoughts and worries, thrown out what I don't want around and secured those that I do. Something resarted me in 'normal mode' again and its wonderful. That something is a combination of many things coming from many people.

No, its not all roses and sunshine, especially if I venture outside with the near freezing temperatures early in the morning........ but its much better now. Just about a week ago I was thinking that I was in such a good place. I talk to a good few people online and all is going well with them, no drama's are happening, no bad tests, nothing in-my-face scary -well, apart from Lea's transplant and she is doing great by the looks of it! GO GIRL! Anyway, there I was, thinking that I am all comfortable and happy with my lot, that I don't really want to go the extra mile and that I can stay away from the support boards very happily. I could, and did, ignore cml, I pushed to the back of my mind the fact that we need to look at a differet doctor, yet again and shoved to the rear the fact that the next pcr is coming up again.... If I just ignored it all long enough - it would surely go away. Not! I did not want to read about someone struggling with a new diagnosis, a complication or someone dying from cml. I did not want to hear it, I did not want to know it, so I stayed away and missed out. Big time.

Maybe the break was good for me. I actually had a day or three when I did not associate cml with Steven. I could read Lea's updates, others blogs and not feel that squeezing heart in my chest, that fear. I simply cut the cord between cml and Steven. Laughing - it was good for a while :-)

Cml is still here though, and with it being here in my son who, by the way, looks wonderful and is looking forward to a week's leave over Christmas and New Year, are all the wonderful people that helped me along the first 18 months of this cml road. And new contacts helped me realise that I really cannot ignore everything I have learned nor can I ignore who I am now. A different me from two years ago. The me I am now is a part of this big group of people who are dealing with cml in some way or another. And with this group around me, cml is not all bad. Not for me, anyway. Obviously I am not speaking on Steven's behalf.

So, I am back again. I think. I am aware that I do have something to offer, and that I cannot stay in 'safe mode' and be of any help to anyone, or to me by staying there. It was not a good place for a long term visit at all.

I have no doubt that I will start up in Safe Mode again sometime, but I left a memo there for myself, reminding me not to stay too long again. :-)

In the big picture, I only have everything to be grateful for. Everything. Wonderful kids, husband, family friends and cyberfriends........... I am truely rich on a level I could never before have imagined.

So with these thoughts and very sincere and happy wishes to all the wonderful people in my life, we go into Christmas and scream towards another new year. What happened? It was 1978 just yesterday....... and oh, by the way - my mom keeps sneaking in and leaving her gray hairs on my shoulders! :-)

Here's wishing you all a wonder-filled Christmas and may 2008 be filled with love and laughter, health and happiness.

love and light and a really big thank you for all your support.
Annie

Gentle rivers........

How absolutely wonderful it is not to have anything specific to write on this blog! Wow. Did I ever think I would get to this point? I really don't want to say too much - you know, tempting fate and all that. But it really is wonderful not having anything at all, regarding cml, to write about. Sure, its always there, but its not a raging river right now - just a gently gurgling river in the very back of my mind. Soooo good.

Together with this incredibly good feeling is the knowledge that others are not so fortunate, that their Christmas season will not be as gentle. There are a good few many going through transplants and difficult times right now - and you are SO often in my mind. Adrian - wishing you the very best results from your photopheresis treatments - his blog is http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk/ - some incredible reading from an incredible young man. Lea - hang in there girl, soon it will be behind you and you will be home walking Kimo again...http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/leamorrison. Lea also guest blogs on Erin's blog with Glamor Magazine - read her updates on both blogs and send her all the encouragement and well wishes you can. http://www.glamour.com/lifestyle/blogs/editor/.

Shane who is doing well - wonderful, wonderful news - you are almost at + 100 days and I LOVE success stories! :-) So many people who are travelling on this road with me - so many people who make me who I am - you are all so much in my heart and mind and thanks so much of the time.

Steven really looks great and is full into his Christmas shopping mode. A few years ago he started having fun with this past time and now I often get calls from a great variety of stores, checking with me to see if I thought his ideas are good. They always are! It's lovely to see this excitement still firmly in place.

Lisa, my middle child, is hosting Christmas Eve for us all this year for the first time. She is really enjoying motherhood and is so calm even when surrounded with her children and those she babysits.

Joleen, my youngest child, is flying in from California for 10 days with us from 23rd Dec till just after the New Year. Its going to be so wonderful to have her home again, even if it is only for such a short time. Boy, is it going to be difficult to say goodbye again!

It's going to be so absolutely good to have all three my chickens under the same roof this Christmas. I am so very fortunate, very blessed.

So, with a gently gurgling river somewhere in the distance, I wish everyone that the Christmas season is good to you all.

How absolutely wonderful to have nothing much to write about! Wow.

Love and light
Annie