Jodi’s Going To Africa 2020

What’s Africa 2020?

It started a few weeks ago actually.  I was watching the news, and there was a news story regarding a young lady climbing both the incline and Pike’s Peak with no legs.  You can read about her here.  In a news interview she stated her next goal was to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  It peaked my interest, because I can’t really run anymore, I wanted to find new goals to achieve.  So I started searching the internet, and I found this article on a cancer survivor, who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with his doctor.  And then I got really interested.  I googled a bunch on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and about what it would take to climb such a mountain.  My dream has always been to go to Africa with my camera, and take pictures of my favorite animals in the wild.  This put a new dimension to my dream of going on an African Photographic Safari (I would never go on a hunting safari, as I do not believe in shooting guns).  I am going to climb Kilimanjaro in 2020.

Why Africa Though? And Why 2020?

I share a lot on social media, but not really a lot.  I always have had some odd connection to Africa.  I don’t even know how to explain it.  The first book I read was, “Born Free.”  I have a vast collection of things made in Kenya, if I see jewelry made in Africa I buy it.  My favorite rides, parks, restaurants, and resorts at Disney World are at the Animal Kingdom.  I love the culture, the food, the people, and the animals in Africa.  And before the Animal Kingdom in Disney opened, I loved the African stores at Busch Gardens in Tampa.  I have wanted to visit the real thing since I was eight.

My favorite animal has always been a lion.  My favorite Disney movie is “The Lion King,” my favorite musical the same.  When I was 21, I had my first, and only, close-encounter with a lion, I got to pet and hold lion cubs in a Mexican Zoo that had not yet opened.  The lion was just like a cat, it snuggled in my arms, and purred.  I will never forget it.  I have always had a hunger to see the Lions in their natural habitat.  I see myself as a Lion has I battle cancer.

I chose June-July 2020, because this will give me enough time to heal my body, mind, and spirit.  As of right now, my cancer is on the decline.  I am receiving an experimental treatment that has made me feel better than I have in a LONG time.  This will give me the time to train, to do other climbs.  There are 14 peaks in Colorado that are above 14,000 feet.  My intention is to do a few of those before attempting my big climb.

Besides healing my mind, I have a LOT of work to do on my body.  I have been given steroids for most of the last two years.  I gained weight, a lot of weight.  I am trying to get down to a reasonable weight.  I also have start eating healthier and I have to train.  The training alone will help me get down to a fit weight.  I plan on starting to run again, just not marathons.

I look forward to showing everyone my progress, and pictures as I make my dream of going to Africa, seeing her people, cultures, and animals a reality.

 

Losing My Religion

“That’s me in the corner, That’s me in the spotlight, Losing my Religion…”

Move over Rover, Cancer has taken over…

I’m almost done with my fourth line of treatment (technically my third line of chemotherapy).  This one is doing what every other regimen has done, kept me stable, and kept the cancer at bay.  I should be satisfied, but I am not.  I want it gone.  Since camp I have lost four friends to this insidious disease.  I hate what it has done, not just to me, but to my family.  Things that are certain, are no longer certain.  I think the most disruptive thing it did was cause me to question my religion.

I have always heard that God never gives you more than you can handle.  Then the first uncertain thing happened.  My son was diagnosed with autism when he was two.  I read a blog post, or a poem, called “A Trip To Holland,” so instead of Italy, we are going to Holland, land of Tulips and wooden clogs.  Holland had many adventures– to include adverse affects from immunizations, seizures, child abuse at school, etc…  But there was always God and Jesus to take the burdens.

Then my dad died.  It was unexpected, but expected.  Dad was not very good at taking care of himself.  He believed in miracles.  He made his dreams come true.  He lived in the best place in the world, Disney.  He loved and lived.  He passed away from a heart attack. This put our family into a tailspin.  I stayed with my mom a few weeks, and my daughter stayed there for a little bit longer.  My mom was thrown into widowhood, and I was thrown into a slight depression.  At this time, I started to notice that my back pain from 2014 was returning.  I thought it was from switching from outdoor running to treadmill running in the humid summer.

In October, my daughter started stating that she was going to commit suicide.  She would have tantrums that turned violent.  I was kicked in the face at one point.  She started to put on weight.  It was unreal.  We eventually had to have her hospitalized at nine years old.  We discovered that she had ADHD.  Again, ADHD is something we can handle.

In November and December, I started to feel more and more symptoms.  I felt tired all the time, I would go running, and feel done.  I wrote it off as stress, depression, whatever you can call it.  I also felt a huge amount of guilt.  I was too tired to do my normal routine.  Looking back on the schedule– I got my daughter into counseling appointments, Occupational Therapy, sleep studies, and eating counseling; Ryan needed ABA therapy, OT, ST, and Neurology every three months, which was a drive to Pensacola Beach; and I was seeing a personal therapist and marital counseling.

In January, I went in again to complain about whatever was going on.  I was tired, I was having difficulty breathing, I had a backache.  Something was wrong.  I ended up leaving in tears, after the doctor forgot about my appointment.  I switched to Tricare Standard.  Saw a new doctor.  She ended up suspecting that I had a silent heart attack.  I had an odd heartbeat, and she could hear fluid in my lungs.  I got a lung x-ray.  I had a large pleural effusion in my right lung.  Within two days, I was diagnosed with cancer, stage IV.

Every day since then, I prayed and begged God for my life.  I prayed that He would cure me.  That He would take this burden from me.  I prayed that my children would not be left motherless.  I have seen, and experienced what happens to children when a parent dies.  Even at 40, it is difficult, but kids are 12 and soon-to-be 14.  I can’t take the thoughts what it’s going to be like without me– I know it sounds selfish, but that’s the thought that depresses me the most.  I don’t want to die early.  I want to see the milestones– I want to see my son walk the graduation walk, I want to see my daughter get into her dream college (which right now is “the best college ever” for math and engineering), I want to see my daughter married, I want to meet my grandkids.  I don’t want to be the picture in the corner, or the person that people will tell my kids to get over already (I have heard someone say that to a child of a cancer patient).  I don’t want them to tailspin out of control.  And God is not listening.  He has stolen four friends on this Earth.  And now none of the treatments are working completely, but it is not gone.  I hop from one treatment to another.  I have been abandoned and my children are being abandoned.  How can I believe in someone who is not supposed to give me more than I can handle, when I cannot handle this?  How can I feel that He has this, and the burden is not mine, when it is hurting my family?  So here I am sitting in my corner, in my spotlight, slowly losing my religion…