A GREAT DAY MAKING STRIDES!

MAKING STRIDES Walk for breast cancer was Saturday in beautiful Silver Springs, Ocala, FL...and it was a great, great day for me and my family!  Weather was a perfect 70 degrees.  I so appreciated my classmates and instructor, Cheryl Sirmons for putting together the team on my behalf, getting the t-shirts made, coming to walk, donating money, and much more.  I believe we ended up with around 45 team members in the "DINA'S DEFENDERS" team which included many of our family members, classmates and their family members, church family and friends, and a sweet young cheer squad that cheered us on the entire walk.  They chanted lines like, "Come one Dina, you can do it!"  I told them I might need them each morning real soon, especially when chemo starts.  You've never seen so much pink, and it was encouraging to see all the support for breast cancer survivors at all stages in their journey.  To say the whole event was humbling would be a gross understatement.  THANKS TO EACH ONE!

I wanted so much to give a little something back to all of our supporters and spent most of Friday baking and bagging cookies (with pink sprinkles of course) to give out as my "thank you".  It was nice to do normal stuff again like that.  Having surgery on Tuesday to repair the incision, I wasn't sure how long I'd walk before pooping out.  The adrenaline rush kept me going a lot longer than I thought, then I relented to all my caring "nurses" and took my place in the wheelchair we pushed along on standby.  We ended that day with some family time stopping by Brown's Corn Maze in Oxford.  My sister and I sat in folding chairs and rested while the husbands and cousins spent 40 minutes finding their way through the maze.  It was a nice way to end the day, and I was good and wore out by that evening, sleeping the entire night without fidgeting or readjusting once that I remember.

Sunday morning found me dead tired still and after debating on taking a break from church, I got dressed  at the house alone (my husband and sons had already headed to church) and decided to embrace every single day that I felt half good, knowing there would be many more ahead where I'd sit sick and alone at the house out of necessity.  It was a good service and I was glad I did.  I was blessed with a gift bag from our Women's Ministry full of goodies like pajamas, a devotional, a snuggie (which I've always wanted but too embarrassed to ask for), and a scrapbook the ladies had started for me complete with a page of signatures and well wishes from each one.  It was such a thoughtful and sweet gift.  I know I've said this several times before, but I don't take for granted the surprise gifts, many cards, Facebook messages, food and daily calls from my family and friends for myself and my family.  I feel very undeserving of such care.        

Please pray for my friend Donna who's on this same journey as I am.  She's weak and sick from her first chemo and needs people to stand in the gap for her.  Thank you all.