Hoppy Easter Sunday!! :-)

Happy Easter everyone!! I hope everyone had a beautiful day in church and a fabulous Easter Sunday! 🙂

My reflection…
Holidays sometimes seem to make me reflect on family.  I am so very grateful for my friends and the amazing ones in my life whom I consider family.  I do get very discouraged when I think of my real family and just how dysfunctional it is.  I know almost everyone I know can say their family is dysfunctional and how they need a good amount of alcohol to get through family events and they can talk about family drama and such.  Yes our family is no exception but sadly mine isn’t even a functional family like most know.  I mean, if I had a daughter or sister …even relative and they had said to me that their beautiful young self was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer, I would be devastated.  I would do everything I could do to be with them, see them and help in every way possible and I suppose that is just the kind of person I am.  I believe in loyalty and trust.

Sadly I don’t have that.  I am very envious when I go to events and I see big supportive groups of families.  I am also very happy for that person.  I know that I have an amazing network of great people who are there for me even if they aren’t blood.  Sure it’s a little different when it is blood.  I mean my family has only came to see me ONE, yes O-N-E, single time and that was when I hospitalized when diagnosed because I was SO very bad off when finally visiting the ER that the doctors didn’t believe I would come out alive.  My husband told my parents that they better see me before I died otherwise they wouldn’t have came.  I don’t know too many who could understand that situation but it’s my family and it’s what I’m used to.  If you know the song “You find out who your friends are” and think of it as people who drop everything to help and would never see whats it in for them, think of the very opposite and that is what I am talking about.  I was the only one who tried to bring everyone together and make things happy but I cannot do it any longer when I am 1000 miles away and in the biggest fight for my life.

I recall when this nightmare began, my world stopped.  Everything just stood still when those words were said for quite a while and life changed in an instant.  I have heard this from so many.  People say “my life stopped and it’s like everyone else was talking about their life and their life was moving but mine stopped”.  Same here!  I thought of how my parents and siblings were going about their day to day life like they have every day while this solely affected myself and my husband, our life stopped and was going in slow-mo as we tried to comprehend it all.

As I said, this is all I know though and for that I have the tough skin.  I am very strong because I wouldn’t know what it’s like to lean on someone, now or ever since I moved out at 18 and have done it all alone.  This whole experience has been done alone.  It has been solely my husband and I.  If it wasn’t for my husband I certainly would be dead. Between emotional support, education and financial it has only been Tim who has done it by himself.  We had to take on this head on my ourselves, educating ourselves and figuring everything out on our own.

My husband even said today, hmm… I wonder if they (my family) would even come to your funeral?   To me I think why?  Why would these people come out of the woodwork to see you when you are dead if they never visited you when you were alive and lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Virginia and Washington, DC?   Ehh but if you think about it how would they know if I’m alive or dead now?  I mean they don’t reach out to me whatsoever nor visit, I suppose they stalk me on Facebook.. ha!

With that said, never take what you have for granted if you are fortunate enough to have amazing family in your life.  I do not take those around me for granted and I try to show everyone that comes into my life (and stays there.. haha!) just how appreciative I am.  My in-laws are amazing!! I also have my friend Jamie and definitely take her family as mine (love you hun!! xoxo).

Reflection done…
My reflection is DONE!  Sometimes I gotta throw in a serious topic, ok actually this whole fighting is SERIOUS more than probably anyone could understand but…..back to my reality.  Reality is that Easter dinner has not been pleasant on my body!! Oh no no, my pain is just acting up like crazy and  I’ve taken enough pain meds and still in pain.   Not fun! Easter was so lovely although it is rainy and cold here in DC and yesterday was the kite fest downtown which is part of the Cherry fest… very good and blessed weekend. 🙂

Then guess what?!? Tomorrow is April FIRST!!!!! haha, I am just so excited because though things changed and I get to spend some time home… AMEN!!!! It is going to be such a great month!! I pray and pray for it to be a good month for me and my changes in this blog will happen!!  I want to change it up in terms of recipes and helping those new to my blog understand pancreatic cancer moreso… like how a pancreas works!  Also about a CA19, the Whipple that I would be SO fortunate if I’m lucky to have one day, etc.  Just want to make it all cooler and also how a little more of my world.  I mean, you don’t think I post everything on here do you my silly friends??  No way!  I only post 1/8 of my daily life, daily, so maybe I’ll add a little more. I actually find video blogs easier so video blogging me making my cancer kickin shakes and cancer kickin exercises (uh oh.. I’m on to something!) as well as fun stuff to do!    Ok….. done being a ramblin’ man!!

One more thing!  My mom texted saying her and my dad had a dream about me last night which is funny because Tim said he had dream about me last night too, actually he woke up in tears because in his dream I DIED!   Not even from cancer though.  Geez, anyone else have any bad dreams about me?!  Goodness!  I’ve only had one bad one which was a while ago and it was about my little sister dieing, that was terrible!    I have SO MUCH ENERGY tonight even though I hurt. Strange huh??  My constant chronic pain comes from my spleen which I will do a video blog on for everyone to understand my spleen situation and to once again reiterate why I CANT have surgery to have the useless thing removed. 🙂   The energy isn’t even from sugar either, I promise!! haha 🙂  I guess I am looking forward to the new month as a new year with lots of good things to happen and accomplishments to be achieved.  I hope everyone had a marvelous Easter weekend. 🙂

xoxo ~Ashley