balancing act

there is something that i need to say....particularly after talking with other people who have/had cancer.

dealing with cancer is a delicate balancing act. a balance between supporting the person with cancer while they are sick, and treating them like a normal human being.
some days we don't feel good. and sometimes we need to talk about our cancer because it makes crazy/awful/wonderful things happen. we need you to be okay with talking about it . and joking about it. its ridiculously funny a lot of the time actually!!! :)
but we also are humans who like and love other things. and a lot of days we feel good and we want to do and talk about these other things. i am not the "cancer girl." i am aly, who happens to have cancer at the moment. yes this is important but it is not all that i am.

i know its hard.
sometimes i think it is harder for people who know someone with cancer to deal with it than the people who have cancer themselves.
sometimes i don't.


some people pity you, which is frustrating. people with cancer need your prayers and support/help, but not pity.

some people randomly show up out of the blue and are the most amazing and encouraging and loving people you have ever met. these people are sent to me (and others) from God. sometimes i wonder if they are secretly angels. i happen to be blessed with a large number of these people. strangers. friends. strangers who become friends. some of you who are reading this are these people..... or have been. thank you...i love you!

some people you think would come through with support for you don't at all and this is very disappointing and/or sad. but i am learning sometimes they don't know how to deal with it. so they ignore it. and that's okay.

some people you meet (that already hear you have cancer before you meet them in person) ...you can look at in the eyes and you know they are afraid to be your friend because they think you might die.
its not that they don't want to know you. its that they are afraid to because they don't want to be hurt.


its a balance.


we are balancing too. we balance hoping to be okay one day and believing that we will be... and make plans for days down the road when we are 100% better.
but we also balance the possibility of not being okay and wondering what will happen if we aren't....and make plans for that too. but my plans don't really matter all that much really.

yes, i have cancer and i could be dying right now....i don't know.

but you (probably) don't have cancer and you could die tomorrow. you don't know either.

you have to trust God...trust that it will be okay no matter what happens. Yes, I have faith that he can heal me completely if that is in his plan. He also provides me with peace to handle what may happen if he doesn't.
His plans are beyond what we can imagine and he does works for the good of those who love him.......and this makes me so happy i could explode right here in my new room. :) and it gets me through the days.

In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This Cornerstone, this solid ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace, When fears are stilled, when strivings cease. My Comforter, my All in All, Here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone, who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness, Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied, For every sin on Him was laid, Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious Day, Up from the grave He rose again.
And as He stands in victory, Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me. For I am His and He is mine. Brought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death, This is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand. 'Till He returns or calls me home, Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

i don't even remember what i wore today.

so i'm officially living on james island now with linds. finally! fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally. this makes me (and lindsey) extremely happy. so much so that i did a little celebration dance in my new room.


this weekend included the most random assortment of things possible:

classical music at spoleto. saying goodbye. arts and crafts time with with famous artists/ friends/the guy who cuts my hair/and five year olds... all in the same place. hanging out with awesome new friends and talking about jesus. and lupus. and cancer. working on a graphics job. several trips to walmart. church. finishing moving out of my parent's house and "becoming an adult". fishing (or trying to). and a family dinner. :)

God is showing me all of these amazing things and i don't know how to fit them all in and give them the quality of thought or emotion that they deserve.

i can't help but think about what rob bell says about this: " so many of us push ourselves so hard. As long as I'm going and going and going, I don't have to stop and face my own pain. Stopping is just so difficult....I'm learning that very few people actually live from their heart. Very few live connected with their soul. And those few who do the difficult work, who stare their junk in the face, who get counsel, who let Jesus into all the rooms in their soul that no one ever goes in, they make a difference."

we need to stop sometimes.

to take the time to live from the heart and not hurry around and be missing the whole point.

maybe it all boils down to desperately feeling like i need more time. more time to think. more time to see people. more time to finish...everything. i don't know what i'm rushing to...or for. maybe i don't like feeling unsettled. maybe i don't like feeling like i'm wasting my life so i pack as much in as possible.

whatever it is, my body is not letting me do everything i feel like i want/need to do. i'm tired.

i'm sorry if i haven't called or emailed you back. i promise i am thinking of you.

do NOT wear jeans!

last weekend i went fishing with dad, uncle johnny, and bodaddy (my grandpa)

and i am proud to say i, the only girl, caught the first two fish of the day (a 3 1/2 foot shark and then a spottail for those of you who care). :)

this superhot picture of me in my dad's aviators, uncle's sweatshirt (i'm telling you all this cancer/lupus stuff makes my body temperature weird) makes me laugh b/c my dad is trying showing off his usc shirt in every way possible.
but it was a very fun morning.



compare last weekend, to this weekend:

i am going to have high tea today with my grandmother, sister, and mom at charleston place downtown. random.

after consulting my ettiquette guide (leigh) on what the "rules" were for tea and if i was going to have to do something strange like stir a certain way or lift up my pinkies when i drink, the first words out of her mouth were:
"don't wear jeans aly"
best friends know you all too well sometimes.

not that i don't love skirts and dresses (i do love them, a LOT, actually) ...but i get cold (haha...at least thats my excuse). so i'm sucking it up and wearing something non-jeans and i'll let ya'll know how it goes. :)


having to put off a real job isn't all that bad when i am blessed and get to do fun things like this with my family.

to limp or not to limp?....otherwise known as my problem with being "handicapped"

i realized something funny today when i was downtown.

sometimes when i am really late and rushing, i run and/or walk really fast to my car through a parking lot or up and down stairs in a parking garage.

this would not be weird except for the fact that i have a handicap sticker [which i feel guilty occasionally for having....but then i remind myself that really its for the days when i don't feel good...and because there has got to be some perk to having a disease and/or diseases...lol] and sometimes people look at me.... questionably.

i might need to develop a limp or something. because it takes way too long to explain to people. :)

road trip

so thursday i went on a road trip with paige (made complete with theme music for the drive... haha... actually we really did have theme music b/c i think it makes things better).

she didn't know where our destination was. (and i never told her, but i only was about...75% sure where we would end up. or how to get there...but we made it)

it was a much needed adventure on both of our parts. and it was fabulous.

after making her be ready at 7am (only a true friend would ever do that voluntarily), we started the day in what is our new favorite place. this is one of the pictures from it. i am standing at the altar of a burned out church where who knows how many pastors preached the word of God for years and years.
it is one of the most beautiful and holy places i have ever been.

we were there at about 8am. it was silent. so we were pretty silent too.
none of the pictures really could ever do it any justice. its just one of those places. i will be frequenting this place from now on.


then the day made a complete turn around once we arrived at our destination. and we ate and shopped and were silly and looked at really cool old stuff.


and i rode a pony. it was great great fun. a day of extremes.

i highly recommend a day like this for those of you who need a vacation. we were back the same day. no matter what your schedule, you can make time for 1 day off. sometimes you need it.

beautiful people and life changing days

as i am the only patient that i have ever seen in my cancer doctor office that is under middle age (with the majority of patients ranging from 60 yrs old- 160 yrs old).... i stand out. people stare. this used to freak me out, then it made me laugh, now its great because everyone talks to you because they wonder what the heck you are doing there! either that or that ask you if you are there to pick up your grandma.



but in the waiting room the other day...God taught me amazing things. life changing things.



i talked with a woman in her 40s/50s who was on her third round of chemo for various brain tumors. she spoke slowly due to having to have speech therapy and she has gone through several wigs because she gets bored with them :) (the one she was wearing looked so real i had no idea and i kept staring at it trying to figure out where it attached or whatever).
her first husband died of cancer a while ago. she remarried, had a child, and then was diagnosed with brain cancer. when all her hair fell out, her husband left her. she says the only thing she can talk to him about is their child. she was almost in tears as she looked in my eyes and told me that she didn't know if she wasn't beautiful enough for him anymore, or if he just couldn't handle everything she was going through. she asked me "who would ever want me after this?" i smiled and told her i knew how she felt. we talked about losing our hair and days you feel ugly and we held hands.

we talked for 7 minutes.

then they took her away for chemo and i didn't see her the rest of the visit. i hope she knows about jesus. i hope i see her again. i'm trying to find her as i am writing through what could only be described as "stalker-ish" research. her name was kim. i cried when she left. and i pray for her.

she was one of the most beautiful people i have ever met.


the rest of the 3 hour wait, i watched old couple after old couple shuffle in and out... some were broken, some were bald, some looked cheerful, some looked tired..very tired. but 99% of these people were holding each other's hands. i have never seen such love in my life.

the lady next to me told me she had been married for 60 years this year to an "honorable and loving christian man" and then told me about her 10 great grandchildren.

i want to be those people. i want you to be those people. its possible. i have seen it. great, amazing, godly love that triumphs over suffering and ugliness and disease. it puts my situation in perspective. when i get selfish and only think about myself and how this "inconveniences" me for the summer, i remember these people.

you can't even plan tomorrow...

I had an extremely looong doctor's appointment yesterday May 16th (4 hours with only 30 min. of it actually with the doctor). And you know you've been at the doctor a long time when:

1. the nurse screams "free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty Miss Greer is free at last!" when you leave. 2. several chemo patients come in, get treatment for an hour or 2, and leave before you ever see the doctor.

4 hour long doctor's visits make crappy days...but at least you are there long enough to make (several) friends with the old people in the waiting room...haha!! :) In reality, God blessed me with some really incredible/challenging/encouraging conversations with people...it blows me away how easily people will tell you their amazing life stories when you actually listen to them. It was made clear to me that there was purpose behind the long wait because of the people I met. I'll tell more about them later.

today (Wednesday) was supposed to mark the beginning of my radiation treatment to get rid of the rest of my thyroid cancer. But, we have been dealt another little surprise :)

-Due to the iodine levels in my blood they found this week (a result of the cat scan I had before my thyroid surgery a month ago), they now can't start the radiation therapy right now anymore. I will be put on temporary thyroid medicine for 3 weeks (until June 5th) to make me feel a little better than I do now and to kind of "hold off" the cancer in case it is growing. Then I have to stop the medicine and let my body get worse again for a month.

-I am then scheduled to get my first radiation injection July 5th, and have a scan on the 7th. During those two days I can only have VERY limited contact with any other human because I will be radioactive (they will tell us more details about this later). Yes you read that correctly. People think I am weird because this is ridiculously funny to me for some reason right now (although when the time comes, I'm sure it will be frustrating haha). I should only have to have 2-3 rounds of this. Of course, as I am finding out, all this can change at a moment's notice.

"Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers." 2 Corinthians 1: 9-11

They are telling me not to worry too much about the cancer and the doctors believe right now that the radiation (whenever I get it) will take care of any cancer that may be left floatin around inside of me. :) Right now they seem to believe it will be more of an inconvenience than a danger. So no worries. :) at least right now.

My first BLOG entry ever!!!!!!!!

My first blog entry! I just graduated from Clemson and some crazy things are going on so this is the best way to communicate with everyone!!!!


If you read this and have no clue what has been going on in my life this year, here is a superfast brief update on this year. This is not a complaint list, because so many good and amazing blessings have been shown to me by going through these experiences. They are hard, but I would not take them back or change them in any way. God has used them to change me and his will has been very apparent in all of this.

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold...- may be proved geniune and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." -1 Peter 1:6-7


If you have questions, please feel free to ask me about any of this:

-This fall, I got really sick, went into the hospital for a while, and had every test run on me known to man. At first they were worried it was leukemia (ITS NOT) so they did a bone marrow extraction which was funny b/c I woke up in the middle and gave the doctors some entertainment by telling them "This really sucks." and went back to sleep. I have no memory of that which is probably good.
Eventually I was diagnosed with an immune disease called systemic lupus. Lupus has flares and remissions (periods of sickness and health). Lupus wise, after a few months I was doing okay. I have a mild case that can be controlled by medicine and I just have to really avoid catching a cold/virus, etc and my blood is real screwed up. Mainly it makes me easily tired, cold, have to eat super healthy, and excercise to the extent I can handle. But I will have it forever.

-The end of last fall my hair started falling out (due to being so sick in the hospital, not at all related to the Lupus or the cancer I got diagnosed with later) It all fell out ...in patches... until it was pretty much all gone by about the middle/end of January.
Here is the best "before and after" shot of the hair loss i could put together (or was not too mortified to post haha):

It is now growing back and once again I look like a normal person! :) I was supercute with no hair. except not really though lol. (my mom asked...."are you sure you want to put THAT picture online?")

-Over spring break, a doctor found a lump in my neck. They did an ultrasound and biopsy and thought it was just a tissue growth so that Saturday I ran in the bridge run as planned with all of the awesome Clemson people. Two days later I found out I had thyroid cancer.

April 12th I had surgery which removed my thyroid and a tumor...all of which was the size of 1 1/2 golf balls! insanity! think of me when you play golf now and remember that was in my neck :) i have a scar now though which i have to bandage up on occasion with what pretty much looks like a napkin taped to my neck. but its a bandage. promise.



bill's, on the other hand, is actually a napkin.

Before my surgery the nurses joked with me and told me, "um, don't you know you are supposed to get cancer, then lose your hair? not the other way around!" i laughed. and i love disease jokes now. (i have gotten some GREAT lupus and cancer jokes!)
Then they had to let my thyroid levels go crazy before they could start my radiation. So, I finished school and came back to Charleston to live with my parents for a bit then i am moving to James Island bout the beginning of June or sooner if possible. I'm doing freelance graphics jobs for the summer and learning about patience and not wasting a second of my life.

This year, God has stripped everything away from me that I falsely put my hope in: myself, my health, the way I look, relationships, my family, my independence. He has made me okay with just him, only him, which is all we need anyway. Yet he has poured out amazing blessings on me that I could not begin to write about.

Every blessing you pour out I turn back to praise
When the darkenss closes in Lord, still I will say

Blessed be your name
Though I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.

You give and take away.
You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
Lord blessed be your name.

So that is a little history....now comes the recent stuff......