I put this on Facebook and everyone seemed to love it, so I thought I would share it here as well. Rich, Lily, Tallinn and I try to go for a walk in the woods, around a lake, or somewhere fun and different than the neighborhood every Sunday. It was cold yesterday and Lily (being the stalwart teen girl she is) always grumps about being forced to go. This happens EVERY Sunday. This photo just captured it. Tallinn is in the back and has his head poked over the seat to see his family and where we are headed. Lily is often close to his head (he loves her) and she is complaining that Tallinn is breathing on her. We have one child (and she’ll be 16 in a few weeks!) at home and we still have the sibling complaints in the car.

I have been really been able to practice my patience since my cancer diagnosis. It is so ironic that the people who are trying their best to extend the length of my life, also make me wait indeterminable amounts of time. I go to the oncologist and I wait for him. Then I wait for the lab results to come back. Then I wait for the pharmacy to mix my meds. I wait…and wait…and wait. I find myself thinking that it is so crazy that my life is shorted by decades and here I am spending all this time waiting. Waiting for the pandemic to loosen its grip on Nebraska so I can feel more comfortable with going out places. Well, that is also what advent is about. Waiting. But not waiting twiddling our thumbs as Christmas marches towards us, or frantically shopping online….click…click…click…but waiting in prayerful awe as a miracle is about to happen. The miracle we celebrate every year at this time, Christ’s birth. I wasn’t raised Catholic. I became Catholic as an adult. I was raised Lutheran…Missouri Synod German Lutheran. (yeah, the strict ones!) I was raised in a home with an Advent wreath and never knew the rest of the world didn’t do this as well! I continued the tradition when I started my own family. The wreath is made of greenery (fake, in my case, to be able to use every year). Mine has winterberries and pinecones on it. There are four candles: three purple and one pink (or rose). They each stand for something different. Advent starts 4 Sundays prior to Christmas, so in 2020, it started on Nov 29th. It also marks the beginning of the new liturgical church year in both the Catholic and Lutheran Churches. It is not uncommon for the pastor to greet the congregation with “Happy New Year” that day in church. Each Sunday we light a candle. At our house, we light the candle every evening as we eat our evening meal. The candles represent hope, love, joy and peace. There is a fifth candle we light starting Christmas Eve…a big fat white one placed in the middle called the Christ candle. This past week was the third week of advent, where we light the pink candle representing Joy. We rejoice during this somber, prayerful time of waiting because the waiting is almost over….the end is in sight. A friend of mine, Kelly Nelson, places a pregnant Mary in the center of her Advent wreath, and then replaces it on Christmas eve with the Holy Family. I LOVED that idea so did so as well with mine. I have some carved wood figures from Bethlehem I am using. Happy waiting!

I am not even sure where to start with these folks. I belonged to the Impact Kickboxing gym for about 2 years before I had to stop kickboxing there and start kicking cancer’s butt from home. I had a brief time over the summer where I was able to kickbox in my garage. I would still like to get back to that if I can get another heavy bag. Kickboxing on blood thinners is not necessarily what the doctor would like for me to do…but man, I sure do miss working out my frustrations on a bag. It is as much for my mental health as my physical. Anyhow, I digress. Impact’s fit fam (as they call themselves) were such a support to me when I was first diagnosed with stage IV cancer. They rallied around me and I was so incredibly touched by the outpouring of love. I had only ever gone to the 5:30 a.m. class…so I had some regulars that I was pretty close with in that class. Kickboxing is not the kind of workout you get to talk through. If you can talk through it, you aren’t working hard enough. I got to know these folks for 10 minute talks before and after class…and the classic eyeroll passing between us throughout class. ( I am particularly guilty of this). Through social media (we have our own private Facebook group), I got to know other people at the gym that go to other classes. They rallied around me to bring meals…even on Thanksgiving Day (Michelle Krueger, her sisters, and Heather Doyle are the bomb). They were just over-the-top supportive. This is a very diverse group of people….from all walks of life and experiences. I am blessed to call them friends. Even when a lot of my church friends quickly faded away into the woodwork of the pandemic quiet…these folks were still sending me texts and messages online…dropping by with flowers (Ruth) and plates of goodies (Michelle Krueger again!) and sending me warm thoughts. Are these folks Catholics? Some… Are they Christian? Some…. Are they covered in tattoos and swear every 4th word? Many…. But they have such good souls and have moved me to tears with their compassion and support even though many I haven’t seen in over a year now. Thank you! If you ever need a gym to go to…these folks are the best in Omaha! You will get a good workout and a supportive family if you just let them in! Here’s one of my latest messages from this past weekend. This crazy guy dresses up in outfits and works out in them. It is a total morale booster for everyone. He was a reindeer the other day. His transformation has been amazing! Thanks Jonathan Hart…you are the best!

Okay, so I do not have a big green thumb. That happens when you only get to live someplace for 3 years at a time. However, we have a ton of plants in our house. When I first had my two cancer surgeries 6.5 years ago, I got a plant from Ed & Wanda Oslica….a pink Cyclamen (or as I call them, inside-out flowers). I managed to keep that plant alive and happy for 6 years. It grew so big that Rich replanted it. It didn’t survive the repotting, unfortunately. It totally broke my heart. When I had my surgery last November, the Oslicas again gave me a plant of Cyclamen….this time white. It was so pretty! However, it all of a sudden didn’t do well and then as Rich tried to revive it and it got overwatered. It is in a sad state right now and I am still hopeful it may revive itself. I was totally gutted though…I had these plants that brought me such joy as they would bloom all the time…especially during the winter months. When Lily and I were at Mulhall’s they had tons of these potted plants in all sorts of colors I had never seen. I was so very tempted to buy one for myself but I told Lily it wouldn’t be the same…as those flowers meant something special to me being from a good friend who was wishing me well. They are my “you can do this and get better” flowers. So I passed on buying some for myself.

The next day, I had a message from a friend of mine from my kickboxing gym. I hadn’t seen Ruth in forever and she had something she was going to drop by. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see her (which is probably a good thing as I would have been a soppy mess on the doorstep), but she dropped by a gorgeous red Cyclamen plant for me. I accused Rich of telling her about this. He totally denied it. Even Lily came out of her room and saw it and said…”What are the chances?????” I totally feel like the Holy Spirit was working through Ruth that day. I got a little nudge from God saying that He was still there and still in control. Thank you Ruth Ehler! You totally made the rest of my month!

There is a garden store in Omaha called Mulhall’s. It isn’t far from our house but I had never been there before. I heard a radio advertisement saying they had European glass ornaments and then saw a post on Facebook they had live reindeer until Dec 19th….well, I figured I should go. Lily and I went on a Monday during the middle of the day, in the hopes that it wouldn’t be crowded. It wasn’t and we had a blast! I was proud of the fact that I left empty-handed (and Rich was relieved, I am sure) but Lily and I really had a great time. Dancer and Prancer were there and I got to talk to a mom and her 4 year old son about reindeer. We lived in Norway for 3 years and had the wonderful opportunity to attend Sami Days in the Artic Circle one February. We did all things reindeer that weekend and I learned so much. It was one of my favorite trips ever…and I have been on a lot of them. It was so nice to just talk to someone I didn’t know…goodness, it is nice to talk in person to anyone. Anyhow, Mulhall’s is huge! We just wandered around to all the areas looking at the ornaments…smelling the wonderful German cinnamon nuts they were making, and picking out the plants we would love to have at our home. They even had pineapple trees with tiny pineapples on them! It was so fun! Lily loves plants. It allowed her to set aside her moody teenage self and just allow the two of us to connect over the wonder of the whole place. Lily is hard to shop for so now I have some ideas for her 16th birthday, which is Jan 4th. Here are some pictures from our time that afternoon.

I had CT scans done on my pelvis, abdomen, and chest last Wednesday. These were my regular 3 month checks. I finally wised up and went to the chemo infusion center first to have my port accessed before heading to the radiology department. This makes it so much easier for everyone. When I have my scans, they do two sets…one with contrast and one without. The contrast has to be injected into my veins. Normally they would start an IV for that. I have a port to be able to avoid stuff like that. Crazy enough, it is way better to have a needle jabbed into your chest than someone fishing around in your hand or arm for a vein. A nurse has to access my port, so the radiology tech has to call one of their nurses…and most are not very proficient with ports (very scary) and they don’t have the right equipment to do so. (also scary) So my super oncology nurse, Nora, accessed my port so I could just waltz into the CT room and bypass all the craziness prior. This allowed me to be in and out in under 15 minutes. Yay! While I was in the waiting room, I noticed this blinking light that I hadn’t before. I have put pictures down below. This is why, even though I don’t like my oncologist very much, I stay at this hospital.

I received the readings of my CT scan from Bergan Mercy and everything appears to be stable. Although shrinkage is the best outcome, this is a close second. My scans will be sent to the Mayo Clinic to be re-read there by the Sarcoma team, who know what to look for when it comes to Leiomyosarcoma. I have chemo this Thursday, Dec 17th in the morning (this will be my 10th round of Doxil) and then will meet via teleconference with my sarcoma specialist at Mayo at 2:30. Rich will be able to be with me this time, I hope, and we’ll make a plan for 2021…at least for the beginning of it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! No matter how much your year didn’t go as planned…and I can honestly say that this probably applies to ALL OF US, we still have a lot to be thankful for. I honestly didn’t know if I would be here to be celebrating another Thanksgiving…and I don’t know about next year. That, in itself, is a small blessing. I mean, it is horrible and jarring and causes me to cry a lot, but honestly, it has really led me to have a bit more self-reflection on what is important to say…to do…to leave behind for others. I try to be more careful with what I say to others rather than just saying what pops into my mind. I make it a goal to check in on a friend every single day….whether by text, phone call or plain old mail. I make it a point of telling people I love them and I am thankful for them and proud of them. I don’t keep it to myself anymore, thinking they will know how much I appreciate them. I am honest…sometimes brutally so. Why did I ever bury what I felt? To be polite? To spare people’s delicate natures? We, as a nation, have gone over the top with sparing everyone’s feelings and I think we are not coping well as a community because of it. Do I want peace on earth? Of course I do, but I am no longer willing to just sit quietly and have my beliefs be trampled over for the sake of others. I have a higher calling to answer to, and that is my ultimate blessing….clarity in seeing that.

This Thanksgiving it is just Lily, Rich, Tallinn and me. The sun is shining and the temps should reach 50 if we are lucky. Really nice weather. I made monkey bread for brunch and the whole chicken is in the crockpot. I gave it a talking to this morning as I was seasoning it….telling the chicken it had to pretend to be a turkey since I couldn’t find one small enough for just the three of us. We’ll think of Joe as we have his favorite mashed potatoes…and of Tim when we have green bean casserole. Joe and Michelle are at her folks’ new home in eastern Missouri, and Tim is in Fort Collins, Colorado, ready to run his gym tomorrow for those who eat too much today. With a low-key Thanksgiving day in mind, we’ll head out to a park to hike for awhile soon. We have been trying to go to park each weekend to mix it up a bit. The pictures below are from this past Sunday at Hitchcock Park near Crescent, Iowa. I would highly recommend it! Nice trails and it is a $3 day pass or $20/annual. This is my icky week…so hoping get out and get some fresh air and exercise to help me feel better. I actually walked in snow on Monday….HUGE flakes that weren’t really expected, I don’t think. It was nice because I love the snow, but I was soaked through by the time I got home and it took Tallinn several hours to dry out too.

Thank you so much to everyone who continues to reach out to me to let me know I am not alone…that I am loved…and that you are thinking of me. It has been quite a lonely year for me, and I have been pretty sad about that. When you are living on a shortened timeline and you have your family and friends taken from you due to a pandemic, it just, well, sucks. People you are used to seeing and talking to often have dropped out of my life….and that was also painful to deal with. If I ever needed a support system in place and people to talk to about anything BUT cancer, it is now. Yet with the way the world shook out this year, many of those people dropped away. However, many whom I would have never thought would step up and be by my side did. People I would consider acquaintances stepped up and became friends…even if just through letters, texts, or phone calls. My heroes and heroines who kept me sane this year when my rollercoaster ride threatened to go off the rails. My boys…wow, have been wonderful. They call me several times a week and just keep me up-to-date on their lives and that is such a wonderful blessing. Special thanks this week to Ruth Ehler for the wonderful letter. Wow, I miss you. Marcia Chiarbos….miss your hugs and your quick wit. Thanks for the letter and prayer card! To my Aunt Judy and Uncle Dick…those Michigan socks are going on a hike with me today! I love them! I am so thankful for all of you! I am really truly blessed to have met so many wonderful people in my lifetime. I am blessed to be healthy even though I have terminal cancer…sounds crazy, but for right now, I am able to function pretty well and that is a blessing to live my time out this way rather than other ways. So off for a walk! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Well another 4 hours done at the hospital this morning. I will be getting scans done before I meet with my medical oncologist in 4 weeks for my next treatment. It will wait until after Thanksgiving, unless they call me and schedule me prior. I will also set up another remote appointment with my sarcoma specialist from the Mayo Clinic after the scans are done. My local oncology dr said my echocardiogram looked good, so that is great news. Doxil starts attacking your heart once your body has decided it has had its fill of it, and then complications happen quite quickly, so I will remind him to keep on top of that. I have had more side effects the last round especially, so he decreased my dosage by a little….about 8% decrease, to see if that would help with the hand-foot syndrome. So today was dose #9 of 12…I should have my last dosage before going on a chemo break the week of my birthday in February. Today marked a year of taking some form of chemo. My body is getting tired of the poison. I am very fortunate…but it is still dragging on me. I don’t think I can just do nothing when I am on a chemo break so I think we’ll be trying hormone therapy, as my tumors tested estrogen and progesterone positive. It is scary though….I could go on this new therapy and it kick my cancer’s patootie…or the cancer could just explode everywhere. There is no way of predicting what will happen and everyone is different. Talk about a leap of fate. Either way, I will be getting scans every three months, so I will hopefully find out quickly if my chemo break is going to need to be cut short. But that is early next year. Today I am just happy to have gone through chemo with grace (which I literally write in my day planner on chemo days – go through my time at the hospital with grace).

A quick follow-up about my contacts. I haven’t been able to see very well and have been forced to wear my glasses almost all the time. I finally called the Pearl Vision I went to twice this past summer. They had drastically changed my left eye. Twice. Changed my right eye once. Well, when I finally picked up my contacts, the worker in the store placed the RIGHT eye sticker on my left eye contacts. No wonder I could see well out of either eye! I switched them around today and life was much better. I have been wearing my contacts all day…..a first for the last several months. I think I will be looking for a different optometrist and shop. Oy! They were having computer issues both times I was in there and I never got a copy of my prescription, otherwise I would have figured this out much sooner. Another happy moment today.

When I came home I was greeted with a card from Lois & Jim Doyle…thank you so much for your awesome cards and letters. I love them! I got gorgeous flowers delivered from Fiona Macklon, my fellow warrior queen. Thank you so much for being in this battle by my side. I adore you! Both of these folks are from the Houston area! And I talked to my brother, Craig Neitzke, last night and my parents, Walt & Karen Neitzke today. All from Houston. Yay Houston folks! You guys stepped up to the plate these last 24 hours!

Last but not least…I finally filled out a photo frame I have had for a couple of months now. It is hanging by my desk in my home office, where I spend most of my time. It has the wedding photos of my paternal grandparents, my parents, Rich and me, Rich’s parents, Rich’s paternal grandparents, and Joe & Michelle. Four generations of wedding pictures. I just adore it. As I told a friend, it just pushes all my happy buttons!

It has been a year since this little guy literally wiggled his way into our lives at the Nebraska Humane Society. He is a purebred Australian Cattle Dog…a red heeler. He has a lot of energy but even more love to give to his people. He had been a stray….picked up by the NHS….then adopted out….and surrendered back to the NHS. They guessed his age at 14 months when we got him a year ago. I have mentioned before that Tallinn saved me as much as I saved him. What a sweet boy he is! I put a couple of photos from our walk this morning down below. He had a blast fetching a stick at a park near our house before he came home to snuggle up with me and watch the Huskers win their first home game of the season.

I got a visit from a friend today. Carisa Dillon brought some flowers for me (so pretty I took a picture of them) and her daughter, Lucy, to see me. Carisa was getting ready to give birth to Lucy when we went into lockdown with COVID-19. Lucy is now an 8 month old cutie pie that I had never had the blessing to see in person. She is adorable! The weather was warm enough that we could chat outside in the fresh air. Thank you, Carisa, for coming over and brightening my week! I also got a couple of bags from MeiLing in San Diego in the mail on Friday. What a great surprise! I love them! I also got a letters from Michelle Krueger (boy, I miss you!) and Mrs. Doyle in Texas and phone calls from Todd, Judi, and Paula. Thanks so much for reaching out! You all are blessings in my life!

Today, 26 years ago at Scott AFB, Illinois, I became a mother to a happy and healthy red-headed baby boy we named Joseph Matthew Messina. Warning…this may get sappy. But hey, I am dying and I don’t know how many more birthdays I will be able to express my love to him….so bear with me. I also do this to embarrass the snot out of him. (although I don’t think he embarrasses easily) I had Joe exactly 6 weeks before Christmas. I knew this because that was how much I got off from the military to stay at home and bond with him. (So if you haven’t started your shopping yet, snap to it!) Joe is my built in reminder that Christmas is just around the corner and I need to get my ducks in a row. Joe didn’t have a lot of hair as an infant. What he did have was red and wispy…with olive green eyes to match. However, as time went on, those eyes turned a beautiful brown. From the get go Joe needed to be entertained. We had two labs when he was born, Hershey and Tahoe. They kept him entertained for the most part but he was not a baby you could sit somewhere and get things done. He had to be in the thick of things. When we were living in Colorado and Joe was in the 2nd grade, he had extensive testing done and we found out he had pretty severe dyslexia. Knowing how much extra time it took him to do assignments in school, I can’t tell you how proud I am of the fact that he graduated high school and college with minimal help from others. Again, he thrives in being able to be out in the thick of things, being active, and not behind a desk writing and reading. Joe has thrived as a infantry soldier in the Army National Guard because of this. Last year at this time he was in an intensive school for firefighting in Hutchinson, KS. Since then he has taken and passed his EMT class, and applied to more than a handful of fire departments. Although he got asked for a second interview to most of them, he was having a hard time being hired because he didn’t have any experience. That is a bitter pill to swallow…as you can’t get experience if someone doesn’t hire you! Well, this past week, there are a couple of departments nearby him that has decided to give him a chance. It has been a long time waiting! He has his foot in the door! I know he just wants to be able to have a steady income to help support his family.

Joe is brave. He has travelled all over the world and been to countries where he didn’t speak the language. He plays rugby and is in the infantry and has deployed to the Middle East. He also loves with his whole heart. He started dating Michelle his freshman year in college….almost 7 years later then are now married and he loves her so very much – it brings tears to my eyes, I am just so happy for them. He loves animals…his two dogs, Moose and Jenna, just love him to pieces right back. Joe is positive. He is almost always smiling and is really, really funny. I love spending time with him…not just because he is my kid, but because I just genuinely love him as a person. He is a leader and a problem-solver. These are gifts that not everyone has, and it is a blessing he has them! Joe is honest in his feelings. If he feels someone is being rude or unfair, he tells them. I am not confrontational enough to do this, but he is, and I admire him for that trait. He manages to look an awful lot like his dad, but is the spitting image of my Grandpa Neitzke. It really is uncanny how much they look alike, being 3 generations apart…right down to the curly red hair.

So today I celebrate the wonderful first 26 years of life of my oldest child. I did mention to him that he was now starting his second quarter of a century….and that I was also in that same quarter of a century. He didn’t appreciate that much! Because of COVID-19 and my health, I didn’t get to see Joe for 8 months this year. It was a long stretch of not being able to hug him. Thank goodness for video calls! I love you so very much….I am so proud of the man you have become….and the husband you will be. Thanks for bringing Michelle into the family to even up the gender count! Lily and I have been outnumbered for years! Here are 26 photos of Joe for your to enjoy!