It has been ages since I’ve given an update. Since coming home from the hospital I’ve just not felt good. My energy levels are unrecognizable to me, so I’ve been spending most of my time focused on healing. I sleep most days away and the couch, a thing I rarely used before seems to hug my body now.

Back in July, I was gifted a new entryway for Doors To Healing to move home. Thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes. Jaedy, you may never know the timing of your gift of service and how it not only serves as an entryway, but a reminder that “everything works out for me when it’s in alignment”

Jaedy is a dear friend of my Mikey. I had never met, nor talked to him in my life. Mikey shares his trials and tribulations with Jaedy. It’s been such a gift to know he has this friendship now more than ever. I’m convinced Jaedy knows more about me than most people would ever want to and he continuously holds space for Mikey as he navigates this storm with me.

For those of you who missed it, The Stone House sold just before surgery. I got news it would close the end of July. Doors to Healing was soon to be homeless. I was just returning home from the hospital after being in septic shock and the two of them had worked out a surprise for me: Jaedy so generously offered to come help me get back to what I love. Calling it a contribution to others he gifted me his time to rework a space for a private entrance, making the lower level of my home “separate” from our living space. Now I can work downstairs, do trainings, follow ups and 1:1 sessions. My interns have rooms they can use and the best part is my family can still live on the other two levels without feeling like we live in my office. It’s perfect!

Aside from getting the job done, we shared a beautiful week of stories and interesting real conversations. I love people who can truth talk about deep stuff and never need to fill space with sports, weather and news. I feel blessed to have a new friend. Each time I walk in the new entrance where the energy of his love has been left for us I think of him knowing the universe will bless him in ways that will stop him in his tracks, just as he blessed Doors to Healing. He is also the world’s neatest houseguest and we can’t wait to have him back!!

Bad News

About a week after Jaedy went home I got the call I wasn’t hoping for. The pathology came back and the surgery needed to be done a second time to take more pre - cancerous tissue. According to the surgeon there is just too great a risk for recurrence. So, surgery 2 was scheduled for August 6. The tumour taken from my lymph nodes was positive for cancer and the report shows my body was “chemo resistant”

I felt defeated. Exhausted and filled with upset. This journey is hard, and long and painful. It feels like my body has been tied up to the tow hooks on the back of the jeep and taken on an off road adventure. Face to the ground, not wearing a shirt.

The nurse Practioner is calling my experience “post septic shock syndrome” It sounds about right. I know people are trying to be helpful by telling me “your body has been through a lot, give it time to recover” but it really doesn’t help.

When the nurse practitioner reached out her hand to hold mine and said, “Amie, your body is not just recovering from one thing here. You have been through a lot” for the first time I felt some sympathy for myself. I know my body is doing hard work to heal itself. It’s been so hard to be patient, it’s been so hard to feel as though my body isn’t my own. It acts different than it used to. I talk to it several times a day and I’m giving it what it’s asking. I know it doesn’t help when I get upset with it for not co-operating with me. And, yet I do. We don’t feel like we are friends with each other right now so I’m working on that. We feel a little too separate for my liking right now. Today, I choose to give myself grace - we have been though a lot and it’s been traumatic. I’m thankful I have the tools to be able to work through this, and thankful I have the desire to do so. Trauma doesn’t have to keep me stuck feeling like I’m living in a body that isn’t mine. TIR will help.

Speaking of TIR. I got to share time with my Ann Arbor TIR family. and that’s always fun! Craig, Marian, Jenny, Kylee and I had yummy vegan dinner and lots of laughs. Friends and laughter help so much. I’m sad I won’t get to go to Slovakia for our annual symposium this fall but next year I’ll be healthier than ever again and ready to take that on.

I got the cutest email from Sarge. Aka Dr Gerbode that really lit a fire under my ass. He is so special to me. I don’t know that he’ll ever know just how special he is to me. I can only hope I stay as cool as him when I’m his age.

The Tour de Winners

Kylee and I shared a great day. We called it the Winners - HomeSense tour. We hit up every Winners, Marshalls and HomeSense within a 75 km radius to us. The jeep was packed with pillows, decor and blankets for my new work space. It was so much fun to share the day with her dilly dallying.

Friends and Fun 🩷

My dear friend Adrienne was home for the week and we got some Starbucks dates in. I didn’t feel great but her company always warms my heart. She is home again next week and I’m super excited about that. I have the best friends!

I’ve had lots of Coffee dates, visits and got to have lunch with my dear friend Margaret. I’ve got to float in the pool and have daily naps. Kalvin and I have bonded even more and he is being such a good listener. Everyone who knows him has commented on how much he’s matured recently. He loves having me home all the time.

My friends and TIR interns Lili and Monique helped over at the stone house to pack up my office. I had accumulated a lot of stuff over there! Lili giggled as she commented “I never knew you were a hoarder”. I actually didn’t either, but as mom, Victor, and Aunt Jean kept backing in the trucks I learned pretty quickly how many things that old house was storing. It’s mostly all donated now, but man oh man. In fairness, it was NOT all mine … PHYLLIS!!

I’ve got to do a couple online sessions and saw one client in person a few days before surgery 2. It was magical. It felt like someone finally gave my crayons back and I could colour again.

August 6 came with no shortage of anxiety in my chest. I was thankful for a future TIR to help me process those possible worst case scenarios I had replaying. Future TIR is awesome sauce. As humans we spend so much time either stuck in the past playing that over or worried about the future. Future TIR took most of the angst away and I know what was left over I could’ve ran another session on, but I wasn’t up to that in the blue gown with my undies sticking out. Somehow that didn’t feel “sessionable” so I used my breathing techniques, talked to my body and eventually fell asleep waiting for my turn. The OR was on shut down and only doing emergencies and C-sections. I heard two babies come into the world and let out cries which is a super cool experience. The OR staff always amazes me, and soon enough I was sleeping and under the skilled knife of Dr. Farooqui. The pain has been much less this time around and soon my steri-strips will fall off and I’ll get the call that tells me what the pathology from the second surgery says. Waiting is hard. I have had crazy stomach pains and high nutrifill counts with low hemoglobin so I’m being monitored by the NP and Dr. Hamm has sent me for some testing. I don’t see her again until September 4th and by then all the pathology should’ve come back so she can recommend what might be next.

I struggle with the thoughts of radiation. I struggle with the thoughts of chemo pills. I need to understand how chemo pills might be different than IV chemo. It’s hard to wrap my head around the words on the pathology report. Someone needs to help me understand if there’s no definite response to IV chemo why the hell I would even consider 6 months of chemo pills. Puking, nausea, burning tears, burning bowel movements, the worst heart burn ever…. the list of “responses” my body did have was less than enjoyable.