A Sunshine Day

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

OUCH!

I sliced my thumb with a chef’s knife this evening while chopping up potatoes. No chunk went missing – so no cannibalism tonight. It sliced right into my thumb as I tried to push a piece of potato off the knife. YIKES!

Drop everything
Wash hands
Wrap paper towel around thumb
Upstairs to find bandaids
Dump bandaids out on bed to find large size at bottom of box
Unwrap thumb
Apply generous blop of Neosporin to area
Put bandaid on
Notice seepage through bandaid
Wrap strip of medical tape around thumb to hide unsightly blood through bandaid
Thumb throbbing
Return to finish potatoes

Thank God I have a thumb in the first place and can stand in the kitchen to prepare dinner and a family to feed.

CaringBridge.com

I thought I’d start a site on CaringBridge.com to keep track of my dad’s upcoming battle with the C-Monster.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/rzachritz

Today, we found out it’s not small-cell lung cancer. It’s definitely lung cancer, though.

I also added a new page to include a video of a year in a child’s life with cancer. Kennedy is a member of our church, and she’s on her second to last chemo for bone cancer. She just started it today. Go Kennedy! So check out the Princess Warrior page to watch her video.

There Are No Words … Yet I Found Many

How can I even put into words the range of emotions I’ve experienced over the past two weeks?  Everyone in the family is experiencing their own emotions, and though they may be similar, we all have our own unique feelings.

My first feeling was shock followed immediately by an intense sadness.  Then crept in some anger for many different reasons.

The fact that anyone smokes (and that I once smoked myself) wasn’t the least of those reasons.  They say former smokers are the worst critics.  They got that wrong.  Former smokers losing, or who have lost, someone because they smoked are even worse.  I thought I hated the fact that people smoked before.  Now it pisses me off more than I can express.  I remember when I smoked, I didn’t smell it in my house.  I thought smoking by the exhaust vent in a bathroom or kitchen would eliminate the odor and smoke in the house.  HA!  So wrong!  Smoking in the basement?  Forget about it.  The only solution is to just quit.  Don’t tell me it was easier for me because I didn’t smoke for as many years.  Bullshit!  I don’t deny for one second that it’s hard.  But it has to be done.  One more cigarette … one more pack … one more carton … wait until we find out … wait until chemo’s over … wait until the hard part’s over … wait … wait … wait …  If you wait until the perfect time or even just a better time, you’re never going to do it.

Now that I got that off my chest, I can settle back into the biggest emotion hanging around: Sadness.  I’m almost disappointed in myself for hiding my emotions in front of my dad.  I believe I should have had a day to just let it out in front of him.  What good did it do to suck it up and “be strong” for him.  Why can’t we just be honest?  I’m not saying we should walk around moping and crying all the time, but I also don’t think it’s healthy to hold it inside.  We can be hopeful and positive, but we can also cry when necessary.  And damn it!  Right now I want to cry!  I want to just fall into a heaving mess and CRY!

I’m not necessarily afraid this will throw me into a depression.  I’m pretty sure I have a handle on that one, but we can never say never.  Right?  There can be a fine line between depression and sadness.  It’s wrong to shelter those who suffer from (or have suffered from) depression from sad things in life.  We all have to deal.  My sadness makes me a little numb.  I want to withdraw and just exist in my own little world.  I get lost in my own head.  I walk through the store unaware of people around me – just wanting to be invisible so no one will talk to me.

Then a game of ping-pong begins.  Laughter still happens!  Yes, I can still laugh!  It’s okay to be happy even though something so sad is happening.  Obviously, I’m not happy that the sad thing is happening.  I’m still capable of feeling joy.

And then, just as fast, I’m angry again.  I’m angry that it’s taking so long to get an answer!

Tired…..

Cancer

I’ve done pretty well figuring out what God wanted me to learn from a lot of things in life, but this one’s tough to figure out.  Cancer.  My dad has cancer.  No official word from pathology yet, but lesions showing on lung x-rays, large spot on his liver, tumors around leg, hip, and shoulder bones all point to cancer.  Those are all places which small cell lung cancer commonly spread to.  Yes, I hit the internet finally, and I don’t like what I read, but I don’t want to write about it yet.  I wish the damn doctor would just call already!

Another Prom Photo

This was taken at prom.

Pure and True Happiness

That’s some serious laughter!

It warms your heart to see such pure and true happiness in person, but to capture it and relive it over and over is really special.  This is only one of the reasons I love photography so much.

I am determined to learn all that I can about exposure.  I’ve read the same thing several times from a few different sources.  I think it’s finally sinking in.  I played and practiced and experimented all day.  Thank goodness my camera will display all the settings used for each photo taken because I took close to 300 today!  I loaded them on my computer then and looked at them on the big monitor.  Much better quality today.  I had some “ah-ha!” moments, too.  With a little more practice, I think I’m going to be ready to tackle senior portraits!

The weeds are still happily blowing in the breeze in my rose garden, and the house is still a mess … but I took a day to lose myself in a passion.   Seeing that happiness in my daughter made it all worth it!  I’ve got a load of laundry to fold, and one more in the dryer as I type.  I’ll just squeeze in some power cleaning during my breaks tomorrow.  Maybe I need to make this a normal 40-hour work week so I can focus on some neglected areas in my life.