Peel Back The Onion

2009-10-21T17:02:00.002+13:00

Life has been so busy i havnt had a chance to get on here and post anything!!!

the past few weeks have had some extreme ups and downs

Phil finally started losing his hair

which i think really shocked everyone.

it was one of those things we knew and expected would happen but when it finally

did it still all rocked us to the chore and was a horrible reminder that Phil is indeed

sick that even though he puts on a brave face..chemo is still taking its toll.

ON THE UPSIDE OF LIFE...

i had the wonderful pleasure of preaching at my home church last week, which

i havnt done for a wee while and i felt completely lost as to what to preach on or about

and to me the timing seemed all wrong but thankfully God has a bigger and better plan and

after i had finished speaking that night..we had the biggest alter call response we had had for over a year.

it was a helpful reminder for me that God is bigger than any situation

and that even when we dont know which way is up or down

he does and he will guide us through

photos from head shaving

2009-10-21T16:55:00.004+13:00

....................................group shot of all the shaved heads and phil still with his hair...............
.............................Phil wife and sister in -laws with sister in-law zoe who shaved off her dreads....
..................Phils brother Jason getting his hair shaved off....................................

just hold it in

2009-10-07T12:06:00.002+13:00

Saturday was one of those days where i just had to hold back the tears and i now Phil was too.
It was Karauna's(my cousin) 21st birthday, we had planned on making the day extra special for her by taking her out for lunch.. given that her husband is going through his second round of chemo and her mum has just had a heart attack at age 42..we figured she deserved it.
unfortunately Phil who had just started his 2nd round of chemo last week,had stopped eating ans was throwing up every five minutes. Phil who was normally very dark skinned was now a pale shade of white.
In the end, it was so devastating.. the look on his face said it all. he had been so strong throughout this whole ideal, he hadn't cried, he had been so strong but today he couldn't hide it, we watched as he fought back the tears..then quietly muttered.."i wanted today to be special.. to give you just one day where we could all pretend that none of this was happening.."
my heart dropped somewhere deep into what felt like the pit of my stomach. we all knew he had to be back in hosptial and we couldn't waste anytime..it had to be today.

he asked Karauna to carry on with her day- to celebrate as if he was there. but it wasn't the same. HOw could we when the person we loved wan't there to share one of the milestones of life.

THEY SHAVED THEIR HEADS!!!

2009-09-20T15:50:00.004+12:00

its been an interesting weekend. one like no other.

We had Phil's hair cutting thing on Friday. the first fund raiser for his leukemia treatment.

i was absolutely blown away when i got there and discovered that 18 or so people were shaving their hair off to help fund raise. what was even more breath taking was that one of those was a woman that had dreads..very long dreads but sacrificed them for this cause and actually raised $1000 on her own in the process.

nothing can describe the gratitude that we all felt as we watched people that had only known Phil for just over a year give all they Had and then some.

It's amazing how people will just give for cancer fundraisers..it just shows how much it really affects us all.

It is an ever present reminder that Cancer does not discriminate: it doesn't care if you are rich or poor, young or old.

2009-09-07T14:50:00.003+12:00

As i sit in my journalism class..keyboards taping around me at ninety miles an hour i should be worried about my law and ethics assignment probably.
but instead i feel utterly exhausted and careless toward any of my class work...part of me feels guilty and another part just feels as though having Glandular fever- and an infected gestation tube as well as a close friend being diagnosed recently with leukemia at the age of 19 gives me the slightest bit of intitlement to have the afternoon off.
I suppose some would say these thoughts are selfish and self invovled but is it really so bad to take a moment for ourselves once in a while??

Scratching the surface

2009-09-07T13:40:00.004+12:00

well im new at this whole blogger thing, but it seems to be a good way of getting your thoughts out there so im always up for a new challenge and just figured why not give it a go.
my next thought was what do i blog about????
how do poeple find things to blog about??
(which is probably a concerning thought given that i am a journalism student.)
my immediate thought was my life is far to boring..then i thought who cares il just
Blog for the sake of it.