It’s been three months since I last blogged, and I suppose your all wondering why. It’s not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t think I had anything to say. But I do. I have a lot to say. More than I thought I did, because I did  not go through six months of absolute hell to walk out the other side of it and crawl under a rock, never to be heard from again. Nope, not at all. I went through six months of hell so I could be something and it would be a damn shame to waste the opportunity I have.

I came out of my dad’s battle with cancer changed. I will never again be the same person I was in July of last year, pre-cancer. Never. I’ve hardened but my edges have softened. My heart is fuller yet more reserved. I cry less but feel pain deeper. I will never hear again the word cancer without thinking of my dad and when his hair fell out and the awful chemo unit and the look on my mom’s face when she told me dad was sick. Never. As sad as that sounds, it could be worse. I could forget about it and go back to my life before, and that would be even sadder. That would mean I hadn’t progressed, that would mean I stood still in this ever changing world. And that would be the saddest fact of all.

Everyone rides the roller-coaster of life and sometimes we puke on the loops or we scream when we go drop down a big hill and other times we throw our hands in the air and scream with unhinged joy. Whatever part of the ride your on, the good, the bad, the ugly, try to enjoy it. Life is such a precious thing to waste. So laugh, take trips, stay up too late, make mistakes, fall in love, start a blog, eat too many pancakes,  make friends, do something insane, but do it for life, not for the inevitable death. Because if your always planning for what’s ahead you’ll miss what’s right in front of you, the wondrous present.

I’m not meant to stay the same and neither are you, so live your life with pancakes for breakfast and a happy soul when the sun sets every night. Just remember it’s all for a reason.

Yesterday I ate so much the food started to mix with my stomach lining, but now the food bloat has gone down and my hands have regained their ability to type an intelligent sentence.

Christmas, such a wonderful time of year  for a variety of reasons. It’s as if magic mixes with air from the first of December until the highly anticipated twenty fifth day. Whether you love the hustle and bustle, the  lights that seem to illuminate every store window, or the meaning behind the season; Christmas is a time of true joy for almost everyone.

This year carried extra meaning for me. Last Thursday we received the news that my dad’s cancer is in remission, a fact that left me with alligator tears in my eyes and a heart full of hope. The moment I found out he was going to be alright, it no longer mattered if there were ten presents under the tree or none at all. All I could think about was that life was going to regain some of the normalcy I had been craving for months. He is going to make it and so am I.

Sitting around the dinner table this Chritsmas, I felt that I had been given the privledge to be there rather than the right. I had survived some of the worst days of my life and now I had the opportunity to sit around a table full of food with people who truly loved me, and I can’t ever ask for more than that. Life has had its tough moments lately but as I sat at that table I wasnt thinking about that, I was suspended in a moment with a laugh leaving my lips and a smile crossing my face. There was nothing else I was left wanting

Although, aside from my dad’s health, my favorite gift this year are the pancake socks santa left for me. These fine foot blankets are defiantly my new cooking/stuffing me face/sleeping/homework/living/funeral socks.

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope your holiday was filled with love and laughter.

 

 

There are times in life when we all loose our way a little. Maybe we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of nowhere, or maybe we started to like waffles more than pancakes; a crime punishable by permanent, sticky syrup fingers.

I let my happiness become a factor depending only on the mere whim of the fickle world.

Back in the sweltering  heat of early July I was looking for the perfect bikini body and a jock named Bret. Instead I got mud stains called cancer on the white carpet that was my life, and I was left to clean it up. It decided to play nice sometimes and others it snapped at me with every swipe of my mop.

After my dad was diagnosed I started to let my mind slip away into a haze of worst case scenarios and what ifs. I let every word, every glance, every mere movement hit me like a tsunami I believed was threatening to drown me. I took a long five weeks after finding out about dad until I remember experiencing true happiness again.

I was sitting in a Chick-fil-a staring out the long panel of windows as rain poured down when I saw a man pull up to the drive-thru with a huge smile on his face. He laughed at something as he took his food from the hand of the drive-thru operator and drove up next to where I was sitting. He was singing along to the radio while shoving his chicken sandwich in his wide mouth, all with a grin the size of the sun sat on his face.

There was something about the way he chose to be so joyful on a day so bleak that made me smile. An intense happiness filled my chest like never before as I watched him drive away, knowing he was still singing. I think I realized that it doesn’t matter what life gives you, there is still good to be seen, grasped, and enjoyed.

There will always be tough times in life, but if we let that stop us from taking in the good parts we will never live at all.

Sometimes I lose my way, but one thing I know is that I can always find something to smile about, whether it’s the Chick-fil-a man or just a good pancake.

For all my pancake lovers who go to Catholic High, you know how tough this week has been. Our first day back from a long Thanksgiving break and we learned of the death of an alumni, one many knew, loved, and cared for. Just days later, the child of a alumni lost her battle to cancer. We remembered their lives through masses, an assembly, and adoration.

For the first time in six months my family was able to enjoy a meal without the threat of an impending round of chemo looming in the air. Dad is now done with all treatments until the end of the month when we determine where we stand with the enemy, cancer. We were able to spend the break together doing normal family things, like making pancakes. I truly enjoyed the normalcy of the break.

It was a trying Tuesday morning beginning with an emotional assembly. The site of tear streaked faces made it hard to continue with the day. The harsh contrast of my relaxing and the tension of school was a shock to my system. In this time before Christmas, I was expecting a lively environment full of excitement. It’s hard to watch the school community, including my own friends, grieve the loss of these girls.

There is very little positivity floating around right now, not just at my school, but everywhere. Tragedy seems to be affecting many this season. I firmly believe what we put out into the world comes back to us, so in the coming weeks I challenge EVERYONE to spread a little love to someone who needs it. Big or small we should all try to put some positive energy in the air by preforming random acts of kindness. One small act could be writing an uplifting note to a friend, or go big and host a pancake party. Either way, your actions are important.

So let’s flood the air with good vibes and smiles, who knows, maybe it will come back to us when we need it.

And to the LCHS pancakes, don’t forget about our own commitment to #RACk15 to honor the lives of those we lost.

 

 

Everyone has experienced one of those kind of days. They’re never ending, tiring, ‘everything that could have gone wrong did’ kind of days. Sometimes it’s a fight with your best friend or a spilled cup of coffee that sets the tone for the whole day to be disastrous.

With cancer, you get a lot of bad days. They usually begin with dad throwing up while John and I eat breakfast on the other sid of the wall and slowly develop into ‘No, I do not have my english homework’ and end with a pray for a better tomorrow. Sometimes the next day is better, and sometimes it’s worse. Either way it’s a blessing to get another one; good, bad, or indifferent.

The worst days, the rare but present terrible days, are the lonely ones. It’s hard to explain the emotional effect of cancer. There are times when it feels like the world is holding your head up, helping you through every second of the day. Other days it’s like sitting in the middle of a dark tunnel and at the end of the tunnel there is a bright light but you can’t reach it, because your stuck.  No matter how fast you run, how long you crawl, how many tears you shed, you can’t reach the end. And so you sit down in the tunnel and wait for the next sun to come up so you can try for the light again.

The lonely you feel is not a lack of people, it’s a mental kind of lonely. Your mind feels isolated but your body is swimming in a crowded sea.

Sometimes pancakes help, but only the chocolate chip ones.

 

 

There are moments in life when everything feels just right, so pure and genuine. These moments are made of the little things like making a turkey out of pancakes and naming him Cletus, or laughing at the stack of black Friday adds that showed up at our doorstep today. It truly does feel like a day to give thanks.

I am thankful for the opportunity to go to school, a privilege not all kids get. I am thankful for a safe, warm place to sleep. I am thankful for the people that surround me. I am thankful for the food that fills our table. I am thankful for the doctors who treat my dad. But most of all, I am thankful to be here.

There are many things to give thanks for today, but the ability to enjoy another holiday with my family is at the top of my list. This is the first time we haven’t been able to travel for thanksgiving, a fact that was hard to accept. But somehow we always pull through. This year we stayed in our pj’s until noon and ordered dinner from a casino, but that’s okay, because we are together. When life gives you flour, make a pancake batter. So here’s to new traditions and casino turkeys. It truly is going to be a unique holiday

Without the help of a lot of people we would not be doing as well as we are, so thank you to everyone who has taken the first step in walking this journey with us.

Cletus the thanksgiving turkey would also like to say he is thankful for his life this thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May your hearts and stomachs be filled today.

 I found myself sitting in the chemo unit of the Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Center on a Wednesday afternoon today with my dad sound asleep on my right and a beeping machine to my left. I was catching up on some basic history homework when I stood up, took my glasses off, and looked out the panel of windows behind me. My head was foggy.

I could see the vast health campus parking lot and the road turning into the campus with a few cars driving along it. The sky was gray and little sunshine was to be had. I noticed a man on a ladder decorating the towering Christmas tree that had sprouted out the middle of the entrance fountain. He was struggling to hang  one of the red balls on the top section of the tree.

I turned around to find a nurse checking dad’s vital signs. She looked up and smiled at me. Politely smiling back, I turned back to the windows. There was  a car pulling into a parking spot and a women got out, swung her purse over her shoulder, and walked under the overhang leading into the cancer center.

I wonder what she’s here for?

Oh, right, cancer. Maybe it’s her husband, or her sibling, or parent. Or maybe it’s her. I don’t know. What a sad fact that was.

I walked into the center today as the stranger with the cancer patient, nobody knew my name or how old I am or how I am doing. I was just a face to support the real priority, my dad, the patient. Nobody knew that women either, she may be on the edge, ready to crack. And no one would know.

Cancer makes people selfish. There’s a mentality that the patients health and keeping the family together are the only things that matter, and it has to be that way. Cancer is a fight for a life, there is no time to worry about that bitchy girl at school or how my hair looks. But there were probably a hundred different people in the same place I was, doing the same thing I was.

If just one person would reach out to another, would it make a difference? Would it be passed along? Could it save a life? A family? I cant answer this. Maybe that is why I started this blog, to touch someone, to make a difference. Or maybe I’m just a high school student with a little too much time on my hands.

I’m just a girl with a few unusual circumstances and I hope that means something to someone who needs to relate.

Tomorrow I am going to ask just one people how they are and if they need anything, because maybe they will.

Maybe I’ll offer them a pancake.

 

Everyone has a favorite place, whether its a childhood favorite or a trendy new joint. Mine happens to Knight and Day Diner, the meeting place of the old and older of Lancaster County. The menu includes such things as roast beef topped with mashed potatoes and soups no person under the age of seventy would ever touch. But they have some fairly kick ass pancakes. The cakes have a nice golden crust just lightly coated in warm butter and a fluffy inside that is overwhelmed with chocolate chips. The first bite is like a downpour after a twenty year long drought. And of course there has to be a side. Hash browns. My life motto is add hash browns to anything and make it a meal. These are not your average hash browns either, they are a crunchy, salty heap of goodness thrown on a white plate heavier than I am.

Great stuff people.

Most Sundays a certain best friend of mine, we’ll call her Georgia, stuff ourselves with pancakes and hash browns while the buzz of the elderly swirl around us in a haze of after church business as we solve the problems of the world. Eating pancakes on a Sunday with my favorite person gets me through things like chemo weeks where I am become an orphan for five or six days while they handle dad’s treatment. It’s those little things that make me feel a little more human, maybe even relevant. How often we forget the things that make us truly happy in this life. Some days I cannot fathom joy, there is simply no room in my heart for it. And then Sunday rolls around and I start to remember who I am again.

So maybe it’s the pancakes or maybe it’s the company that makes Knight and Day my favorite place. One may never know. One thing I’ll always know is that there are few things I like more than pancakes, but pancakes with Georgia are always better.

Every good squad needs a short man to make the rest feel tall. Fortunately for me, I didn’t even need to seek out a good pint sized pancake, I got my own.

Five years after my parents gave birth to the sweetest creature to walk the Earth (ahem,me), they introduced me to my biggest nightmare and eventual best friend. Lets call him John.

So started the cycle of sibling rivalry, nasty fights over the remote, and bickering over parental attention. He is a bull in my china shop, the Giant at Cinderella’s tea party. Having so much curiosity, he can’t help but examine everything in sight. Alone, the things he can imagine render me wordless, but then he brings them to life with a little makeshift magic of his own. He can create things with his hands many adults can’t make with tools.

Our entire family dynamic has shifted, John and I have taken on the task of maintaining a house and all its many moving parts. In the beginning of this battle, I’ll admit, we all forgot about John. He was the little guy who got shuffled around from place to place as we continued to push on with our lives. As dad’s treatment progressed it was evident there was a lot dad wasn’t going to have the capacity to do, for a long while. John stepped up like the little trooper he is and took on dad’s work.

As the leaves start to fall and the weather turns cool, my little pancake pulls on his beanie hat and boots to rack leaves and tend to the yard. He reminds me of what it means to be pure. There is little as refreshing as watching him work outside and keep peace with the neighbors like a man

On days when I feel I have nothing left in me, no fire, no fight, John reminds me to take a step back and enjoy the small things. And that makes me strong. He is the small pancake on top of the stack of average sized pancakes. He makes the average pancakes feel big and mighty. And the average pancakes couldn’t do anything without him.

I hate brunch. There is no logical reason to wait longer than needed to dive into your weekly pile o’ pancakes, heap of hash browns, and plate full of bacon. Besides heart disease that is.

One thing cancer has taught me is to have patience. There are long waiting periods being things like testing and treatment cycles and long winded, carefully worded monologues by the cancer center staff. Eventually I learned how to play tic-tac-toe in my head.

Not really, but that would be cool.

Being a student at a private, Catholic high school means performing at my top level everyday. There is little room for error when the sole purpose for this school is to send me to a better, more expensive school known as college. I would have never imagined I could wake up in the morning only to hear my father throwing his breakfast up and then take a Honors American Lit. exam mere hours later.

I had to learn how to be patient with the process because I have a life outside of all this cancer nonsense. I am to go to school and attend football games and post artsy instagram pictures, all with a smile. I could not do anything more than the doctors are already doing if I stayed home all the time. He would still be sick and I would be miserable.

So maybe cancer is a lot like Sunday brunch. Nobody wants to wait, but there is always a light, or pancake, at the end of the tunnel.