Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Hodgkin’s Disease. Cancer. My Father
Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cancer. My dad has been diagnosed with B type Hodgkins Lymphoma and my mind is racing a mile a minute. I just received a phone call from my mother telling me the news, and I can’t quite wrap my mind around what she was telling me.
People that know me and my background know that I don’t often hear from my mother. Seeing their phone number appear on the Caller ID immediately makes me think someone in the family was seriously injured in an accident, is very ill or dead. I haven’t heard from my father since 1995, because I chose to leave the religion I was born into, and the results of that choice were automatic and immediate.
In the eyes of my father and most of my siblings, I died in 1995. All because of my personal decision to leave a religious organization I no longer wanted to be a part of. My mother tends to think of me as being in some sort of coma, hoping that I’ll somehow “come to my senses” and take the required and necessary steps to rejoin the religion.
Doing so would mean I would have been miraculously “resurrected from the dead”, where family members and old friends (who haven’t spoken to me since 1995) would suddenly welcome me back with open arms. Not gonna happen. Ever.
My parents live in Dallas, which is only about a 30-minute drive from our house. Having family members living in such close proximity to our house, but rarely hearing from or seeing any of them, is something I’ve never quite gotten used to. The wounds from the past run very deep, and try as I may to “forgive and forget” everything that happened, forgiving and moving on is easier than the ability to actually forget.
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Did you see Joss Stone and Smokey Robinson sing “
” on American Idol Thursday, March 26th? Many online reviews of Joss Stone and Smokey Robinson’s performance on American Idol say the duet was “weird” and even “creepy”, due mostly to the age difference and the lack of chemistry. Good grief people, it’s just a duet performance like any other duet, not real life.
Empty nest syndrome refers to the feelings of sadness, grief, depression, loneliness, emptiness and loss when children grow up, leave for college, get married, or leave home to live on their own. “Empty-nesters” can either be mothers or fathers, but mothers are primarily the ones who have difficulty dealing with or coping with an empty nest when children begin leaving home to live their lives as adults.
It’s time to get busy! Put your thinking cap on and get those creative juices flowing, and come up with a “What I Can Do Now” list now that the kids are grown and gone. Go back to school to get your high school diploma, or get the college degree you always wanted. Rekindle the romance with your spouse and 
What do I know about being a Grandma? As a grandparent, do I have visitation rights to see my grandchildren? I’m not so sure anymore. Until recently, I had no idea that getting to see my grandson, living out of state, would be next to impossible with current laws being as they are. What visitation rights do grandparents have, if any?
, to find out what (if any) rights of grandparents there are, in order to get visitation rights to see my grandson living in Illinois. Apparently, there is no such thing as “grandparents rights”, as Illinois law refers to grandparent visitation as a “privilege”, not a right.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a new nursing home rating system on its website to help make choosing a nursing home easier for senior citizens and their families.
I’ve been searching for grandparent names and names for grandparents with various search terms, but I can honestly say that the typical grandparent names are just too old-fashioned for someone like me. Grandmother? Grandfather? Grandma? Grandpa? Bleh! Seriously, where are the cool grandparent names for us hip grandmas?
” by Lauren Charpio, written specifically with the baby-boomer grandparents in mind. With somewhere around three hundred grandparent names found in this book, surely us grandparents can find a cool nickname that doesn’t make us feel so incredibly old before our time.
Sex every day is most men’s fantasy, whereas most women dream of emotional intimacy in their marriage or relationship, as well as a satisfying sex life. The 30 Day Sex Challenge is a marriage enrichment program, developed by Tampa Florida’s Relevant Church Head Pastor Paul Wirth, for married couples to determine their personal and unique emotional needs in order to build upon and improve their marital relationship.
, working together to ensure a strong, intimate, emotional connection to their spouse rather than looking outside the marriage to have emotional and sexual needs met.
is intended to help couples succeed in creating an affair proof marriage by breaking the sex challenge up into four mini-challenges: spiritual, emotional, sexual, and physical. Using a holistic approach, the Relevant Church developed an assortment of resources to help couples, such as an emotional needs questionnaire, a 30-day devotional guide for married couples, and a 30-day devotional guide for singles.
Guy Finley is the best-selling author of 
Yes, you CAN quit smoking cigarettes and stop smoking for good. You can quit smoking today, right now at this very minute. The 
” with very good success rates. Many smokers have achieved success in quitting smoking with the help of the 
, with once-skeptical smokers discovering they were able to quit smoking once and for all, after being unable to quit with other methods.
. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRTs) include stop smoking products like nicotine gum, the nicotine inhaler/nasal spray, nicotine lozenges and nicotine patches. NRTs contain nicotine and can be addictive themselves, but if you follow the manufacturer’s directions carefully to wean yourself off the chosen NRT, this can be a safe and comfortable way to put an end to your smoking addiction.
