A Message of Hope About Mesothelioma

I received an email recently from Heather Von St. James. This is what she wrote: I am 44 and a mother to a quirky little 7 year old, Lily. She is my only child, and my whole world. When Lily was just 3 1/2 months old, I was diagnosed with mesothelioma; a type of cancer that kills most people within 2 years. As I’m sure you can imagine, the first thing that came to mind when I was diagnosed was my baby girl and how I wasn’t going to be able to watch her grow up.

After intense treatment and recovery, I’m still here 7 years later and cancer free! My journey with cancer was a terrifying one and I'd like to turn my pain into purpose and become someone that other people can look to for guidance, inspiration, and hope in situations like my own. My husband and I recently participated in a short video about my experience with cancer and I contacted you because I feel that your blog would be an excellent place to share. I’m hoping to use this video as a tool to raise awareness of this horrible little known cancer that is such a deadly killer (and sadly, 100% preventable).

I would love it if you would be willing to share my video on your blog with your readers. Here is the link to my video: http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather

This is a wonderful video and I hope it will help others know more about this cancer.

Thank you Veterans And All Whose Lives Are Touched by War!

Column: Something about Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

Memorial Day 2013. That is today. It is a day of remembrance for those who have served and died for our country. It is also a weekend that signifies the start of summer and people use it for a time to get away, a time for fun and a time for getting together with friends and family.

Recently we had a 50th anniversary celebration of the life of our church. Pastors from the past came back to help us celebrate and to share their memories of their time with us.

The pastors’ memories all stood out and were very moving, but the one that moved me the most was when the Rev. John Mikkelson shared his memories of his time in our congregation.

His words and his emotions cut through to the heart when he said: “We buried too many of our young people when I was here during the Vietnam war.”

He went on to share his sorrow with the heart wrenching job of giving parents the news that their child had died. He had the job of consoling the unconsolable as they were racked with grief over the loss of their sons. He holds those memories forever and still grieves for those young men.

I was a teenager during that time. I had two good friends that were in Vietnam who I corresponded with. I knew the brutality of war, but I didn’t. I knew people from my community were dying, but I don’t think as a teenager I grasped the full scope of what was going on at the time, or maybe I was sheltered from it.

That era was very different from today when we are shown the reality on television and on the Internet. We didn’t have 24/7 news with reporters being filmed step by step on the battlefield so it didn’t always seem real because we were away from it until someone we knew died.

Listening to the pastor’s memories of the time he served at our church reminded me that wars and its memories do not just affect the military and the families of the military. The memories have lifelong effects on those pastors, nurses, doctors and anyone who have to deal with the harsh realities of the consequences of war. Those memories are never forgotten and the tears on the faces of many in our congregation in 2013 as the pastor was remembering were very real.

I know the impact now firsthand, because I live with a Vietnam veteran. I didn’t know my husband when he was in the Army but his experiences have definitely had an impact on our life together.

The Vietnam War many years ago has reached into the lives of the children of the veterans who were not even alive at the time of the conflict. It has done that for every war that the United States has ever fought. It is doing that now for the lives of those who are still unborn to military families who have been involved in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars today. War changes people forever.

The statistics from americanveterans.homestead.com are:



World War I

August 1914 to Nov. 11, 1918

U.S. casualties: 53,402 deaths, 204,002 wounded in action



World War II

Dec. 8, 1941, to Aug. 14, 1945

U.S. casualties: 407,300 deaths, 670,846 wounded in action



Korean War

June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953

U.S. casualties: 54,246 deaths, 8142 missing in action



Vietnam War

1959 to April 30, 1975

U.S. casualties: 58,193 deaths, 153,303 wounded in action, 1,948 missing in action



Gulf War

Aug. 2, 1990 to Feb. 28, 1991

U.S. casualties: 378 deaths, less than 1,000 wounded in action



Iraq War

March 20, 2003 to Dec. 15, 2011

U.S. casualties: 4,404 deaths; 31,827 wounded in action



War in Afghanistan

Oct. 7, 2001, to present

U.S. Casualties: 1,098 deaths, 2,379 wounded in action – ongoing



I would imagine that there might be some discrepancies in these numbers especially the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but these are the numbers reported on this website. They are staggering.

Remember. In some way if you are an American, your life has been changed by these men and women who have fought, died and still fight for you and me and our country.

Remember.

Moms Pray For Their Kids!

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

“If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been.” ­— Robert Brault

Mother’s Day is May 12. It is good that we have all the advertisements to remind us to remember that special day for all mothers because in the business of life we would probably forget to take the time to make a special day for our moms.

My mom is no longer with me. In all of the 53 years of our life together, we did not miss a Mother’s Day together. There were occasions when I wasn’t feeling well or I was busy that it seemed like a chore to take the time to visit my mom on Mother’s Day. Now that she is gone I miss that time, and I am thankful that we did spend those days together.

I have had many different jobs in my lifetime. I have had a couple of careers but none equals to me the importance of being a mother. I have loved, argued, cried and screamed with my children. We have had good days, we have had bad days and there have been days where I haven’t always liked them and they haven’t always liked me, but I have always, no matter what, loved them. There is nothing they could do that would make me stop loving them.

Worry always is a part of a mother’s life no matter how old your children become. There are occasions where we, as mothers, carry that worry to an extreme and drive our children crazy even as adults. “Mom, I am old enough to make good decisions, you don’t have to worry!” We know that and we can even succeed in not driving ourselves into a worry cycle but somewhere in the background, even if we give it up to a higher power, even when rationality tells us there is nothing we can do, as mothers, we worry.

It is interesting as kids get older and have their own children that they seem to understand this better. I always have told my children to give me a call when they arrive home from traveling so I know they are safe. Their answer usually was “Well, if you don’t hear anything, you know we are safe.” My answer “I just need to hear your voice.” My children that now have children are all of sudden done with the answer. They automatically let me know even without my asking. I was amazed on a text I got from my son when his plane had landed safely while he was on a business trip. He let me know all was well and I hadn’t even asked. I slept better that night.

That is why the quote from Robert Brault touched my heart. It is so true, as a mother we are always praying for our children and our grandchildren. There is nowhere they can go and not be touched by our prayers.

I remember one early morning when my son was in college, there was a snowstorm, and I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking and worrying about him for no reason that I could come up with. It was just a feeling, an inkling that something wasn’t right. Why I woke up to immediately have this feeling I have no idea. Later on in the day I found he had been in the ditch and thankfully in the below zero weather he had been helped early in the morning. A mother’s instinct is always there.

I am glad Ann Jarvis created Mother’s Day in 1912. It reminds all of us to take the time to thank that special mother in our lives. That mother in your life doesn’t necessarily have to be related by blood just by love. So if there is someone special in your life that has taken the time to watch over you, love you and be there for you, take the time to thank them. Let them know how special they are to you with your words or your time.

If you are a mother and have daughters-in-law, take the time to remember them on Mother’s Day, one mother to another.

If you are a mother that has to spend Mother’s Day on her own because of circumstance and distance, treat yourself on Mother’s Day. Give yourself a little love because you did the best with what you had and you have had one of the most important jobs in the world, that of raising our next generation.

The best gift you can give your mother this Mother’s Day is the gift of knowing they are loved.

Happy Mother’s Day

Aren't Teeth Wonderful?

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

Have you ever had one of those light-bulb moments, one of those moments where something that you have taken for granted all along just pops out at you and you say wow? It happens when you least expect it and for no reason that you can figure out.

That happened to me this past week. The subject of teeth has been on my mind. I think it is probably time I visit my dentist, and I have a dentist phobia. I imagine it comes back to the time in eighth grade when I had my two front teeth knocked out, and I had to spend a lot of time in the dentist office. Back in those days my dentist was a little or a lot rough, and it was not an experience that I ever wanted to happen again. So now, even in my wisdom years, I have a fear of the dentist although I think things have improved in the pain department.

My grandson had lost a bottom tooth somewhere around Easter. This time when we visited them he was showing me that he had lost another tooth, but the tooth that he had lost earlier had grown in.

I have went through many Tooth Fairy moments with my kids. I remember my Tooth Fairy moments as a child. But I have never experienced the light-bulb moment that I did that day. All of sudden I was in awe of what our bodies can do. How neat is it that when you are a kid and you lose your baby teeth, new teeth grow back in. How cool is that design that we are given in our bodies.

I started wondering how that happened. A family member told me that when they were in Washington, D.C., they visited an exhibit that had a skull of a child, and it also showed how the teeth are hidden in the jaw ready to pop out when the first teeth are lost. What a design! When you think about it, what a gift our bodies are with their healing properties.

I broke my leg, and it healed. Cuts and sores heal, and teeth, when you are young, grow back.

I have no idea why this was such a light-bulb moment. It is something I have always known and taken for granted and perhaps because I am this age, I was struck by how wonderful the healing properties of a body are.

Of course then I wondered why it didn’t get carried a little further and make the bodies keep regenerating teeth so we didn’t need to have false teeth when we get older. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we could always regenerate teeth. Maybe that is a question for the afterlife.

Maybe the light-bulb moment was given to me so that I could see the magnificence of life. Maybe the light-bulb moment was given to me so I could appreciate the unique healing properties of our bodies. I realized I don’t always take good care of that which was given to me.

I don’t always eat healthy. I don’t always exercise. I don’t always practice patience and calm especially when it comes to something on my body needing to heal. It is hard to slow down and let the healing process take place. I always think I can’t rest, I can’t take the time to let what is supposed to happen naturally happen, and because I don’t allow that many times things do not heal as they should.

Not only does the healing process have to happen in our body at times, but it also has to happen in our minds. We need the time for our minds to rejuvenate from whatever stresses are happening in our lives.

We are not good at that in our busy world. We don’t turn off the noise or the work. We somehow have the idea if we take the time to rest it means we are lazy.

So those teeth gave a me a moment that I hope I remember, a moment to be thankful for the healing properties in our bodies, a moment to realize that we were given the gift of our bodies and we need to take the time to take care of them so they can heal.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” — Jim Rohn

“The body too has its rights; and it will have them: they cannot be trampled on without peril. The body ought to be the soul’s best friend. Many good men however have neglected to make it such: so it has become a fiend and has plagued them.” — Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Compassion Makes the World a Better Place!

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

Our household was bordering on dull. There wasn’t the pitter patter of tiny little feet moving around anymore. Our children were grown and had fled the nest. Our grandchildren have to live with their parents so we only occasionally had the pitter patter of their tiny feet on our floors.

We didn’t have the pitter patter of our former dog Sam’s paws, clicking the floor or his hair carpeting our house. You could hear a pin drop at times when we chose to forgo the noise of the television. It became easier and easier to sleep in the mornings. There was no longer any reason to sweep the floor every day. The garbage can could smell of the scraps of food that were dumped because there was no longer any live creature, not even a mouse, to snork them up.

We were dull! And then, and then, our daughter decided she couldn’t stand the dullness of our home any longer when she visited. She decided we needed life and so she found us a kitten. The kitten was dubbed Boris and we started our undull life together.

I have always been more of a dog person than a cat person. My husband has never been a cat person. But now we had Borris, and we had to be good cat parents. Borris was an easy kitty. He was litter-trained, had good manners and loved to be cuddled. He couldn’t open doors so I could put a folding door on my office, and Borris could visit when the time was right, and I opened the door. He was very content to purr and sleep and be cuddled. He brought smiles to our faces and laughter to our hearts.

I started to feel guilty about leaving Borris home alone when we had to go away. I was sure he would be lonely. One day I happened to be in a pet store buying food when a rescue group had cats for adoption. I saw this one that took my heart. She was part Siamese and part alley cat. She was cuddly and loveable and seemed to single me out. I left without her but couldn’t get her out of my heart so the next week I adopted sweet, quiet, cuddly Natasha. She would be the perfect wife for Borris.

The first week it was hate at first sight for the two and then love struck and they became inseparable. You will always find them cuddling and kissing, and yes they were spayed and neutered.

But something strange happened to sweet, cuddly, quiet Natasha. Our home was no longer dull. It seems Natasha is a thief and a mischief maker. Natasha finds and steals things that I didn’t know I had left in my house. She steals my husband’s glasses, my flash drives off my desk and whatever she can find.

Natasha is also a break-in expert. Natasha taught Borris to jump on the sink and climb through the open window casing to get to me in my office. Natasha could actually open the closed office accordion door by herself. She can also open our cupboard doors so we now have childproof locks.

Natasha is now working on the hook that we installed on my office door and trying to turn the knob on our bedroom door. One day, Natasha happened to open my QuickBooks, and print out an invoice on a printer in another room. I happened to be in that room and was startled to see my printer printing on it’s own.

Natasha is very interested in everything we do and she loves her human dad. He is her favorite. This quiet, cuddly kitty is a very busy girl. She also loves Borris and has taught him how to do many things. Our house is no longer boring and dull and I am now 100 percent a cat person and so is my husband.

Believe it or not this column is meant to be about compassion. Borris was also a rescue kitty. He found his way to someone’s home in the wheel well of a car. This person couldn’t keep him because of her health. Knowing my daughter’s love for cats this person asked her for help. I agreed to take Borris for a while until we could find him a good home. None of us wanted to see him cast off or put to sleep because of lack of a home. That is where the word compassion fits into this story.

The Webster Dictionary defines compassion as the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate this distress. This person had compassion for this kitten and instead of casting him out she took him in, cared for him and found him a home. I would have to say this person treated this animal with compassion because she had been treated with that same compassion in her life.

We live in a crazy world. By that I mean there are so many things that do not make sense. In a world that is stressful and at times violent we may turn to our pets for the unconditional love that they give us. Their forgiveness surpasses the forgiveness that we as humans give to one another.

When does the pure heart of a child change and who changes it? Is it us? Do we fail to teach our children compassion? Do we fail to teach our children compassion for each other?

I follow a rescue group that rescues lost animals. These animals many times are abused and left for dead or abandoned by their owners. These animals are as innocent as our children. I often wonder if people who abuse their animals carry that abuse on to people.

I believe a better world starts with learning compassion for others. I believe it starts with learning compassion for children, animals, our environment, the disabled and the list is endless. You can’t legislate compassion, it can only be taught by example.

One of my favorite poems is by Dorothy Law Nolte it is called “Children Learn What They Live.” I challenge you to look it up and perhaps put it into practice if you are a parent or a grandparent.

My compassionate response to Borris and Natasha the next time they decide to help me eat my dinner: a kiss and a hug right before I lock them in the bathroom for a little time out.

What If Movies Were Rated Like They Were in the 60's?

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

I love movies. I love to go to movies. It is the drama queen in me that makes me yearn for a story that makes me laugh, makes me cry or touches my heart. Going to the movies is one of my favorite pastimes.

I enjoy watching movies at home, but relaxing in a movie theater with popcorn (popcorn at home never tastes as good as movie popcorn) and sharing the experience with other people makes an evening or a day enjoyable.

Recently I was visiting my children and asking about taking my grandchildren to a movie. I mentioned a movie that I thought they might like to see, but I was informed by my 7-year-old grandson that the movie I wanted them to see was inappropriate for their age. It was PG-13. I had already seen the movie, and I didn’t see anything in there that was any more questionable than what they see and hear every day on the television.

I asked him if he knew what inappropriate meant, and he proceeded to give me the right definition. Apparently PG-13 movies had appealed to him in the past, and in the discussion he was made aware of what the word meant.

I wisely chose to not argue the point with his parents. It brought back memories of the movie ratings when I was a child. A C-rated movie then would probably be rated PG or PG-13 today.

The Legion of Decency rated the movies back in my day. These were the ratings taken from Wikipedia but I remember them well:

A: Morally unobjectionable

B: Morally objectionable in part

C: Condemned by the Legion of Decency

The A rating was subsequently divided:

A-I: Suitable for all audiences

A-II: Suitable for adults; this later became suitable for adults and adolescents when the next rating came out:

A-III: Suitable for adults only

A-IV: For adults with reservations

As a child I could go to A-rated movies. They were mostly cartoons or Disney movies. I don’t remember what the “Ten Commandments” was rated, but it must have been fine because the entire Catholic school attended the movies. In fact, if it was a religious movie, we would have special time during school to view the movie.

In my research, “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof” was condemned by the Legion of Decency. That would be a C-rating. Maybe that is why the movie theater in my hometown burned to the ground while it was playing in my community. It was condemned for its steamy love scenes. Apparently, it was too hot for the Legion of Decency to handle.

In my research I found an article listing movies condemned by the Legion of Decency. Among them is one of my favorites, “Miracle on 34th Street.” It was condemned because of its sympathy toward a divorced mother. Some of the other films condemned are: “Some Like It Hot,” “Psycho” and James Bond movie “From Russia With Love.”

I wonder what my favorite movie, “Gidget,” was rated. If I remember right “Gidget” and the beach party movies were all rated A-III.

As my grandson explained why the movie was inappropriate, my mind revisited the banned movies from my youth and compared them to what we see on TV and at the movies today. If the Legion of Decency still existed, I don’t think there would be enough letters to rate the movies that are now part of our life in 2013.

Did I mention that we all tried to sneak into those movies we weren’t supposed to see? I don’t think it was because we really wanted to see them.

Instead of wanting to see what we weren’t supposed to see, there was also the word banned, and there is something about that word that makes “you can’t,” into “I want to.”

Easter is a time to face tough subjects!

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf Published in the Albert Lea Tribune

It is Holy Week for people who are preparing to celebrate their church’s Easter traditions. Usually in a column this week, I focus on the Easter Bunny, Easter clothes and try it make it fun and light-hearted, but a few things have been put in my path this week that have affected me, and I wanted to share them with you during this special week.

During the Christmas season, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out and about raising money for donations. Groups are raising money for Christmas presents and Christmas dinners for the needy. We focus on the Christmas holiday season, but I haven’t seen much of that during the anticipation of the Easter holiday.


A week or so ago I happened to be in Albert Lea driving near Walmart. It was a cold, snowy, wintry, blustery day. The wind was blowing hard. There was a person on the side of the road with a sign asking for donations so that he could buy food and lodging. I was like the wind that day, I blew by. In guilt I wondered who I could have called. Was there an agency that would help him? Days later I did ask someone what would have been the proper procedure to help the person by the side of the road.

That man had an effect on my life in many ways. We are not used to seeing people on the side of the road asking for food and lodging. It is not an everyday occurrence in our area. In examining my feelings as to why I blew by, I knew I did not stop out of fear and suspicion. Would he attack someone? Was it real or was it a scam? I expect other people felt the same way because not many were stopping. It did bother me that I didn’t do something, but then again, that fear and suspicion raised its head.

In bigger cities, I especially remember a trip to Chicago, panhandlers are asking for a handout all the time. When we were there we were told to ignore them. In that case they are being ignored, not out of fear but out of comfort. They are always there, they are always asking, so people ignore them. I suspect that happens in our larger cities all the time. People are so used to the homeless on the streets that they are ignored and people go about their business as usual.

I was reading a book titled “I Shall Not Want,” a mystery by Debbie Viguie. In the book the main character was having a conversation with a homeless man she knew. He said to her, “The more uncomfortable a homeless person makes someone, the less they look at him.”

I read that after seeing the man on the corner. I feel that statement is true, if I really had looked at that person I would have had to stop, but because it made me uncomfortable, I could not describe him had someone asked. I averted my eyes. Walking the streets of Chicago, I did not look at the panhandlers. They made me uncomfortable, and by not looking I could ignore them.

My next experience came on Facebook. I have been following a man by the name of Monte Bernardo. I don’t know Monte personally, but I have been following his story.

Monte was injured in Afghanistan on July 4, 2012. He lost both of his legs and one of his hands. His journey has been long, but this man has remarkable courage. It brought a face to what some of our servicemen are going through once they come home.

But what hit me in the face and reinforced the idea that those we have fighting overseas have become another statistic in our newspaper and another news story that we glance over unless we are directly affected is a post by Monte the other night. He asked for prayers for Team Derek’s family.

Derek was another wounded warrior at Walter Reed Military Medical Center where Monte is. He died March 18.

Derek, too, was severely injured, on July 3, 2011. I started reading the blogs by his loved ones and reading about Derek’s progress. He was soon to be released from Walter Reed, from what I could understand from the blog.

Reading his story and Monte’s story jars me out of my complacency. We think the wars are winding down, but for many of our servicemen and their families, the effects will be forever with them. Because they are not forefront in our lives every day, we forget they are still struggling and need our support and help.

What does this have to do with Easter? I recently took part in a conversation about the movie that is on television called “The Bible.” People were remarking how graphic it is and do we need those images. The crucifixion of Christ would have been graphic and deaths in war are graphic.

Homelessness is graphic. Losing limbs and war injuries are graphic. Maybe we do need the down and dirty, the nitty and gritty and the graphic reminder to shake us out of our denial, to shake us out of our comfort zone, to shock us so much that we feel the need to do something.

In the midst of the Easter bunny and colored eggs and feel-good stories that keep us afloat it is the perfect time to move out of our comfort zone and learn more about those in need.

Sacrifice is never easy. Many choose to give things up for Lent. That is a choice we make. There are many that give things up because they don’t have a choice. The rest of us maybe can give up a little to those who have no choice. Those small pieces of ourselves that we give to others may help a lot. It might be a kind word, a letter or a conversation about tough subjects that will make a difference in this Easter season. Take the time to be a little uncomfortable. That choice may move mountains for someone.