It’s time…. to move. Over two years have passed since we plopped ourselves in one spot to deal with my poopy colorectal cancer diagnosis (pardon the pun). We had to be in one spot to deal with my many doctor and hospital visits and procedures, not the least of which were the radiation and unrepeatable (as in I will never repeat that!) chemotherapy infusions. We also found ourselves in high demand by our adult kids and grandkids, another testament to the fact that God’s timing is always perfect. So, we bed down for the long sleep, as it were, and have pushed through the past two years, three months and twelve days (not that I’m counting or anything) on a day-by-day, and sometimes moment-by-moment basis. We have been able to travel quite a bit this past year, spending some time in the mountains of North Carolina last summer, and spending much of this winter in Florida (the only reason I am still alive! Just kidding… sorta). But it’s Greg and I who have done the traveling. Our rolling home, Exodus, has sat right here on this farm and hasn’t rolled anywhere… for over two years. It costs us an an extra $1,000 per month – to be sitting here at the farm.
Let me back up… After being miraculously and might I add mercifully healed by my precious Jesus (Click here to read my previous blog entry for all the juicy details); and sticking with my every three month DNA and other tests protocol somewhat closely; I am still what they call NED— which means No Evidence of Disease aka CANCER-FREE! I have a follow-up full colonoscopy scheduled for April 11, 2025, and then we are OUTTA HERE! Truth be told, I was supposed to have the colonoscopy back in October, but life took a bit of a detour for us last summer and has yet to veer back on course. I finally scheduled it for February, but then I had a little car accident (speaking of veering) and I killed Zippy the weekend before it was scheduled so I had to cancel it. But… I digress.
Anyhoo, Greg, Popeye, and I are ready to roll… but white-haired Moses (2008 Ford F350 dually) and our no longer even close to brand new but still beloved Exodus (2016 Grand Design Reflection 5th wheel) are not so ready. They are both showing their age and getting a bit, well— cantankerous. If I couldn’t relate so well, I’d be mad; but since I can relate I am not mad, just a wee bit sad. Greg and I are both relating to the showing our age remark a little too well lately. So, we are determined to bring them both back to their full and still somewhat youthful potential, and hopefully ourselves as well! We’ve had a VERY rough two years, I’ll tell you a little more about our difficult 2024 soon, but we, like Moses and Exodus STILL HAVE YOUTHFUL POTENTIAL. It’s not about what you feel, it’s about what you know. And, well… I just KNOW this to be true. Maybe I’ll start to feel it soon, but until then – I’ll just know.
Back to the ready to roll part. Since they aren’t, our plan is to leave this farm site and head up to Greg’s mom’s summer mountain place in Linville, NC, that we have had the privilege to use the past couple summers. We will stay there while having our Exodus in storage part of the time and at one of our beloved Thousand Trails campgrounds in Lenoir, NC part of the time. This way we can get some much needed work done on her and on Moses while we have a place to stay and enjoy the mountains and wineries (and pool!) during the summer months. We figure it will be a more gradual cutting of the umbilical cord from the grown kids and grandkids as well, since we will be farther from the Greenville area, but still drive-able. We are hoping they will actually come up to see us more?!?! That said, I will be driving down regularly to see my mom, and possibly Greg’s mom as well. Which will not be easy, without Zippy we are down to only one, not always reliable, over 200k miles, gas-hog, er I mean diesel-hog of a huge truck – Moses. One. Day. At. A. Time!
Okay, I know you are simply dying to find out what happened to Zippy, so here it is. Yes. I killed Zippy. It happened so fast, I don’t know how it happened. Well, I do, but then again I really don’t. I was driving home from church on February 16th by myself (Greg was in Florida helping his mom). I was driving like my usual slow old grandma driver self. It was a great sermon and I was very happily listening to my praise and worship music as I lollygagged along. I had stopped at a stop sign, on a hilly country road. I looked right, then looked left… and then proceeded on… slowly. All of a sudden I see a flash of black metal coming right for me from the right. I slammed on my brakes just in time to have the must have been going at least 80 mph Jeep Gladiator rip Zippy’s cute little front end right off with his monstrous steel running boards. If I hadn’t seen him and slammed on the brakes precisely when I did, and he had hit Zippy full on with the body of that heavy Jeep instead of just the running board; I’d be joining her in the grave. Sadly enough, she was too little, too old, and too damaged to survive. She was invaluable to me, but she simply was not worth enough to the mere mortals of the insurance world with no vision nor heart, to be worth saving. They declared her a total loss. Which declared me carless. I was ticketed in the accident for “failure to yield” with no points. As the officer (who came to see me at the hospital and literally spoke with me and got my story for all of 2 minutes, if that) said he “understood” but that he couldn’t “prove” that Mr. Jeep was speeding. WHICH HE WAS! So there it is. I killed her. What did I learn? I should have looked right – AGAIN, and driven faster! Yes, you heard that right. I need to go through stop signs faster. No more lollygagging for me. I’m not going to speed, mind you. Just no more lollygagging. Lesson. Learned.
But that just happened in 2025. Let’s go back in time to 2024. 2024 sucked. Yes, you heard that right. It was truly an awful year. How can I say that after going through 2023 being such an unspeakably horrible year of cancer and chemotherapy and all that crap?!? Well… I can say that, because although 2023 sucked BIG TIME, 2024 sucked even more. My sister and best friend in the world, Brenda, had a major health crisis and ended up being rushed to and then admitted into the hospital on June 18th. I drove back and forth to visit her at least a couple times per week, making the three+ hour round trip drive in Moses (the boys still had Zippy at the time) until Brenda was transferred to a hospice facility even farther away – in Union, SC on July 8th. I then had to drive a minimum of four hours round trip to see her, always with a stop to visit my mom at the memory care facility (more on that next paragraph) and often stops to see kids and/or grandkids. So, although I wasn’t able to go as often anymore, I still went… often. Thankfully though, the boys gave me Zippy back for my birthday in July, so at least now I could drive her back and forth at 40+mpg, instead of Moses at 12-13mpg of even more expensive diesel fuel. After more sadness and stress than I can put into words, she went home to heaven on September 8, 2024. It was awesome for her, but awful for me and for Patty, my other sister. Although I’m not the least bit sad for Brenda, I know she is happy and would never want to come back to this crazy world in a zillion years, I am beyond sad for myself and for Patty. It has been six months since she went to heaven, and yet I still miss her and think of her EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Just that in itself would have made it an awful year, but there’s more. So much more. My dear, sweet, happy-go-lucky Mom had been struggling and going downhill from Alzheimer’s for several years even before 2024 reared it’s ugly head. I was never even able to tell her that I had cancer, much less have her to help me walk that path. Telling her would have devastated her, and she wouldn’t have remembered it days later, so there was no reason to tell her, and every reason not to. She had to go into a memory care facility in February of 2024. I don’t even have the words to say how hard it was to walk through that, and my other sister, Patty, did most of the walking. So 2024 was filled with really hard, really sad and yet ongoing visits to her long before, during, and then after the Brenda visits. We were unable to share about was was happening with Brenda, her oldest daughter, with her either, for the same reasons I didn’t share my cancer. So. Hard. Then Mom fell one night in late November at her memory care facility and was rushed to the hospital via ambulance. After five days she was released back to the memory care facility, but on Hospice. She has been there on hospice ever since. She has good days and bad days, but more good than bad lately it seems. So for that we are so very thankful. But God! We are glad she seems happy and is not suffering. Patty visits her very regularly and takes care of all the details. I am visiting her as often as I possibly can, and we are both praying for her to not suffer at all and to be able to go to heaven peacefully, in God’s perfect timing, for what will most definitely be an EPIC family reunion! She has her Mama and Daddy (she had an amazing childhood being raised on the farm and with a preacher for a Daddy); three siblings, two husbands, two daughters, and tons of friends who have gone before her and are waiting to love on her once she gets home. Like I said, it will be EPIC!
You would think that is all, I mean it’s a lot! It’s enough! But it’s not all. Only five days after Brenda went to heaven, Greg’s 92 year old stepdad in Florida, Fred, was taken to the ER after a fall and he ended up being admitted. He was not improving, so exactly ten days after Brenda died, I hopped into Zippy and drove down to South Florida to stay with and help my mother-in-law however I could. Fred ended up going from the hospital to a Hospice House and then he passed away on September 24th, exactly two weeks and two days after Brenda had. I stayed down in Florida another couple weeks to help make arrangements, etc. then I left Zippy in Florida and drove my mother-in-law in her own car back up to SC to stay with us at the farm for a couple of weeks. Greg then drove her back and stayed with her another couple weeks before driving Zippy home. Without going into all the details (as if I haven’t already!) we ended up spending most of the winter with her in Florida, and I drove back up to SC every three weeks to visit my mom and the kids and grandkids, and then drove back to Florida again. So… yeah, you can heartily agree with me at this point. Whether you like the word sucked or not (I used to not even allow my kids to say that word when they were little!) 2024 truly sucked. There’s just no other word to accurately describe it. But God. He’s been there, carrying me through most of it, but always there.
Now that I’ve practically written an entire book to catch you up since my last post (which I am ashamed to admit was written a year and a half ago, so I’m a wee bit past due—hence there was a lot to catch up on!); let me tell you about the actual book that I really am writing. Like, for real! It is a fiction novel that I started in early 2022. I stopped writing while I was going through my crappy 2023 and then my sucky 2024, but I picked it back up though in my current this year HAS GOT to be better 2025, and I am incredibly happy to report that I am not only going to finish it this time, but I am almost done! I came up with my own genre for it. I call it Christian Inspirational Fiction with elements of Travel and Suspense. A little wordy, I know— but that’s fitting too, you know— considering I’m the author. The title of my book is “Stalked in Sedona” with the tagline being “One woman’s journey across America to escape her past leads her straight into the arms of grace… and danger.” Intrigued?!? I hope so! As of this moment, I’ve written over 72,000 words and am deep in the heart of the juicy bits. I am thoroughly enjoying every moment that I get to actually spend writing. The entire ending is in my head, I just have to finish getting it out of my head and on to the paper, well technically on to the computer, but you know what I mean. My goal is to finish it completely; not just written, but written, edited and hopefully published; before my 59th birthday (yes I am THAT old); which is July 3rd.
The having it written and edited part I’m not concerned about, quite excited about it actually. It’s downright fun, and flowing from my fingers at this point. I can’t say the same about the getting it published part. The world of publishing has changed DRAMATICALLY in recent years. All the rules have changed, the agents have changed, the publishers have changed, it’s all… changed. Due to this fact, I have decided to devote at least one day per week to learning all the latest ins and outs of the industry, to researching my publishing options, as well as honing my author’s webpage, etc. I am then committed to devoting all of my other available time (which is not as much as you would think after keeping up with our business & personal accounting, driving all over tarnation regularly, cooking and trying seemingly in vain to get healthy again, and all my other duties that I can’t even identify right now because I’m too tired to think straight; to simply writing. Below is a mockup of my book cover that I’ve come up with. Don’t get too excited as it may very well change before all is said and done, but I like it! And here is my author’s website, which is also a work in progress. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and may, or may not, be implemented: PamelaBerthume.com
After lots of words, but not so many pictures, I am signing off. If you have actually read this entire post up to this point – I am EXTREMELY impressed. Leave me a comment. Just because I like to know that SOMEONE actually read it, and I need the encouragement to keep me going. I’ll leave you with the most important words in my life, Jesus loves me! He’s kept me on this planet and literally miraculously saved my life two times in as many years. He loves me, and I take it very personally. He wants me here for a reason. He loves you too, just as much, if not MORE! Please think about this, and take it personally. It’s very personal! Cheers!
As always, Happy Trails and Sunny Sails! Pamela
