Sometimes we need to distract ourselves from cancer when we can. From the treatment, the chemo, the lab tests and scans, and maybe even those around us who seem to just focus on our cancer now.
I’ve always found peace (and God!) in nature, when I’m out in the woods. When I look at how nature works, it’s magical.
I wanted the butterfly for our logo as I used to raise monarch butterflies, from eggs! I’m kind of passionate about butterflies!
I’d follow monarchs around at parks or in wooded areas and watch them land on milkweed leaves. Then I’d find one egg it laid the back of a milkweed leave. Here’s a picture (not my pics, from the net!)
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I’d bring the egg home with lots of milkweed leaves, and put it all in a 5 gallon aquarium or very big jar and watch the eggs hatch. I’d watch the caterpillars grow. (I had to get new leaves about every other day.) They shed their skin as they grow larger.
One day, they have a fine piece of silk they secrete and they hang from the end of a branch or twig in the jar, and after awhile, their skins splits open and they just look like a gooey mess. Their head and all of their skin falls off. But a few minutes later, they are a beautiful chrysalis! Below is a time lapse video of the process.
About 10 days after the chrysalis forms, it becomes clear and you can see the butterfly inside. Shortly after it becomes clear, the butterfly emerges.
Watching the life from egg to butterfly was always a very profound for me. Most of the life of the caterpillar is very limited. It only searches for leaves, eats and grows. I has many legs but moves very slowly. When I look at the whole field of flowers and trees, I think of the tiny view of the caterpillar. Just the few milkweed plants in it’s very small circle of life. It really has no freedom, doesn’t really seem to do anything for enjoyment. It loses everything, it dies. It’s head falls off and it’s skin falls off, and it just appears to become a blob of nothing. Does it understand that that is not the end of their life?
But to wait and watch, see the chrysalis form and see the butterfly emerge is amazing. Usually the butterfly will stay in my finger until it’s wings dry, and then it takes off! Now it is free and can travel great distances and see the world from so many different views. It’s is beautiful and it can FLY!! And it flies to beautiful flowers to drink sweet nectar. In the end it travels up to 3000 miles following an instinctual path and it meets up with thousands of other monarchs in Mexico.
It reminds me that in this life we can be very limited, but one day, like the monarchs, we too will will be beautiful and free with an unlimited realm. And we will be able to meet with so many others who have also become free!
I’ve raised enough monarchs I’ve gotten to see every stage of development. It’s amazing to watch!
Hope I didn’t bore you with this, but think of it when you see our butterfly logo!!
I did start a Facebook Support Group on our Facebook page! Hope you will join! I also plan to continue the Virtual Appendix Cancer Support group, more about that later!
The Facebook group is a private group, members will need approval from me to join, I will also moderate the group to make sure nothing offensive to others is posted. The group is for patients and primary care givers. Only members will be able to see each others posts.
I am also planning to have a sign up for the Virtual Support group. You will sign up with your email, and I will email you dates and times the group will meet. I will let you know when the email sign up is available!
Just to let you know, I do have a Facebook account associated with this organization. I’ve actually had it for several years,but as I don’t use Facebook personally, I’ve not used it much for the organization. Don’t laugh, it had been so long since I used it, I forgot the user name and password…tried every email address and password I’d ever used, but could not access my administrator rights. Have you ever tried to communicate with Facebook the company? It’s about impossible. I’d wanted to delete the old page and start a new one I could use for this organization, but I couldn’t delete it either (didn’t have admin access). In the end my web site designer actually got ahold of real people from Facebook, and after I sent them a copy of my passport and all of the Articles of Incorporation and Business Entity reports showing myself as president, Facebook granted me admin rights to the page!! So we are back on Facebook!
I would like to be able to communicate with you. I added a forum to this web site, but that never went over. But almost everyone I know uses Facebook to communicate with the world!! So I am going to start using Facebook also to communicate with all of you. The link is: https://www.facebook.com/AppendixCancerConnection/
I started the virtual support group, which I really love because I can see and talk to you, but do you think we should also have a Facebook support group? We’d be able to answer each others questions and to share what we have learned on our journeys at our convenience. Maybe then the Facebook support group could meet virtually once a month or so? Let me know! I really would like feedback from you. You can email me at carolyn@appendix-cancer.org or text me at 219-776-9913.
One more thing, I was recently interviewed by Cure Magazine for an article they did about appendix cancer. Will post a link to the article when they send it to me!
We had the second Appendix Cancer Support group today, but only one participant beside myself. We did have trouble using GoToMeeting so got a late start. I hope none of you were there and unable to connect? If so, PLEASE let me know! I may go ahead and try to get us a Zoom account, that worked well last time.
I need input from you. How many of you would like to join our support group? It’s a great thing! Please email me at
carolyn@appendix-cancer.org if you would like to be part of the support group, and then maybe I will post a list of dates and times to find the best time for everyone. If you email me, let me know the best time range for you. You can also text me at 219-776-9913.
Thanks for waiting for me to post this, I’ve been camping at a primitive campground for the past week and just got home!
Bear with me, last time we met on Zoom, it’s an online meeting software everyone is using. I have an account via my job at the college. My boss let me use it for our support group last time, but told me I really shouldn’t use the college account for that. I was working on getting my own private Zoom account for my non-profit via Tech Soup, and I paid for it, but never got access, not sure what happened!
I’ve been told many like GoToMeeting better, and I’ve heard it’s hard to have two Zoom accounts on the same computer, so I just got a free trial membership for GoToMeeting and we are using it for the support group tomorrow. I’ve never used it before, so let’s see! I hope everything works out! I am used to using Zoom. Wish us luck! Hope to see you tomorrow!
Here’s the link:
Appendix Cancer Support Group Tue, Jun 2, 2020 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (CDT)
