Walk to the Edge

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness.
Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Continue to learn.
Appreciate your friends. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”
—Mary Anne Roadacher-Hershey – author, speaker

Update: I am in Redondo and out of the 113 degree heat so that is a blessing. I seem to be having auto-immune symptoms, my mouth is filled with sores, I feel like I have pleurisy on the right side of my rib cage and I am tired. All that said I took a little walk along the beach today which I have not been able to do. I am embarrassed to say this in case anyone reads it in Phoenix but it was hot out there!

What a blessing it is to have something happen that reminds you of all that is important. My husband, my family, my friends, my work; all seem a little bit sweeter. The earth seems more important, the ocean a little bluer, time a more important commodity.

Breast Cancer Primer

People keep asking me about these terms so I thought as a health educator, I would describe them. I will add to them over time. Any errors in these definitions are my own except for the one Shirley defined. You can see the Primer by scrolling down to and looking on the right side of the screen.

"Cancer is not just about one person."

Wise words from my friend Shirley.

On the Sunday before the surgery, Corey and I had a cookout with my family and good friends Michelle and Shirley in the backyard. Our backyard has been the site of many happy times! Sunday was no different.

Shirley, Michelle, my daughter Ali, and I were sitting in the family room by the french doors when Ali looked at Michelle and they both teared up soon to followed by Shirley and myself. Shirley, who qualifies as an expert in this area, observed, "That's the thing about cancer, it doesn't just affect one person."

Cancer means that nothing in your life will ever be the same. When you hear the diagnosis - you know that in some way your vision of the future has shifted and nothing will ever look as it did or as it might have. You may walk the same path and see the same things that you saw yesterday but they just do not look the same. You drive the same places, pay the same bills, read the same magazines and except for the endless procedures and therapies, you are living in the same city and state as you did yesterday, but you know that nothing will ever be quite the same again.

For a while the road not taken has been mostly my choice. To paraphrase Robert Frost, I could peer down one path or another as far as I could see and choose the one that looked most fair. For now, I fear the path will be chosen for me, and "knowing how way leads on to way", I doubt I will be back to this great spot again.

Read Robert Frost's Complete Poem:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/frost_road.html

Right Now, I am in Pretty Good Shape

I once heard Len Doak say, "You have to be in pretty good shape to be sick." He was so right.

Not only do you have to feel pretty good in order to keep up with everything; you need a lot of time as well. Medicine is an art delivered on time schedule.

When I called the disability administrator this Monday, the intake nurse asked why I needed any time off before my surgery which is not until Thursday morning. I explained that I had spent the morning with one surgeon before rushing off for a second opinion, and then I had an MRI scheduled for 3 but needed to check- in at 2 and in addition, I had yet to have labs, pick up old records, have an EKG, have a guidewire placed before the surgery, make appointments for the oncologist and radiation oncologist, and pick up prescriptions. Oh, and I might spend some time getting used to the fact that I have cancer. "My office is not going to like me just coming in for lunch!", I told her. " She responded that they usually did not approve time off before a surgery.

Not all of the time is productive of course, there is time spent commuting to and from the various testing sites, consultations, treatments and pharmacies. Waiting room time is enormous. Coordination between the various points is... uncoordinated.

Even when you know what you want or need, someone thinks that he or she knows better. And when you are a patient, too few people listen to you.

Everyone in the waiting room wants to talk to you (or to me at least). I never mention that I am a nurse because no matter what is wrong with them, the stranger next to me will invariably say, " Oh, if you are a nurse you will then you will be interested in this." They then proceed to launch into a long drawn out story about their hemmorhoids (which I not only have no interest in but can't even spell), constipation or some other aspect of their disease process.

There is a slight advantage in having cancer though. If you need a bit of peace and quiet, you can just say rather bluntly, " I have cancer." It makes most people so uncomfortable that they let you get back to your murder mystery!