Facing Fear

As a cancer survivor, I know that some people look at me and see this strong, courageous woman, who fought cancer and won.  I see myself that way sometimes, and I have been fond of saying that I am just not scared of anything anymore, but honestly, that’s not true.

Let me tell you a little secret – starting this new career as a life coach who works with cancer survivors is just a little bit terrifying to me.  Can I really do this?  Who am I to assume this awesome responsibility in other people’s lives?  Will I make enough money?  Will organizations give me access to their members?  Will survivors even want to be coached?  You get the picture.

I have learned over the past five years that facing fears to achieve what we want is how we grow.  It’s how I found my passion, and how I became the strong, courageous woman that a lot of people see.  But I am human and I get held back by my fears like everyone else.

This week, the universe was kind enough to remind me what real fear is.  Elevated liver enzymes in my recent blood work were enough to warrant an ultrasound of my liver.  My doctor really wasn’t all that concerned, but when you have had cancer, you can never be too sure.  Cancer in the liver doesn’t usually have a good outcome, and my world pretty much closed in on me for the 36 hours between my doctor's phone call and receiving the results of my ultrasound.  All clear, thank god, but I distinctly heard the universe saying, “Now do you remember what REAL fear is?”

Today, at the offices of The Cancer Coach, I am making a long list of everything I need to do to get this practice up and running, and I am putting the scariest things at the top of my list.  I am still a bit anxious about them, but I can’t wait to see how much I grow as I face them and move ahead.

What do you do if you just can't make lemonade?

My purpose in writing this blog as a part of my coaching practice, is to share the things I have learned and continue to learn as a cancer survivor, hoping to teach and to inspire others  - to make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak.

Sometimes though, you just can't manage the lemonade.  There are some things you can’t turn around, or shift your perspective on.  Some things you just need to accept and often, that’s not easy. 

This past weekend, a dear friend posted on Facebook that he had lost his good friend to cancer.  He posted a link to her blog, and feeling the cancer connection, I spent some time reading what she had posted over the past few years.  The more I read, the more I realized what a cool woman she was, how her sense of humor about her cancer seemed like mine, how honest she was about the things that pissed her off.  And then I got angry, because cancer had taken away someone so cool, someone that I didn’t even know, but now would never get to meet.  I didn’t know her, but I felt a loss at her passing.

I have lost a lot of things to cancer.  I lost the feeling in my toes, my ability to have children, my metabolism and sense of balance.  I lost the ability to have an ache or a pain without that nagging bit of worry – is it back? And, sadly, I have also lost friends, far too early.  My childhood friend and I will not grow old together as we planned.  My chemo friend’s children will grow up without her.  There is no way to change any of these things.  And so, I try to accept them.

Accepting doesn’t mean you get to a place where you think, ‘oh well, it’s ok’.  It’s not ok that young people die.  It’s not ok that I was denied my dream of carrying and giving birth to my own child.  It’s not ok that I can work out like a fiend, eat next to nothing, and I still can’t get the number on the scale to move.  When the anger wells up in me, I allow myself to feel it.  I give myself space to grieve for the things I have lost, and then I breathe, and allow myself to accept that I cannot change these things.  Sometimes, acceptance takes a lot of breathing, and a lot of time.

My heart goes out to my friend.  He has experienced a great loss, and it will never be ok that his friend is gone.  There is no way around it.  He can only move through the grief, to the acceptance that will hopefully bring him some peace. 

I (don't) Want It All

I want to let you in on a little secret.  You can’t have it all. No matter what your favorite magazine, celebrity guru, or mid-life crisis may be whispering in your ear, it’s just not possible.  And really, do you want it all?  I know I don't.

Before cancer I thought I would grow up to be a wealthy advertising executive/Broadway star/stand-up comedian who had her own independent life as well as a family, spoke 10 languages, was fit and looked stunning in a bikini, traveled the world, wrote witty and insightful novels and occasionally headlined in her own cabaret show in major cities throughout the country and abroad. 

Done snickering yet?  I wish I could say that was just the 10-year old me, but it was also the 20-year-old me, the 30-year old me, and yes, at times, the 40-year-old me.  I didn't want to choose any one thing, because I didn't want to limit myself.

41-year-old me got a cancer diagnosis and finally had to acknowledge that I am not going to live forever, that I can’t do everything, and that while dreams are great, accomplishment is more fulfilling.  I have finally made some choices about who I am, and now I can focus my energy on really accomplishing things.

Now I strive to be a good friend, daughter and aunt, a life coach who supports cancer patients along their journeys, who still loves to sing, but will settle for an open mic night, a class recital, and maybe someday a cabaret show, right here in Chicago.  I am funny.  I don’t need a stage to prove that. And yes, I do think I still have a book in me, but it may just stay hidden in the round belly that will probably never wear a bikini again.

And I am ok with that, because by making choices, and realizing that I can’t have everything, I have finally found the happiness and satisfaction that I have been chasing my whole life.  So make a choice.  You may just find that what you thought would limit you will actually set you free. 

God’s Little Beta Tester

Sometimes I think that my role in this lifetime is to experience stuff that’s not always easy, so that I can share my learnings and maybe spare someone else a little bit of pain. I don’t mean that as a complaint at all.  Someone needs to beta test stuff.  It’s how we learn what works, and what doesn't.

I thought I would share a little story of what happened to me yesterday when I had to teach a lesson to some nice women that work in a doctor’s office.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did…

So back when I was diagnosed, I got tested for BRCA, which is a gene that exists in a small amount of the population and increases the carrier’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer to something like 85% probability.  Five years ago, insurance companies were not always willing to pay the $3500 testing fee, and so I elected to get tested for a variant that is more common among women of Eastern European Jewish ancestry.  The test was less expensive and if I tested negative for that variant, the chance that I had BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 was then lower than the general population.  I was negative.

Fast forward five years.  My gynecologist, a great doctor and a lovely woman felt very strongly that I should get tested for BRCA 1 and 2 because it would be better to know one way or the other.  I agreed, they took my blood, told me we would have results in 2-3 weeks and sent me on my way.

Two weeks later I get a message from her office that I need to call them.  Now, keep in mind that this office has a strict policy that they release test results online, via a message in your patient profile.  Like any cancer survivor, or person that has gotten bad news from a doctor, I got a bit nervous.  When I called I was told I needed to make an appointment to come in and get my results for my BRCA test.  My heart sank.  A positive BRCA test for me would likely mean having my ovaries removed and having a double mastectomy.  Then they told me that they couldn’t get me in for several days.

That’s when I kind of lost it.  I begged them to have the doctor call me and tell me my results over the phone.  They refused.  I told them that for me, waiting to hear bad news is worse than actually hearing it.  They said, no, that’s our policy.  I was pretty distraught.

That’s when they said, “Oh, just so you know, everyone comes in for their results, positive or negative.   So, just because we want you to come in, it doesn’t mean you are positive.”

And that’s when I really lost it.  I said, “Let me give you a little advice from a cancer survivor.  The time to tell the patient that EVERYONE has to come in to get their results is when you draw their blood, not when they are crying and begging you to spare them the agony of waiting for their bad news.”

Crickets….and then, “I am so sorry, you are absolutely right, and I am going to have the nurse call you today and give you your results, but you still have to come in for your appointment.”  Fair enough.

The nurse called.  I am negative yet again.  And God’s little beta tester has completed another small mission in helping the medical profession humanize the cancer experience.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

My parents have three rules that they have constantly reviewed with my nieces, since each was old enough to talk:

Rule #1 – Patience
Rule #2 – No whining
Rule #3 – Patience

Those can be difficult rules for a six year old to follow, and I confess, they are equally as difficult for me.  I have been known as the least patient person on the planet.  Seriously.  Ask my mom.  When I decide what I want -  I just want it now.  Veruca Salt has nothing on me!

Well guess what?  Cancer, cancer treatment and recovery all have their own agendas and their own timelines.   When I started chemo, the nurses told me the exact date that I would lose my hair.  I immediately calculated the date at which it would start to grow back.  I started chemo in July, and knew I would finish in December and in the beginning I would lay in bed and calculate how long my hair would be come January, come March, come May…I burned a lot of time waiting for my hair.

That was a long, hard wait for someone as impatient as I was to feel and look ‘normal’ again, and what I finally realized was, the wait (or as I came to call it – Hair Watch ’08) was teaching me a very important lesson about patience.   Waiting for my hair to come back gave me time to confront my beliefs about how I looked, about what was normal, about whether or not I could see my true beauty without the trappings.  I won’t say that it’s always easy – I am a woman after all – but that time of waiting and reflection helps me to look at my post cancer body, scarred, a little bit chubby and menopausal though it may be as something strong and beautiful.  I still struggle with patience, but I remind myself that things happen in their own time, and if I can release a bit of control, I can learn something amazing while I wait.

And yes, my hair is back in all its glory, long and thick and shiny.  And in January, on the fifth anniversary of my surgery, I plan to cut it off and donate it to someone who is laying in bed, waiting for her hair to grow back.

What ComEd can learn from a cancer survivor

It's been over a hundred degrees for three days in a row now, and, inevitably the power went out.  ComEd needs to take a lesson from a cancer survivor on capacity planning.

When you are going through chemo or radiation, recovering from surgery, or dealing with the emotional effects of a cancer diagnosis, you learn a lot about capacity planning.  There are days when just getting out of bed can be tough, and days when you feel like you can take on the world.  You need to become very selective about where you spend that precious energy.

My capacity plan was prioritized something like this:

1. Things that made me happy - time with friends and family, playing with my nieces, seeing a movie or enjoying a nice dinner out.
2. Things that kept me healthy - 30 minutes of exercise a day, getting enough sleep, seeing my therapist, playing with my nieces (emotional health counts you know)
3. Things that I needed to do to safeguard my assets  - work (paycheck and health insurance are important, especially when you are dealing with cancer.)

The rest of it -  laundry, cleaning, spending time with people who drained or annoyed me, worrying about things that really didn't matter, I tried to let go.  There is usually someone in your life with enough capacity to help with things like laundry and cleaning, and there is nothing like a cancer journey to guide you away from toxic people and worrying about things that aren't important.

So, ComEd, if you need some help with capacity planning, you let me know.  The rest of you, take a minute to think about where your energy is going, and if you need a re-prioritization, I am here to coach you through it.

The Power of a Wish

Did you ever hear the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for? You just might get it?”

Wishes are powerful.  I know this first hand. 

I have had what many would call a charmed life.  Loving parents, a fabulous education, friends, hobbies – nothing that I have wanted has been too far out of reach.  And probably because I didn’t have to work too hard at anything, I never really tried to figure out what I was meant to do, or meant to be.

By the time I hit 40, I had a leadership role at a respected ad agency, a huge condo, all the trappings of success, but I was miserable, unfulfilled and bored - disconnected from any sense of purpose.  And so I made a wish.  I wished that there was a way that I could make a six-figure salary, and just lay on the couch, reading books, watching TV, not having to go to work every day and not having to recognize that I was unfulfilled.

On July 5^th 2007, my wish came true.  The phone rang and the voice on the other end of the call said, “You have cancer.”  Within a month, I was too ill from chemo to do much more than lay on the couch, reading books, watching TV, and since my agency didn’t have a medical leave policy and had to pay me, my wish was complete.

The universe will always give us what we ask for, without judgment, and I am so grateful that my wish came true.  Because now that I know how incredibly powerful I am, I have a new wish.  I wish to live a life full of meaning and purpose, a life which connects me to people, a life in which I can use what I know to help others wish wisely, and make their wishes come true.

Today, July 5^th 2012, I take the first step in granting my own wish.  I am announcing the launch of my coaching practice.  I am The Cancer Coach and my wish is to empower Cancer Survivors to make their wishes come true.  Whether it’s to better manage the demands of treatment, to achieve balance and wellness, to improve relationships and connections to others, or to start down a path paved with meaning and fulfillment, I’m here.

So I ask you  - What do you wish for?  I would love to help you grant your own wish.