When the Caring Person Needs Care

More than a month and a half after I received my breast cancer diagnosis, I attended a support group for women who had all types of cancer. During the latter part of the session, a breast cancer survivor introduced herself and wanted to find out what brought me to the group. After learning that I was newly diagnosed with breast cancer, she gave me her contact information and offered to talk to me further about resources.

Within a few days, I emailed her, and we were able to talk on the phone a day later. She shared her story with me, outlined the challenges she faced, and provided advice for my next steps.

“Get a Keurig, ” she told me. I almost told her that I was a tea drinker, but I was intrigued by her specific recommendation. I asked her why she suggested a Keurig. Then she explained that people could serve themselves when they visited me. I wouldn’t have to worry about serving them.

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Photo from Flickr

Something about her recommendation sat with me in a funny way. I couldn’t put my finger on why. Then it occurred to me how much she had thought about serving other people when she had been the one in dire need during her recovery.

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Living Both Like You Have No Tomorrow and Like You Have a Century Left

As I get closer to my surgery date, my mind, heart, body, and soul have increased in their capacity to feel a wide range of feelings simultaneously—even when those feelings seem to be conflicting.

I want to live both like I have no tomorrow and like I have a century left.

One minute I’m eating a large breakfast of eggs, tater tots, and corned beef hash for comfort, and the next I’m sipping on a smoothie for its nutritional value.

One day I’m brainstorming all of the jobs, side hustles, and GoFundMe campaigns I will need in order to pay off my medical bills, and the next I’m planning adventures like Luisa in Y Tu Mamá También.

Do I want privacy, community, or intimacy? Do I feel like screaming, crying, or laughing? I don’t know. All of the above?

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Photo from Flickr

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Networking and Negotiating for Healthcare

I have received some sweet offers to get my mind off of my health situation, but I’ve had to decline them because I’m so busy networking and negotiating for healthcare.

I’m no stranger to the topics of networking and negotiating. In fact, yesterday I facilitated a workshop on those very topics for students with respect to their career development.

Now I’m applying the transferable skills of networking and negotiating to my healthcare.

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Photo from Flickr

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To Manage My Tone or Not

If you’ve ever known someone with a serious health issue, chances are that person lied to you at some point. It might not have been a major lie, but they might have sugarcoated their feelings in one conversation or another.

Since I shared my diagnosis with in my social circles, people have connected me to their friend, family member, colleague, or other contact who has dealt with breast cancer. When I talk to the connectors, they emphasize how strong, resilient, and inspiring their contacts are.

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Photo from Flickr

Then I talk to their contacts, and I realize how much those contacts have lied or sugarcoated the truth for others in their lives.

I’m not here to do that.

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Redefining What It Means to Be Busy

A few months ago, if you had asked me to describe my life, I would’ve told you I was busy: busy transitioning to a new job, busy preparing a presentation for a conference, busy managing social media and moderating a panel for a board I am on, busy networking, busy hanging out with friends, busy dating (or deciding not to date), busy going to the gym (or deciding not to go to the gym), busy going to yoga, busy napping … busy … busy …. busy.

Now when I say I’m busy, I really mean it. Seriously, my life a few months ago felt like such luxury. I had many projects, tasks, and activities to manage, but I loved it all. I really LOVED my life. I really loved myself. When friends were asking me for life updates, I told them that I was the coolest person I knew. I meant that both seriously and not so seriously.

For friends who had known me a long time, they knew that I had gone through my share of unexpected adventures with job transitions, promotions at work and volunteering as a hotline counselor for a rape crisis center, relationship changes, deaths and health issues among people close to me, and my own health issues even before breast cancer.

People are used to me persisting. In some ways, I wonder if that’s why it’s hard for some individuals to understand how concerned I am about the future.

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