June 28, 2016- For lying in wait simply leaves us….Lonely

It’s so easy in this life to find yourself on any given day feeling rugged. It’s a ruggedness of being worn out, emotionally drained, emotionally conflicted, physically challenged, and on the verge of being out of time for the monstrosity of the never ending to-do list.  All while attempting to raise little ones with any chance of them being contributing members to society. All while wondering where our time goes when we are single and working hours on end. All while being married and trying to pull together 2 schedules into one. All while approaching mid-life, or passing mid-life, and looking back and wondering what we have to show for it all. There is nothing like navigating mid-life to get our attention around the value of life’s accumulations.

I’ll venture a guess to say that on top of this incredibly chaotic life we spend so much time building for ourselves surrounded with a calendar so overflowing that that no one would envy, a work ethic over shadowing our home ethic, and such a sense of imbalance that we don’t even know what comes next, that most, if not all of us, would describe ourselves as lonely. I ask myself how in the world we could ever be lonely with a calendar overflowing with tasks. How could we be lonely when we are surrounded by person after person in this place of work? How could we be lonely with the constant bombardment of events, and sound, and cohabitation? How could we be lonely with a spouse and 2.5 kids? Yet it is exactly what we are, isn’t it? Lonely. And burned out. And run-down. 

It’s evident as we navigate challenges, and we long to dialogue the experience with women that we trust. It’s evident when we are confronted with heartbreak, and we long for the phone to ring with someone calling to check in on us. It’s evident when we see fellow friends showered with attention during loss, and we long for attention ourselves as we mourn in silence. We don’t want more tasks or things. We don’t want more calendar commitments.  We don’t even want another acquaintance. Rather, we crave to our core people that bring value and who are willing to do the tough road with us. Doesn’t it really simply come down to the fact that we crave authentic relationship? And as we search this out we ebb and flow in this rat race of the American Dream in hopes of finding a reasonable substitute that will give us a sense of value, a value which we didn't realize was intended to come through relationship. But with that missing, we fill the void with a to-do list, one more vacation, another night on the town , just one more accolade for our children, or one more promotion while spending our days away in the cinder block lined hallways. We are shoving our lives so full with substitutes that instead of coming out on the other side purposeful and recharged as genuine relationship can bring, we come out in a perpetually starved substituted version of our selves. And there is no wonder we suddenly find ourselves worn out, emotionally drained, emotionally conflicted, physically challenged, and out of time.

So having pondered this for days/months/years on end, and as midlife has not only knocked on my door, but somehow been invited in, I find myself still floundering in finding the fix. Having accumulated all that this life can offer, how do I better focus myself on what life was intended to be and encompassing more of  relationship and less of things? It’s not as if we can snap our fingers and “poof!” genuine relationships are on your front porch. Yet we live our lives as if they do, sitting in wait for our best of friends to gather at our doorstep. And it’s not as if what genuine relationships we do have will meet every need of every circumstance, though we wait in anticipation of unsubstantiated proof that they do. After much churning of thought and reflection, I think the culprit lies in that fact that we have become passive in an active process. We sit in constant wait for something to happen TO us. We wait for people around us to prove their self-worth. We lie in the shadows of life and anticipate someone else coming to our rescue in our hour of need. And THIS is where I find that I have been fully in the wrong. And THIS is where Christ is growing my heart. It’s not a revelation of any sorts. You’ve heard me type similar words on similar pages. It’s my awareness that deepens as I continue to ponder and thus hopefully propelling me into action: I want/need/should/must model what it is that I think I want from other people. Instead of unrealistically setting a list of expectation of what I expect from people around me, I imagine I am much better served to place those expectations on myself in proof of their worth. It removes the focus off of what others are or are not doing for me, and instead pushing me to focus on what I am or am not doing for other people. For do genuine relationships come not from waiting for them to happen, but rather in my active pursuit and nourishment of those around me.

Loneliness is not a place I one day am surprised to find myself, but rather a place I most likely cultivated for myself by my lack of action and investment in others. This statement isn’t absolute, I know, but I would say it is a huge contributing factor at the very least. I know this that God will provide my every need, even in loneliness. His is a Hope that will anchor the soul (Hebrews 6:18). But God also created the value of earthly relationship that doesn’t replace His, but instead embellishes this life on this side of heaven. So while I can sit back in the Hope He offers, I can also nourish this life with the joys that genuine relationship here on earth can bring as well. And it deserves to be actively cultivated, sought out, and nourished (not to be replaced by an enticing substitute) for lying in wait simply leaves us….Lonely.

I’m asking myself how can I expect less of others around me and more of myself instead. How can I accumulate less tasks, things, accolades, and instead better cultivate myself for genuine relationship? How do I leave time in my life so it can be spent with people in a sense of community, and not running the rat race we set up for ourselves? It’s a long process of ups and downs, but it is certainly worth the pursuit. There’s proof in the pudding. I’m stirring my pot. 





To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

June 22, 2016 - It could change your everything

I was running late. The meeting would be starting in no time, so I really needed to hurry.  I grabbed up my stuff and out into the hall I went and soon after realized I had way too much stuff to carry having left my book bag back at my desk. I shuffled it all around in my arms over and over again and quickly realized the tiny stuff (the credit card, the note) simply had to go elsewhere. Up until now I’ve not been one to repurpose the bra for a pocket but when you find yourself in a bind and in clothes with no pockets… I reluctantly decided on my bra.

I stopped in route to grab a drink, a snack, and some napkins/utensils, and after paying for the items, I returned the card and now two more items (receipts and napkins) back to my bra for safe keeping and off I went to the meeting. Now mind you, this was mid-day and after the meeting I attended two more, finished out my day seeing patients, and then gathered all my belongings and made my way to the car and back home. I got home, fed the cat, made dinner, did odds and ends and then several hours later was ready for bed. I went to the bedroom and took off my clothes, took off my bra….and literally about scared myself to death when the now long forgotten items started tumbling out of my bra and noisily onto the bedroom floor.  Who walks around for 5+ hours having no memory or sensation of several items shoved into your bra during a moment of haste? See, I told you I couldn’t feel anything.  Four years later and I still have large portions of boob 1 and 2.2 that can’t feel a thing. It’s comical if you let it be. Lesson learned: Choose taking your bag, no matter how cumbersome, every single time.  

Today was simply a mastectomy kind of day. The forgotten items in the “bra stuffing”. Earlier in the day I ran into my surgeon who I haven’t seen around the office since my last surgery 9 months ago. After my meeting, a lady in the elevator asked me if I could point her in the direction of the breast clinic as she was running late for her follow-up mammogram.  Thing after thing today. Some days it’s nothing. Other days it’s like the whole world is there to remind you. I’ve decided both days serve their purpose.

A little nugget from today? My coworker brought a little nugget right to my doorstep for the taking: “I’ve decided I am going to start being selective about what I let in my home.” We had been talking about downsizing our lives. Purging our closets, uncluttering our drawers. I was thinking very literally about the discussion. Having just moved earlier this year, I was acutely in tune with the tasks, both emotional and physical, of unloading stuff from our closets. I simply didn’t want all the stuff I had collected over the years packed up in another box only to be stored once again in another attic. I wanted less. She had recently gone through a similar task of pulling things out of the closet and setting them aside for donation. We discussed a little while longer about duplicated items our cabinets held and the freedom found in tossing them in the donation box. The day got busy and then the conversation was abandoned.

Or so I thought. As the day went wound its way forward, her words hung close. “I’ve decided I am going to start being selective about what I let in my home.” Hum. Those were simple words uttered in benign declaration of a literal thought. You know, I need less sweaters. Who needs more books? A statement of the typical clutter of excess found in the American home.  But on my way home as I was navigating traffic (with credit cards shoved in my bra!) those words dug deeper. They started to eat at me in that maybe each syllable carried not only literal implications of this shoe or that kitchen ware tucked in the nook of that cupboard, but what if there was a deeper implication of that statement. And I found myself wondering if literal is what she meant. Was there a deeper meaning in her words? What if I truly did carefully dissect and evaluate each item (literally or figuratively) that came through the doors of my home. What if I carefully thought through in a way of saying “by bringing this item (or thought, or whatnot) into my home, what would the ramifications be”?  Do I care enough about my home and marriage that I assign this degree of thought to the things I introduce for each?  I know someone who took internet out of their home because the husband didn’t want the temptation of pornography in his life . If he has an email to send, he waits until he get into the office to send it. He needs to look something up online? His wife offers to look it up for him on her smart phone. To my knowledge, he doesn’t have a pornography addiction, but he loves his marriage so much that he doesn’t want to risk it. He cares more about protecting his vows than he does the convenience of life online in their home. Powerful, huh? I know plenty of other people who have a rule of not riding in a car alone with someone of the opposite sex. While there would be no mal-intent on their part, they value the appearance of their marriage more than they do the convenience of getting a lift to the meeting. They don’t want to risk someone else seeing them and starting the rumor of “I saw Johnny with Lucy….” We all know how the appearance of things can destroy a reality when placed in the wrong hands. So while you sit there reading saying to yourself “Sally, these are pretty drastic examples!”,  I find myself now wanting to reply with “are they?”

What are we bringing or allowing  into our homes (our lives, our minds, our hearts) that we shouldn’t be? What are we allowing to come in that is now an unintended risk to the things we hold dear? Got kids? Oh that list probably just tripled. What are we addicted to that are destroying our finances? One more pair of shoes? What words are we allowing to be said in the confines of our home that are destroying the self confidence of our pre-teen? What words are going unsaid that portray to our children that we must bottle up our emotions? Got teenage sons? I’d say we need to take heavy inventory. Do you really need cable TV? Got teenage gals? Yep, choose wisely! Are you single? How do you need to structure your home to preserve yourself?  I imagine each “risk” is going to be different for each of us, but I would say the “call for action” lies within us all and most often remains untaken.

If I were to search my heart and search the atmosphere in my home I know without a doubt that I could be more selective. More protective! It’s not always our intent that matters. It’s the outcome. The perception. The onlookers that can roll right over your reality, and I find that without being proactive to protect our home, we just may find ourselves in a place we never intended to be. You don’t usually see disaster coming your way. You just one day find yourself there. You also don’t always consciously choose with disaster in mind.  It’s a subtle temptation that one day plops itself from un-tempted to tempted in no second flat. I think we now live in a society and a cultural environment where we just may have to, at times, choose the drastic choice in order to protect our home and all we hold dear.  In what ways should I choose inconvenience in an effort to put my marriage to my spouse first? In what ways do I need to change thoughts and behaviors to uphold the sanctity of family? How should I better model what comes in and goes out of my home. We need to be proactive, not reactive, and we just may need to be drastic because everything could be hanging in the balance and we don’t even know it yet. And if you don’t know where to start, start where I am: Douse your home in prayer. Pray that you choose to be selective. Pray that you aren’t afraid to make the drastic choice, if need be. Pray that you are able to see the risks by looking through the eyes of your spouse and children. Pray that you don’t consider yourself immune to the risks. Pray, pray, pray! And then start evaluating your front door and what you are going to allow to come through it. Just because something knocks doesn’t mean you have to answer, and just maybe closing a door on it could change your everything.

“I’ve decided I am going to start being selective about what I let in my home.”

Psalm 51:10: Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.









To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

June 7, 2016- Dodged the bullet

I used to jokingly say “I need a lung transplant” anytime I got a nasty cold. The hacking fits that would double you over, you’ve been there yourself. Well tonight as I am sitting here feeling like crud and hacking up a lung, I say that no more.  Isn’t it interesting how something so benign and trivial said in jest totally takes a drastic turn to not so funny when faced with the real possibility? I dodged the bullet back in December (and “dodged the bullet” certainly wouldn’t be funny in someone else’s circumstances) and it left an impact. I no longer joke about my lungs. It’s too close to home. 

Interesting how we can go from being carefree/comical in tossing around colloquialisms about certain scenarios, and then drastically in 24 hours time with one brush of fear we can transition over instead to an advocate.  “I need a lung transplant”, “He rides the short bus”, “ we certainly dogged that bullet”, “it made me want to blow my brains out”, “I’d rather jump off a bridge”. Carefree, right?... until you have to face one of them for real.  You would never use these latter words so carelessly with someone who lost a daughter to suicide. Words carry a different meaning once you've been there. 

And take the advocate into play. Isn’t there always a story there? Who actually advocates for something they know nothing about? Chances are, I mean super high chances, if someone is speaking out for or against something, they’ve had a brush with it themselves.  I have a friend who is highly visible in the world of human trafficking. She’s had a brush with it herself. I work with parents who devote their lives to raising awareness for genetic diseases. They lost a child to its horrible grasp. I have another friend who lost a spouse in battle. They now serve on a foundation for helping widows of war. Think about the things you are passionate about. Are they not fueled by experience? We want women to be more open about infertility and miscarriage. If you advocate for that, I bet you’ve been there.  I advocate for women in mastectomy. Yep, I’ve been there. It’s so easy to care about issues we have traversed, either first hand or second hand), and in contrast it’s simply so hard to have lasting care for things we have not. Experience carries forward a motivation and a little tug at the heart strings. However, it’s very difficult to maintain a stance on something we know very little about. For example, it’s easy for me to feel care and concern for your battle with heart failure while you are there in the moment digging your way through the trenches, but that care and concern rarely morphs into a passion as we move further away from your event. A month or two later and I’m back to feeling something less than advocacy for your struggle.  My concern for your experience over time is replaced by the urging demands of my own life. This is why there is often loneliness in our plight after initial diagnosis. It’s just a reality of doing life with other people. By design, we simply care a whole lot about other people as they face the giant, but as the giant becomes familiar and yesterday’s news, the giant takes a back seat for the rest of us as we watch from the side lines. But give me a personal scare with pulmonary fibrosis and I quickly become an expert in everything fibrosis and that expertise will last for years to come.

I think God was brilliant in this design. We can’t all be advocates for everything. The pool would be watered down. Unbelievable. Un-motivating. If we all ganged up on raising awareness of absolutely everything, we would put less than 1% of our efforts and wisdom into each issue. Instead, don’t we become more relate-able, believable, trustworthy, impacting by advocating for issues having been there ourselves? For example, I truly do not think you want me to advocate for women on divorce. I simply know very little about it.  I’ve never been divorced, no one in my family had been divorced, I have very few friends that have been divorced. My knowledge is third hand, from books, from movies, from conversations. So what merit do I bring to the divorce table? In fact, instead of merit, if we all are going to be honest here, I more likely bring a little bit of judgement to that table. I am happy to support you, cry with you, pray for reconciliation with you, but I seriously doubt I would have any impact as the advocacy-face of women going through divorce, and because I haven’t been there myself, I risk coming to the table full of preconceived ideas and judgement that simply doesn’t pan out. And as someone looking for someone to advocate on my behalf for any topic I’m facing do I not want someone who truly knows ( not from books but from experience) my stance? I want to tell my deepest struggles to someone who has been there, someone who gets it and brings no judgement to the table, someone who I believe truly knows what I am fighting through and for. We are creatures of relationship, and we naturally navigate toward what we know, and we also want to be known by other people who have been there too. Our advocacy is a testament of our experiences.  And 24 hours, 6 months, 1 year from now, we have no idea what we might find ourselves suddenly an advocate for.

Full transparency? I used to get really frustrated with the Susan G. Komen platform. There, I said it, it’s out there on paper. If I had to guess, breast cancer (BC) gets the most research, financial backing, commercial propaganda, of anything else out there in the malignancy world (maybe even of any disease state). Make something pink and sell it in October and it will be bought. It wasn’t that I didn’t think BC was a worthy cause, it most certainly was, but working in oncology and seeing all the malignancies not advocated for…well, it frustrated me.  Take pancreatic cancer where the 5 year survival rate is a miserable 8%. Where is a month devoted to it (it does exist but I bet most of us don’t know when it is)? Where are all the football uniforms colored purple during pancreatic awareness month? I simply wanted the attention/finances/research to be spread evenly across the causes.  Breast cancer is worthy, but it totally overshadows other killers out there. Then….I got my mastectomy news. I can’t say my position on everything has changed, but it changed enough because now I wasn’t an onlooker looking in from outside but rather a women staring statistics in the face.  We simply care about what we have experienced, and that can change at a moment’s notice. I now realize it isn’t the Susan G. Komen Foundation that is at fault for the imbalance, she totally did her part to get the news out there and sets the bar very high. It’s the under representation of advocates for other areas of life. Liver cancer awareness exists, but it’s not so in your face. Same with depression, Alzheimer’s, Krabbe disease. ALS got a huge publicity projection with the recent Ice Bucket Challenges. It all came down to someone fighting the fight and then someone picking up the reigns and being creative in their advocacy. 

I need that creativity. I need that passion. I need to shout out for the scars of mastectomy and so many other things in life. I need to be empowered to fight for what I experience. I would have never even considered giving pulmonary fibrosis a single funding dollar before last December. I would have given breast cancer some funding because it’s so highly visible thanks to advocates that are hard core. So I ask myself, what should I be advocating for that I am not? What is going to happen in the next year of your life or my life that will suddenly change my awareness? What has already happened in your life that you now need to be a voice for? We won’t have the same passions. We aren’t designed to do so. We should all be passionate about some things at baseline (injustice, persecution, abuse, neglect, etc) and then we should individually become advocates for other things because God allowed events in our lives to change us, or change someone around us (malignancy, abuse, infertility, oh how the list goes on and on and on). In the former we carry commonality (it’s a mandate of being a moral and ethical humanity). The latter we sort of find ourselves in after we experience life unfolding. We very simply need to be an advocate…for something. Otherwise, what’s the point? Does it not instead become an experience and then an opportunity lost?  Do I not owe the next victim my voice and experience? I certainly can’t save the world from everything, but I certainly can use my individual experiences to do my best trying, in whatever way I can no matter how big or how small. I’d say I get a failing grade on this most days, but I’m hoping to one day be Most Improved.

Thank you, cleft lip, lymphoma, mastectomy, fibrosis, personal failure, insecurity, and everything else that is still to be determined. I hope to not let you down.


(As an update on my friend from my last post, her cancer has returned. Hers is not my story to tell, but I do ask that you pray for her as she navigates this again. We have been talking behind the scenes over the last 10 days and what a motivation her story is and will be to those she tells. God does great things, even in pain.)



To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

June 1, 2016 - The loss of We

Relapse. It’s a word that carries a lot of weight. Diagnosis carries some punch, but the gut kick of relapse carries something altogether different. It’s the knowledge that comes with Relapse that weighs it down. Been there. Faced that. Grueling memories of what comes back around.  The known is the shadow underneath the cheery day of normalcy. I have the badge of having kicked diagnosis in the butt, but that shadow, it’s always there. In contrary, with diagnosis, there is an unknown. It’s unchartered territories yet to be traversed. You are limited to trying to recall the story of a friend’s experience. “Wasn’t she nauseated all the time?” “Remember the time she threw up at the mall?” “Didn’t she have to quit her job?”  “How long did she get treatment?” Or you are left to conjure up the lines out of a celebrity newscast. “Stage 3 liver cancer”…”surgery scheduled for next week”…”she will fight the good fight determined to overcome”…”so brave so strong”…”Hollywood rallies around her”. It’s other people’s stories that give you a glimpse into what you may face with the same diagnosis. But with Relapse, it’s a whole different ballgame.

You have walked the lines yourself before. You vividly recall the gut wrenching heartbreak of hearing the devastating words heavily falling from his mouth, his lips moving in slow motion. And as the words tumbled off his lips they began to absorb every ounce of air around you making it harder and harder to breath as he detailed this scan and that.  Likewise, you can easily conjure up the pains of toxicity like the back of your hand. You can feel the nauseating bile creep up higher into your throat as your thoughts flow back to then. You are in constant notice of the single strand of hair sitting on your shoulder as in premonition of what could lie right around the corner without any warning at all. You can pull into focus that moment when your spouse got the news and the watery eyes that followed. You see, it’s all always there able to be pulled back from the periphery into center view at any moment. You already know most of what lies ahead. And therefore Relapse is weighted a little differently. It’s heavier. It’s the sorrow and fear of “what if” that can come with knowledge.  But if I were to be honest I need to dig a little deeper and ask myself what is that we are really afraid of?

I’ve never been plagued by the worries of a lymphoma relapse. I don’t know if that was my naivety of “lightening never strikes twice” (we totally know relapse is a daily occurrence in this now cancer-stricken world) or my simple perspective of been invincible. You would understand the absurdity of that statement had you truly known my track in life thus far. But it’s still there, this cape of invincible carefully placed across my shoulder and covering me with, well quite honestly, it covers me with stupidity. Whatever we want to call it I simply lived in this world where lymphoma would be a once in a lifetime moment never to be seen again. However, as I matured out of my teenage years and started traversing the knowledgeable days of adulthood and then accumulated the knowledge that comes with my career path, the worry that began to skim its way across my pond of stupidity was compiled not with fear of relapse, but fear of a secondary malignancy or unmanageable toxicity. I guess this was why I was so decisive and so seamless in my decision for mastectomy and so lacking in surprise at the development  fibrosis. I simply expected…something…to come. And I still do.

So while most sit mentally teetering on proverbial edge of the Relapse “what if”, I rather thumb-my-nose  in disregard to relapse as even an option. My alternative “what if” is of second malignancy or life-reducing toxicity, but let's face it. It floats in the very same pond as Relapse. They are joint in their outlook. Dismal some might say. A constant undulating wave of “right around the corner” pooling in the stomach of its owner, who is never quite at ease in the peacefulness in which we try to sit. “Too good to be true”. “It’s only a matter of time”. “I might be the one.” Once you successfully traverse diagnosis, you never fully find yourself back into the peaceful mindset of the un-diagnosed. “What is coming next?” is always there underneath. We constantly carry around in our pockets the reality of statistics. The odds are always greater than zero.  1% is not zero. That reality changes your decision making.  It blurs the edges of your clarity. It makes even the smallest of odds a subtle player in your everyday and can put a noticeable dent in your level of carefree. You find yourself a little more guarded. A little less confident in tomorrow. A nail biter when waiting for routine results. A single tinge of unexpected pain can propel you to a comprehensive and immediate mental regurgitation of your past experience. It’s there. “What if?” 

I’ve recently been pondering what is it that drives that apprehension of what if after a diagnosis? I don’t think it’s the inconvenience (rearranging our schedules for appointments, avoiding this or that with our lost immunity) that a diagnosis can bring that we loathe, nor do I think we fear the pains of financial burden that will come. They most certainly come, but they don’t hold us captive. Nor do we loathe the frustration of feeling our absolute worst, weak, at risk, less than.  That carries a ton of merit, but neither is that the source of worry.  Let’s face it, we know all the nooks and crannies that come with the diagnosis, and it’s not those that make us swell up with fear. These things make diagnosis complicated, a nuisance, a hardship, and something most certainly worthy of creating anger. But our fear is sprouted not of these worthy sources, but rather I more recently find myself discerning that this underlying root of fear is cultivated by the awareness of potential loss. The fear of not winning this time and losing everything we hold precious is the source of our fear and what keeps the “what ifs” of relapse or related complications in the forefront of our minds…for the rest of time.

We are created to love and to be loved. It all comes down to relationship. And in the diagnosis or the relapse we become acutely aware that we have great risk in losing what we have so carefully cultivated. Our children, our spouse, our family and friends. Not loss in that they will turn away from us, but rather loss in that we could potentially leave them behind. We are driven by our fear of outcome. There are other fears interwoven in the strand of worry as supporting actors, each not to be stripped of their own value, but at the core of the strand sits the knowledge that the next outcome might not be “remission”. This time our luck may have run out. This time we may get a different hand. This time…

I'm not afraid of relapse. I'm afraid of what relapse can bring….loss. And honestly, I don’t think there is a single thing we can do to circumvent that fear. It’s a normal response to a rational inherent risk. And it is not something you fully understand until you have been there staring diagnosis in the face, and then again, if you are selected, when you find yourself on the other side now dodging relapse and the other sister follies. But I am working diligently to instead focus on the comfort in what all of that means. I simply value what we were intended to value: We.  For in “we” lies our relationships with the people around us, and we want to be around forever to relish in what all those cumulative relationships bring us: joy, purpose, contentment, pursuit, love, value, focus…and oh so many other things. We is the core of our everything. 

As a friend of mine is facing potential relapse of breast cancer this week and as so many of us as survivors sit in the shadows of a constant awareness of “what if”, I wanted to mentally take a deep dive in to discern the heart of it all. Underneath it all, I don’t fear relapse or related mishap (fibrosis, secondary malignancy heart failure, or whatnot) in and of itself. I simply and very honestly down to the core of everything that I am fear the loss of “We”. And it motivates everything I am and do from the day after diagnosis, and after remission, and now I'm finally realizing it's also in the prospects of "what if". 



Click  www.tradinginthetatas.blogspot.com to access other posts.