Tag: netcancer day

10 Lessons for the Newly Diagnosed

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Anytime a friend or family member knows someone newly diagnosed, they get sent my way. I love this because I believe in mentorship, but I hate it because it’s a role I never wanted. Actually, I don’t think anyone wants this job.

When I connect with the referral, I often find they’re looking for words of wisdom and my reaction is, You’re coming to me? OMG! I have no idea what I’m doing. But, when I take a step back and meditate on the years since my diagnosis, I realize that I have acquired a significant amount of wisdom on navigating the maze, so below you’ll find some of my biggest lessons learned along this crazy road:

  1. Prepare for bad days. They’re inevitable. I created a list of things to do on when cancer or life gets me down. On my list: take a walk, call a friend to hang out, go to yoga or for a run, watch Jimmy Fallon Lip Sync battles, you get the idea. Doing these things doesn’t always turn a bad day good, but aides in soothing me so it’s not as torturous. But guess what, there will be good days too. Enjoy those.
  2. Choose your vocabulary. I hate being called a “cancer patient” and prefer “cancer survivor”, which I assigned to myself on diagnosis day. I also decided not to claim cancer by choosing to refer to it as “the” cancer and not “my” cancer. Sure, it’s a play on words, but words matter and have power. I often roll my eyes at cliche verbs such as fighting, battling and nouns like warrior, but I can see where others find great power in these words. This is your experience and you get to choose the words to describe what you’re going through – not prepackaged phrases or cliches.
  3. Limit your research. Yes, you read right. Google’s search results can be overwhelming. While being an informed patient is critical, there comes a point where it’s too much. Set a timer for an hour, do your Googling and then go live your life. It might even be helpful to plan your research at a specific time of day. I don’t Google in the evening. Otherwise I stay up all night thinking. I Google before something fun, so my mind does not dwell on the results for too long.
  4. Prepare to learn the meaning of friendship. There were people who showed up for me, who I considered acquaintances before illness. They were people who called, texted, sent me cards, cooked me dinners and took me to appointments. Words cannot express my gratitude for these angels and I would go to the ends of the earth on their behalf, as they did for me.There were also friends I considered close, who went missing in action. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. I understand – cancer is uncomfortable and not fun, but I now know the true meaning of friendship.
  5. Think about what you will do on the other side. I can not accept that we are given these obstacles for no reason. I think it’s important to discover meaning or the lesson in a traumatic experience. Do you want to help others affected by the disease? Awesome. Or do you want to erase the experience from your memory? Totally understandable. Whatever category you fall into, do something! Take the trip you’ve been talking about for years. Write the book. Run the marathon. Jump out of the plane. Make amends with the family member. If cancer teaches us anything, it’s that there are no guarantees, so minimize your chances of regret.
  6. Get a therapist. Your doctor is leading the team on physical healing, but you can not ignore the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. Cancer is a torturous mental challenge and having an outside opinion has been instrumental to me. Ignore this and you’ll miss important aspects of healing. Plus, it’s sometimes difficult to talk to those so close to you about big fears that accompany the disease since they themselves are so emotionally invested in you.
  7. Find a support group. It does not have to be traditional. It just has to work for you. I still have never been to one where you sit in a circle and cry, but I have met countless lifelong friends through a weekly writers workshop and a young survivors non-profit. I also participate in an online group of people with the same disease. It’s here where I found my specialist and often research treatments. I always thought of support groups as therapy, but they can also be a wealth of information.
  8. See a leader. No one will hold your best interests at the top of their mind the way you do and having the right doctor is game changing. Life saving, in fact. Don’t settle on the first doctor who crosses your path. Visit at least two or three. More if your case is rare. Find someone who’s doing research on your disease and not someone who’s following the pack. It took me several opinions to find a specialist who knew what to do with a one in 10 million diagnosis, but once I found him, my world changed. He disagreed with all the previous opinions and I know I am alive today because of his experience. I travel from Nashville to New York City to see him every six months and often look forward to hearing the research in his pipeline.
  9. Be relentless. It is exhausting and the only time I’ll ever refer to disease as a fight is in reference to navigating the medical maze. My doctors call me relentless and I take it as a compliment. I do not leave them alone (respectfully) and because of this, they return my call or email quick.
  10. Practice gratitude. It wouldn’t be a post from me, if I didn’t mention gratitude at least once. There will be days it will be hard to be grateful for anything, but believe me when I say, there is always something to be grateful for, even if it’s being alive, which is a privilege denied to many. Write these down. Re-read them when times are tough.

I’ve also learned these lessons are constantly shifting, evolving and revealing themselves. Cancer survivorship is a process and I am a grateful participant.  I wish the same for you.

Read my other Cure articles here.

Cancer and Minimalism

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87WSyMSm

As featured on curetoday.com

After a lot of thought in December, I decided that what I wanted most out of 2017 is to be more present in my life, something that has been a problem for many years, especially since my cancer diagnosis in 2014. I spend days worrying about the future and reliving the trauma of treatment in my head, which only creates anxiety. For me, I’ve found the best way to cope with this anxiety is to focus on how I feel in the present moment because 99.9 percent of the time, I’m feeling great. I remind myself the moment we are in, right now, is all any of us are guaranteed. As the famous Bill Keane quote goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrows is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”

Once I resolved to be more present, I started thinking about the tools that would aid me in being successful. One of the to-dos I jotted down on my list was to watch a movie on Netflix called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. The title intrigued me. I thought you could replace the word minimalism with cancer since the moment you’re told that you or a loved one has the disease, your whole thought process of what is important changes. The Netflix description reads, “People dedicated to rejecting the American ideal that things bring happiness are interviewed in this documentary showing the virtues of less is more.” Cancer survivors know this, but in theory, how much are we focusing on the important aspects of our lives instead of things? None of us will be on our death beds saying, “I sure wish I would’ve gotten the iPhone 7 when it came out.” We’ll be saying things like, “I wish I spent more time with my brother” or “I should have taken that trip to Africa.”

So, what is minimalism? The film’s website describes it as, “a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth and contribution.”

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A clean, organized book worthy space

If you’re like me and most Americans, you have too much stuff. Inspired by the film, I resolved to declutter. I made a list of the areas in my house I wanted to go through and set my timer for 20 minutes each day. Often, once I got started, I’d spend way more than 20 minutes. Within a few weeks, I decluttered my entire house, donated several bags to charity and remodeled my writing space. While my intention was to organize, I didn’t expect to experience the same radical transformation as the two subjects in the film.

I find myself much happier and living my resolution of being present with ease. Because I am not surrounded with stuff, I can breathe a bit easier. I have less general anxiety, all because my home and life are clean and organized.

Minimalism has also transformed my cancer journey, by making my life more fulfilling. A cancer survivor’s hottest commodity is time, and working towards minimalism has not just resulted in more hours in each day, but has given me quality time I can spend with my husband, friends and chasing pursuits I love, such as writing and yoga.

It has only been a month, so I’m hoping I can continue the lifestyle. My next steps are to reduce my social media presence, tackle digital clutter, comb the house again and unplug the internet one day a week – an idea that might be a hard sell to my husband.

If you’re interested in reducing anxiety, increased quality time with loved ones and pursuing your passions, I encourage you to check out www.theminimalists.com where you’ll find details about the documentary, their podcast, books and social media pages.

To read all my articles with Cure, click here.