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Fear

by 2 Comments
Jan
27
2012
Fear Jeannette Guest Writer

I had an incredible dream early this morning. My dreams are typically interesting, vivid and in color but on a rare occasion I’ll experience a dream that I know I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. This particular dream was about fear. I wasn’t running from monsters, death or pain but instead I dreamt of fear as if it was an actual tangible being. This particular dream began in black and white, and with a great sense of urgency. I was forced to leave a dear friend. I promised her that I’d return, but she was paralyzed with fear that I’d never come back. Time passed and I returned as promised. I opened the door of her home and found her slumped over in a corner with her face to the wall. The room had become infested with fear. The walls were like catacombs and porous. Fear had embedded itself into each chamber and had grown into the walls. Each cavity contained an amebic shaped being with a haunted face that moaned and wailed. This thing had become part of the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living Life Tagged With: , , ,

”Living” with Endometriosis

by 5 Comments
Jan
27
2012
Living with Endometriosis

Before you go running for the antibacterial wipes I just want to let you know that I’m not contagious. What I have is not catching. What I’m about to relay will not travel through your computer’s innards as a deadly Trojan virus or spread through the air like an uncovered sneeze. It’s called stage IV endometriosis and according to the information traffic jam, over 70 million women around the world live with it every day and, I’m guessing another 50 million or so women don’t even know they have it. Those women are probably lying on the bathroom floor right now, gritting their teeth, clutching their wombs while saying, “What the F*ck!?” and praying for the strength to live through the next couple of days. So what is endometriosis? I usually tell people, strictly out of exhaustion, that it’s a “girlie” disease. This comes from being raised in a household where you don’t talk about stuff like this. If by some circumstance of extreme horror a particularly cute … [Read more...]

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Strength

by 7 Comments
Oct
15
2011
Strength

Strength is a powerful word. Physical strength is very obvious to the human eye. Internal strength is something different and more difficult to define. Not only is it difficult to define it is hard to determine where one finds their internal strength. It varies from person to person. When I received my diagnosis last July, I did not feel strong, I felt like a weak and helpless child in the face of this disease. An anonymous quote said: “When on the edge of destiny, you must test your strength”. Breast Cancer put me on the edge of a new destiny – to survive at all costs. To ensure my survival I had to find new sources of strength. Since dying was NOT an option, I decided I would need an extraordinary amount of strength to fight the pink ribbon demon. Thank God I did not fight alone. I have the most amazing family and friends who helped me every step of the way. When my strength failed I could rely on them to push me forward. That's right – I am a thief – a strength stealer. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breast Cancer Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Kids Interrupted – Children with Pediatric Heart Disease

by 3 Comments
Sep
04
2011
Becca Visiting Pediatric Heart Disease Patients

I went to visit two heart kids the other day at the hospital. My mom and I make an effort to go and visit the kids and their families whenever we can because we know how much it meant to us when people would come to comfort us when we were in the hospital. Both were little girls. I had met the other one before and last time I saw her she was full of energy; pulling at my necklace and jumping up and down in my lap. The day I went to visit her though she was extremely tired and she had been sleeping most of the day. It was just another reminder that one day you can be full of energy and then the next feel like you have nothing left in you; especially for heart kids when they are already so tired as it is. She celebrated her birthday on Monday and her mom got teary eyed when she said she had been hoping she wouldn't have to celebrate another one in the hospital. I gave the mom a smile and told her, "She is young and won't remember this birthday anyways. But what's even more important is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Heart Disease Tagged With: , , , , ,

“Hope” by John

by 7 Comments
Sep
03
2011
John Hope

I had a strained relationship with hope before my wife was diagnosed with cancer. To me, hope was a high waiting for a low, a fix with a nasty flipside. Far from the precious entity exalted by legions of poets and philosophers, hope was just another coordinate on the pain/pleasure cycle existing in infinite balance with its opposite. In the same way that happiness alternates with sadness, or desire with loss, hope alternates with fear. One requires that the other exist. Hope was for suckers, and I was no sucker. Or so I reasoned. The times I didn’t need hope, that is. But when life would clobber me over the head with misfortune, there I was, clinging to hope like a dear, misunderstood friend. Since my wife’s diagnosis, however, my relationship with hope is no longer strained. It’s been severed completely. I’ve abandoned hope, and in the process have met a new friend: peace. To abandon hope is to trample the plotline of feel-good movies, to renounce the rhetoric of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living Life, Personal Power Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Finding Balance When Battling Chronic Illness

by 13 Comments
Jul
30
2011
Katie Guest Writer LR

One of the hardest things for me is balance. No, I don't mean walking a beam like some Olympic gymnast. I mean the kind of balance every woman struggles with–work, home, family, friends, and self. There are things we HAVE to do, like make sure the kitchen is clean enough to not turn our children into radioactive mutants, and things we WANT to do, like crack open a good book in a bubble bath without the audience of our toddler suggesting toys and asking about our anatomy. Somewhere in between the have-to's and the want-to's is the fact that chronic illness means there's just simply less of us to go around. So what do we do? How do we do enough of the have-to's to keep up with life and still have time and energy for enough want-to's to maintain our sanity and well-being? Oh, wait, you were expecting an answer, right? I wish I had it all figured out. But I do have some ideas that have brought me some peace in this balancing act. I'm not hiding anything, though. I lose my balance and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Chronic Illness (General) Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How My Breast Cancer Diagnosis Changed Everything

by 10 Comments
Jul
30
2011
Change

The one thing I hear is the idea that having cancer changes your outlook on life. One of the first letters we received from a friend when I got my diagnosis of breast cancer contained such sentiment. We were all, not yet 40, with small children, careers, stability finally just beginning to take hold. This friend, too, was a young cancer survivor. It was difficult to accept in the moment as we both read the words of the terrible journey about to arrive. Words meant to offer a taste of reality and encouragement. "I bet you and your wife look at life differently now", he wrote. Maybe that's true now. Back then, I had no idea what he really meant. I am now a part of a club I never wanted to join. Saying the words "cancer survivor" does not yet easily roll off my tongue. When it comes at a time in life when you are just getting started, it is especially isolating as an identity. I felt side swiped. I had a short career. I had young children just starting school. Being thirty something, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breast Cancer Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,