We say or hear things like “kick cancer’s butt,” “win the war against cancer,” “conquer the disease,” and “slay this enemy!” One has proclaimed, “beating cancer is a personal battle.” It’s enormously personal, alright, but is it a battle? This is my question to reflect on today. I find it curious that with cancer, as with few, if any, other diseases, we so often...
When we talk about finding healthy balance in our lives, we usually mean giving quality time and attention to both our work and private lives. Fair enough—in another space (my business consultancy) I’ve tackled that subject quite regularly, since I believe—and there is plenty of solid evidence—that there are all kinds of business benefits to having one’s mind and body in tiptop shape. Yet...
For most of my life, making decisions has come quite easily for me. And that was partly because of the way I handled them. Often I already have the necessary information I need to decide swiftly and effortlessly. Daily choices made in life and business immediately come to mind. For instance, I don’t agonize over what to wear on any given day. Nor do I characteristically hesitate whether or not to...
I’d like nothing better than to be able to stop griping about things going wrong. But then… things would have to stop going wrong, wouldn’t they? Today I was hit by a reminder that at times life can feel like little more than a numbers game. My medical oncologist decided yesterday, without conferring with me at all, to prescribe hormonal therapy (HT). I was just given the Rx, without explanation...
I sit here with Tenderness this afternoon.Tenderness fills my teacup with calamansi and honey in hot water, just enough to give me a hint of taste, without overpowering my palate.Tenderness invites me to slow down, to feel the tingling in my hands, my feet, my lips,and to know that this chemo-induced peripheral neuropathy and dizziness will stop one day. Tenderness softly reminds me it’s nearly a...
Oh, how the body disappoints. Again, and again, and again. My mother in her later years often bewailed words similar to these spoken by Betty White, the iconic actress and comedian who recently died just shy of her 100th birthday: I’m a teenager trapped in an old body. Most (if not all) of my friends who are well beyond the half mark of their lives agree that inside their heads they feel no...