I started this new year with a post thanking you all for your incredible support during my cancer treatment and recovery. There have been many moments in the last ten months when things haven’t gone according to plan. With the help of friends and family, we navigated through those challenges. The experience has deepened my sense of the way we are connected to one another, and has been a crash course in learning to accept help.
Navigating this time of treatment has also invited me to cultivate gratitude in the face of less-than-favorable circumstances. Gratitude that doesn’t depend on being optimistic or seeing a positive outcome, but instead looks for what is true, lovely, and honest growing underneath the chaos.
February kicked off a round of three month check-ins with my cancer team. My oncologist recently moved to another practice which also meant needing to identify a new doctor to lead the team. About ten days before this flurry of appointments, I started to notice pain and swelling in the radiated tissue. Concerned that the seroma was expanding again, I started the check-ins with my surgeon who was able to image the seroma and see that it was stable. However she quickly identified the growing problem—lymphedema.
In response, my new oncologist ordered a variety of support treatments involving physical therapy and cancer rehab (who knew there was such a thing?). The primary task is to try and move fluid through the tissue and out through the lymphatic system. Without improved movement, the fluid will continue to pool and eventually become permanent. Obviously, we are trying to avoid that outcome but this is proving to be a complex problem without an easy fix.
I’m also continuing to receive support for some of the health concerns that were either discovered during or caused by the cancer treatment. In May, I will have a follow up ultrasound to make sure the thyroid nodules are stable.
There is much that is out of my control in this process. However, I can continue to walk regularly. I can work to regain motion with targeted stretching, and regain strength with some modified weight training. I can do the exercises and lymphatic drainage work that my PT prescribes. I can practice gratitude for the team that is guiding this effort, and for the community (you!) that surrounds us.
All this is happening in a time when our world also feels (or is) out of control. We do have voice and we do have agency, but the current administration is making decisions on our behalf that are designed to reduce our interconnectedness and increase chaos. For example, I have spent much of my professional life partnering with organizations that rely on USAID, and the loss of that work in the world is devastating. To real people (my friends) in real places. In real ways.
In the face of the swirling news, I have been trying to apply the learning of the last ten months to this new situation. How can I cultivate gratitude by looking below the swirl for what is true, lovely, and honest? How can I nurture our connections, and prioritize the interconnectedness of the human family? What can I control and how can I use my voice for good?
So today, I want to use my voice to share a part of my story that I hope you will remember as you consider your own agency and voice in this time. You rejoiced with me when I found out I would not need chemo as a part of my cancer treatment. Using technology that was developed through funded research, my tumor was analyzed for specific markers. It was then compared to the research data and reoccurrence outcomes, and my doctor was able to confidently determine that my risk of reoccurrence was low and the risk would not be decreased by the use of chemo.
The policies and budget implications now being debated and initiated by our government have real world consequences for real people like me. You already know this. I hope you will join me in using your voice and actions to do what we can, however we can, whenever we can. We can choose to stay connected. We can choose to care for our neighbors. We can keep walking—together.
Hope With Me:
- For the lymphedema treatment to be successful, reducing the swelling and healing the lymphatic system
- For patience with this new round of hospital visits, PT appointments, and treatment protocols
- For wisdom in holding both personal and global concerns, and discernment in choosing actions that will make the world a better place
- For laughter, love, healing, and meaningful time spent with those I love
As always, I am grateful for you.