Archives for category: Feelings

Infractions

August 10, 2014 //

I am generally a patient and polite person. There are a few situations, however, that can get me fired up in a hurry. One of them is when people don’t take “no” for an answer. If you call me at home and are trying to sell me something, I will say “No, thank you.” If you keep talking, I will say, “Please put me on your do not call list” and hang up.

If you are the outreach director for a private tutoring and one-on-one school, who calls me repeatedly to set up a meeting even though I have told you I cannot do so, due to cancer treatment, I will be irritated with you and tell you that your calls aren’t welcome and to please stop. Guess what happened today? The same woman showed up to my office, uninvited. Do you know how many uninvited visitors I get in my little office with it’s discrete location? About one per year. I told her, “No, I am not able to meet with you. I know about your school. I asked you not to contact me.” She replied, “But I thought that you just didn’t want me to CALL you.”

“Coming to my office uninvited is even more intrusive than calling. Please don’t contact me again.” She apologized and left.

Keep in mind that I ordinarily accept meetings with people from private schools and tutoring businesses. But this woman happened to call when I was going through intensive cancer treatment. I told her that, also told her that I would contact her in the future if I wanted to meet. But she kept calling and today, she showed up on my doorstep. I have actually referred families to this school and I will likely continue to do so because the person who does marketing is not the same as the people who provide the educational services.

Honestly, I feel mean when I set limits like this. But I also feel justified in being firm and direct. These hard sell tactics rely on people’s inclination toward politeness and needing to be seen as “nice”. The strategy is one that takes advantage of most people’s positive nature. I know the people who are not taking my “no” for an answer are probably not thinking of it that way. But the strategy itself is extremely disrespectful.

Hmm, is it really “extremely disrespectful”? It is disrespectful for sure. But the fact that my heart rate is still slightly elevated and I still feel residual anger about this intrusion tells me that it is time for me to explore why this situation set me off so.

I am by nature, a generous and helpful person. My parents are also generous people. But I also remember growing up, thinking that they had trouble saying “no” when asked for a favor. (It doesn’t seem this way so much now, so I wonder if I remember correctly.) It was like it was bad to even ask because my parents would say “yes” unless it was a telemarketer. (When vacuum cleaner salesmen called, my mom would always say, “I have dirt floors.” Ha!)

When I am asked for something, my initial inclination is to give it. But I have learned over the years that this is not always a good idea and in some situations, it is downright unhealthy. I can take time and energy away from my family, friends, patients, and from myself. I have also learned that there are people in life who will ask over and over again, giving nothing in return. And then there are the people who don’t even ask, they just take.

When I say “no”, I have already gotten myself to do something that I am not typically inclined to do. When the “no” goes unheeded, I feel unheard. Oh dear, there’s a trigger. I hate it when I don’t think people are listening to me. When I am unheard, I start repeating myself, I get stern, I may interrupt. I don’t feel generous. I feel in need of protection. The word that keeps popping into my head but I haven’t yet written it down because it feels too strong is “violated”. I feel violated. Do I feel helpless? No, I don’t but I feel very very wronged and that I may lose something of myself, the years to building up assertiveness and confidence, if I back down.

I often used my writing on this blog as a way to figure out a puzzle. I think I have gained insight in writing this but really, I am only scratching the surface and there is much to be uncovered. I think that this triggering experience comes from some kind of combination of my personality, my experiences as an individual, and my experiences as a woman. I’m not really sure and I will never really know. I do know that my tendency toward strong reaction negatively impacts my relationship with my daughter and with my husband. With my professional life, I am able to regain external composure even if feel internal strain.

I will keep working on this.

Note: I actually wrote this post several days ago and didn’t publish it because it felt unsettled. I am currently exploring the situations that are most triggering for me, “buttons” that when pushed, elicit an irrational response. I am trying to shrink these buttons. As I say, I will keep working on this, as unfinished and unpolished as it is. But it is as it is.

Tags emotion management, emotional triggers, interpersonal boundaries, mindfulness, self-assertion

Categories Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

The Hive

August 1, 2014 //

Some animals, like bees, are eusocial. They live in highly organized social groups, each with a job to do, and all for the survival of the group. Adult bees are drones, workers, and for one unlucky female, the Queen.

This would all seem so complicated except for one thing. Bees have tiny brains and they don’t live very long. In other words, it is unlikely that more than the tiniest bit of learning goes into this process and I’d say it’s safe to say that no thinking goes into it. Bees follow instinct. They do their jobs, they don’t change roles, and when they communicate, they send messages that are easy for everyone to understand.

People are also social animals but from an evolutionary standpoint, we are driven for individual survival, not group survival, a quality the ethologist Richard Dawkins called the “selfish gene“. Evolution is not everything. There are other forces at work and some of them even motivate us to get along with one another and nurture each other for the greater good.

But people have big brains and live a long time! We learn to play many roles and carry out many responsibilities. And these roles and responsibilities are not predetermined at birth. Unlike bees, we are not born into an inflexible caste.

Living in a group is really complicated. We communicate with our words and other behaviors. We don’t always say what we mean. We don’t always know what we mean. Our roles overlap and our goals may be at cross purposes.

Bees have very organized relationships. However, they don’t have intimate relationships. People bump and scrap with each other all of the time. We protect ourselves from real and perceived slights. Most of us put a lot of energy into individual survival as well as to helping our loved ones.

I try to live a peaceful life. I try to be a helpful and nurturing person. I try to belong to the community of humanity and to contribute to its health. But I often fail to do so and sometimes spectacularly so.

I am a nice person but I am not always nice. I am a caring person but sometimes I try to protect myself at the expense of others. Sometimes, I use my intellect to come up with fancy justifications for my behavior when in my heart of hearts, I know that I am doing wrong. I am a happy person but sometimes I am irritable and sometimes I lose my temper and yell at the very people that in my hearts of hearts, I love the most.

Almost every time this happens it is because I have neglected my self-care. I have pushed myself too hard, worked too many hours, not eaten well, not taken time to myself, and not exercised. When I think of myself last, it is because I am looking outward to what I think my family needs, ignoring cues from myself that a good deal of my distress is simply because I am not caring for myself.

It is at the times I make these seemingly altruistic sacrifices, I am most prone to behaving selfishly.

I am not perfect. That is okay. Expecting myself to have no needs is not okay. Being selfish is not okay. I am not perfect. That is okay.

Tags altruism, ethology, evolution, Mental Health, mindfulness, self care, selfish gene, selfishness, stress

Categories Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness

Something out of nothing

July 26, 2014 //

I come from an Italian American family on my mother’s side. Her great grandparents were farmers in northern Italy who immigrated to the U.S. to raise children and work the coal mines near Seattle. In other words, they were not fancy people. They were poor. But they were smart, hard working, life loving, and resourceful. They not only loved food but had a lot of mouths to fill. They knew how to “make something out of nothing”.

My mom knew how to do this, too. It wasn’t as if we were poor but money was tight and there were a lot of people to feed in a family of eight. Mom is also masterful at re-purposing leftovers into new meals so that food is not wasted.

The week has continued to exhaust me. I rallied in the writing of my last post, only to have an extremely fragmented and stressful evening, during which my irritability peaked, and I became quite irrational. My daughter had gotten rather angry with me because she told me that she had another parade the next morning and I had reminded her that I had asked her to tell me about all of her events and she had just told me, “Don’t worry about it, Mom.” I was not able to sacrifice half of a work day to get her there. She got very angry. It was kind of a last straw for me and I mostly took it out on my husband because she had treated me extremely disrespectfully and he left the room instead of backing me up. Realistically, he was probably doing what he needed to do to keep from yelling, with which I was already doing a good job.

I spent a good deal of the early part of yesterday fighting the urge to go back to bed. I have not had a day like this in a very long time. My brain and my heart were utterly exhausted despite the fact that it was a gloriously beautiful summer day in which I had much to do. I forced myself to stay out of bed. By late afternoon, I was sitting on the couch with a head both full of everything and nothing, swirling in eddies of acute pain and numbness.

My husband came home early from work and asked what I wanted to do for dinner. I said, “I am not doing well at all. I know I will be okay. Right now, I can’t think. I can’t answer questions. I need 15 minutes to finish up work.”

Then I started on my unfinished progress notes, one by one, and with the completion of each one, I gathered a tiny but noticeable bit of energy. In about 45 minutes I was done. I had accomplished something. I told John, “Sorry, that took longer than 15 minutes. I’m going to cook dinner.”

I walked into my kitchen. I had a perfectly ripe mango, a perfectly ripe avocado, and some limes. They were not planned for a particular meal. In general, that is often the way I shop. I just buy what looks good. In my freezer, I had some large shrimp. I also had a bit of simple salad left over from another meal. It was made from jicama, radish, and lime. I thought that might be a nice textural and flavor contrast with sweet mango but I wasn’t sure but I started getting excited to try. And as I sliced, zested, crushed, sauteed, and mixed, my spirit continued to lighten and I felt myself filling up again. When I tasted, I could tell that I’d made a lovely summer salad full of good things. My husband and I had a nice meal together, which led to a nice evening.

I had been depleted and feeling in utter need, just an hour before. I needed to give myself an experience of creating from start to finish, to remember that I am capable of making wholes and not just carrying an armload of loose fragments, which keep falling to the ground, and then others fall as I stoop over to pick them up.

Remember what you have and make use of it.

That is my meditation for today.

Shrimp and mango with lime, avocado, radish, and jicama.

Shrimp and mango with lime, garlic, avocado, radish, and jicama.

Here is the recipe:

About 1 pound of large shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails left on.
1 lime, zested (put zest to the side), then cut into quarters.
1 large ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut into large dice. (Squeeze one of the limb slices on it so it doesn’t discolor).
1 large ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into large dice. (If you have not cut up a mango, read some directions on doing it. It’s not hard but it’s different than other fruit.)
1/4 of a jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks.
3-4 mild-flavored radishes, peel on, sliced thinly. (I used a small portion of a large watermelon radish, which was about the size of my fist and cut it into match sticks.)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed.

1. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl except for the shrimp, garlic, half of the lime zest, and all of lime wedges into a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and the juice from 2-3 lime wedges. Mix gently with your hands so the avocado does not lose its shape.

2. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil and about 2 teaspoons of butter in a large saute pan, on medium to medium high, taking care not to burn the butter. Add garlic and cook for about a minute, stirring frequently. Add the shrimp and cook for a minute or two on each side until curled up and opaque, but not rubbery!

3. Put the salad into a serving bowl and top with the shrimp. Sprinkle the remaining lime zest on the top so it looks pretty!

Tags cooking, creativity, Family, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting, stress

Categories Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Recipes

Getting a head

July 23, 2014 //

Last week I dreamed about my kittens. (Yes, I know, despite my formative years as a “dog person”, I have become a “cat lady” in my middle age.) My kittens are litter mates, brother and sister, both with pure black coats.

In my dream, they were conjoined twins. People looked at them and remarked, “Oh, look at the cute kitties!” Then the heads of the kitties started looking in different directions and the front right and left feet did the same. The kitties looked distressed. They were not working as a team.

When I awoke from the dream, I thought, “I need to use this image in a blog post.” Yes, really I did. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am not someone who makes fancy dream interpretations. But I do think about my dreams, especially when I think they signal distress. At the time I was having the dream, I was concerned that John and I were not parenting as a team as well as usual and that we were having trouble communicating about the logistics of our lives. I think that is probably what the dream was about.

I have been pretty stressed during the last couple of weeks. I am an energetic extrovert. Nonetheless, I don’t function well if I am pulled in a hundred directions, living a fragmented life. I am not good at perpetually switching gears. That’s one of the reasons I was attracted to pursuing a research career rather than a career as a clinician. Clinical work means switching gears between people, situations, and goals, quite frequently. When I did research, I worked on one or two projects for years at a time. But I ended up being a clinician and thank goodness, I learned how to switch gears much better than I did previously.

Right now my workdays consist of switching constantly among work, driving my daughter around, getting to my healthcare appointments. My daughter has needed to be driven to one to three locations all around Seattle, every day, starting in the middle of the day. She takes the bus when she can but there are logistics to be worked there there, too.

Yesterday, I reminded her of what time she needed to be home from school (she is volunteering each morning to help with a band program for younger kids) so that I could take her to an activity at 2:00 pm in northeast Seattle. (We live in southwest Seattle.) The original plan had been for her to take the bus downtown and then take a transfer to get to the office. However, we’d tried that the day before and she missed the bus. Since it was mid-day, there was not another bus for an hour. I cancelled my annual physical so that I could come home from work and drive her. Seattle is not an easy city in which to get around. It is long, narrow, surrounded by water, and hilly, for starters. This means that there are a rather limited number of highways and streets available to get from one place to another.

As I complain frequently, I find driving to be taxing and stressful. I am a good driver and it is not that I feel really anxious when I am driving. It’s mostly that I have to think so hard. And it’s not that figuring out bus schedules and directions is that hard, especially with the Internet. It’s hard to remember to do it and to make sure my daughter has the information she needs and understands where she is supposed to be at what time and how to get there. (This is one time when I kind of wish we’d allow her to have a smartphone, but I digress.) Riding the bus involves a surprising number of steps and also, some background knowledge that a non-driver doesn’t necessarily know. Consequently, I need to break it down in my mind and then make sure she knows things I would otherwise take for granted. For example, “You have a parade after your appointment. It is north of where you will be. Do you know what side of the street to be on to take a northbound bus?” The answer is “no”. And she does not yet know north, south, east, and west. When I was her age, I didn’t either. Then there are the fragmented questions I throw out, “Remember your bus pass!” “Remember to pack a lunch!” “Remember your phone!” “Remember your band uniform. You’re not going to have a chance to come back home before the parade!”

If you are a long reader of this blog, you will know that I live with some rather forgetful people who actually need frequent reminders, even if they are not always happy to receive them, in the moment. And by the way, it is not enabling if your child is actually getting better at remembering these things on her own, which is the case for her. But she is only up to remembering these things about 50% of the time. Think about what your daily life would be like if you were not where you were supposed to be with the what you needed, half of the time. Also, you carry your bus pass in an old eyeglass case and your money in a ring box. And this is a major improvement in organization from years past. Finally, you don’t drive. See, having a nagging mom would be annoying but handy.

About two paragraphs, I was telling you about one example day. Then I veered off course. What you don’t know if that while I’ve been writing this post, I’ve stopped and started it many times. I actually wanted to write it last week when I had the dream. Right at this moment, I am fighting the impulse to walk out and investigate the bird sounds I am hearing.

When I am switching gears too much, coordinating multiple goals, I find that it is hard to stop switching gears. I find even more goals and they aren’t priority either. Instead of being a two-headed cat, I turn into a creature with an ever changing number of heads, all on one body. There is effort to do things but none of the cohesion required to get things done in an efficient way.

The first thing that happens to me is that I start getting forgetful. Then I start making mistakes. Then I start getting anxious that I am making a lot of mistakes and I am so distracted that my level of self-awareness waxes and wanes. Then I make more mistakes. Then I start a flurry of unecessary reassurance seeking. “Are you sure you have the bus pass?” “Hey, friend, did I just treat you badly?”

There is an expression that people use referring to feeling “centered”. It is a positive thing but honestly I can’t exactly articulate what it is. But what I can tell you that at this time, I don’t feel centered or “grounded”, another common description that people use to refer to a state of balance.

I don’t feel centered. I don’t feel grounded. I feel like I have an infinite number of heads and none of them contain good working brains. Now, these are subjective feelings. In reality, I am functioning. I am carrying out my life with competence. But I feel icky in the process.

My natural inclination is to think of the happy, balanced, reasonable, bright, organized, empathetic, and energetic version of myself as “the real me” and the other times are aberrant.

I am becoming increasingly, aware, however of how unreasonable this belief really is. I am always me. Who else would I be? The person who gets irritable with her husband because she is overwhelmed and fragmented? That’s me. The person who asked her husband to take care of a responsibility this morning because she was exhausted, even though she’s been irritable with him? That’s me. The real me is not that perfect and it is unhealthy for me to maintain a vision of myself as needing to meet that standard in order to be “real”.

The person who is feeling a little more grounded and centered after having sorted through her thoughts and feelings while writing this post?

That’s me, too.

I have goals in my life. Some day, my life will end. But my life, itself, is not a goal or an end point.

My life is an experience, with lines of continuity as well as flux.

What else would it be?

Tags identity, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting, stress management

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Beautiful

July 19, 2014 //

One of the recent activities on Facebook has been for women to post five photos of themselves in which they feel beautiful. It is framed as a challenge.

I think it is good for women to recognize their beauty as we so often do not appreciate it in ourselves.

But what is beauty, anyway?

I didn’t feel beautiful for the majority of my life. There were moments, of course, during which I did.

But what is beauty, anyway?

Is it aesthetics?

What are aesthetics, anyway?

Well, most people agree on a certain set of guidelines for determining who and what is “good looking”. Looking healthy has something to do with it. Looking youthful has something to do with it. Looking fertile has something to do with it. Looking just enough out of the ordinary to be striking but not too much as to look alien, has something to do with it. Tradition has something to do with it. Looking non-threatening has something to do with it.

We could say that human aesthetics don’t really matter. But is that really true? Look at Michelangelo’s David. Look at Boticelli’s Venus. One only has to look at two pieces of art to realize that there are aspects of the human form that are aesthetically superior to others, at least as aesthetics are subjectively defined. Plus, if we are to say that aesthetics in the human form do not exist, then it is fair to argue that aesthetics in other forms, also do not exist like in trees, mountains, or other natural forms.

Beauty, though, is not the same as aesthetics. It can include aesthetics but it can also go beyond the visual. Beauty has meaning as well as looks. Beauty is also not the same as “pretty” for the same reason.

Beauty has meaning and the meaning is usually related to a virtue, like love. Love of people, including ourselves, love of animals, love of nature, love, couched in marvel of the best aspects of our planet Earth.

Love is always beautiful but it is not always pretty. Conversely, what and who are aesthetically pleasing, are not always beautiful.

Now, coming back to the Facebook challenge. It was to post photos of when one FELT beautiful. I have never felt beautiful when I was unhappy. It wasn’t that I necessarily felt ugly, though at times that was true, it was just that the unhappy feelings predominated.

The times I have felt the most beautiful, are mostly times that I also looked pretty. It was like the aesthetic aspects were the icing on the cake. But I’ve felt beautiful without the icing. Here is an example:

Here she is, Miss America!

Do I look pretty in this photo? No, I don’t and I’m not going to go over the reasons for that. But I felt beautiful. That photo was taken by me last September. I had been walking six days a week for nearly a year. It was pouring down rain that day. I didn’t want to go for a walk. But I did it and it was actually really fun. I felt beautiful because I had taken care of myself and not just survived my walk but thrived in it. This felt like a triumph of my body and mind that had been through so much through my cancer treatment and reconstruction. I felt strong and there are few things that feel more beautiful than feeling strong and capable in one’s own body after a cancer diagnosis.

But there have been times in my life when I felt beautiful and looked pretty. I have written about a number of those times in my blog, times that have been captured on film. A photo of my kissing my newborn girl on the cheek while she smiles blissfully. The photo I shared recently that my husband took during a lovely evening out. Those were times, incidentally, when I was totally in the moment with a person whom I love.

My aesthetic beauty will continue to fade. I would be lying if I said that this is 100% okay with me. But it’s still okay. I have a lot of beauty in my life. I have a lot of meaning in my life. I have a lot of love and I hope you do, too.

Tags aesthetics, beauty, love, women and beauty

Categories Family, Feelings, Flora and Fauna

What’s wrong with this picture?

June 27, 2014 //

My daughter is away at camp this week. John and I decided to go out for a nice dinner last Wednesday. I just happened to have a salon appointment scheduled that day so I knew I was going to have “special occasion” hair. I chose a dress out of my closet that was inappropriate for work but appropriate for a date with my husband. We had a lovely time. I recently bought him a new camera so he was taking photos of me. A LOT of photos. He said it was because, “You look so pretty.” Yes, he is very sweet and he is the only person I would let put a camera two inches from my face in order to take close-ups.

This is one of the best photos.

Photo by Elizabeth’s hubby. 2014.

When I first saw it I thought, “That’s a nice photo of me. I look really happy, relaxed, and in love.” And those things are all true.

Then I noticed that I still had hair dye on my forehead near my hairline but I thought, “Who’s going to notice?”

Then I saw my crooked cleavage. I thought, “Oh!” I said to John, “My cleavage is off center!” He said, “Pfff, you look great.”

Now I’ve known about this asymmetry for a long time now. But this was the first time that I’d seen the unevenness in a photo of myself out in public. I had been wearing a low cut dress, displaying décolletage in all its cattywampus splendor.

Then I realized something. I didn’t really care all that much.

I am happy.

My husband loves me.

I’m still in the picture.

There’s nothing wrong with this picture.

Tags Body image, Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness

I am not that

June 15, 2014 //

I took a good number of art history classes while I was a student at the University of Washington. One of the classes, Asian Art, was taught by Glen Webb, a man originally from Kansas, if memory serves. Dr. Webb was an excellent instructor. He was interesting and knowledgeable. He was also daring and adventurous. I remember his describing the amazing Buddha sculptures carved into cliffs in Afghanistan. Even in the 80’s they were already being destroyed by Afghani soldiers. He gently lamented, “I had wonderful slides of them but I dropped them down a crevasse.”

Glen Webb was also the second person I’ve encountered in my life who comported himself with balance, an incredible calm, and peacefulness. (The first was Archbishop Emeritus of Seattle, Raymond Hunthausen.) Glen Webb was also a Zen Buddhist monk. He had followers in Japan.

I could be a ball of anxiety in those days, and for many years to follow. I thought to myself, “I want that. I want what he has.”

So I listened to how he described Buddhism. One of the things he taught us was the axiom, “I am that.” If we are all part of everyone else then there is no self. In other words, “I am that.”

No self? Hmm. “I don’t want that. I am not that. I am me”

Connection threatens identity. Identity threatens connection.

An experience like breast cancer can send us back to adolescence, which is a major period of identity development. “I that this but not that. I am not what you tell me that I am.”

“I am not cancer.” “I am not pink ribbons.” “I am not a survivor.” “I am not a warrior.”

If you ask me who I am, I will tell you, “Elizabeth MacKenzie.” (And if you have a pencil in your hand, I will note that it is “M-a-c” and that the ‘K’ is uppercase.

But if I really think about it, my name says very little about who I am. My name is not my identity. My name merely identifies me.

That doesn’t mean that my name is not important because it is important to me.

I am cancer, it is a part of my life whether it ever returns or not.

I am a cancer survivor if I think of it as a process rather than an end point. I am a cancer survivor until I die, whether I die from cancer or not.

I am a psychologist until I die.

I am a mother until I die.

I am a wife until I die.

I am a friend until I die.

I am that but I am not just that.

I am so many things.

And so are you.

Tags Breast Cancer, identity, mindfulness, Zen Buddhism

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Mindfulness

Match Day

May 24, 2014 //

One of the requirements for my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology was completing a one year long internship at one of many sites around the country. The application process is a very stressful rite of passage for students. I often say, “You can have time or money but not both.” Well, in grad school, most of us had neither. But we managed to fill out internship applications and travel for interviews to the sites that were most promising. I remember traveling from North Carolina to Oklahoma City, Seattle, Chicago, and Gainesville, Florida.

Internship offers were made by phone back then on “Match Day”, which started at 10:00 am Eastern Standard Time and I believe was on a day in March in 1996. Prospective interns would wait by the home phone (no cell phones back then), hoping that it would ring right at 10:00 am and that we would hear the sound of the voice of the director of the desired internship. We were allowed to say, “yes” or “no” on the spot. There was no, “I’ll think about it after I’ve considered all of my offers.”

Prior to Match Day, we had the option to send an internship site a “first choice” letter. The communication was, “If you call and offer me an internship, I will accept it.” There were a number of rules around this. Sites weren’t allowed to ask us if we were going to “first choice” them and if we “first-choiced” a site and didn’t take it, it was considered a very uncool thing to do. We were also not allowed to “first choice” more than one site.

After my visits to sites, I made a rankings list, weighing professional and personal variables. My first choice for professional reasons was the University of Florida. However, getting back to Seattle was a high priority so the University of Washington made it to the top of my list. Both sites were prestigious and offered excellent training. I sent a “first choice” letter to the University of Washington. A few days later, I received a call from the internship director there. She told me that I was a “very strong candidate” but that it was not in my best interest to give U.W. my first choice letter. She recommended that I withdraw it, which I did. This was a painful phone conversation, but even at the time I knew that it was very kind of her to let me know I was not one of their top candidates. I sent off a new “first choice” letter to the University of Florida.

Meanwhile, John and I were nervous wrecks. John was researching job markets for all of the potential cities in which we might live. Fortunately, since Gainesville was a drivable distance from where we lived, we had gone together and he’d gotten an opportunity to check out the area, which he liked a lot. The job market there was terrible for him, though.

There was nothing for us to do at that point but wait for 10:00 am on Match Day and hope that the phone would ring. I was well trained, having completed some ridiculous number of supervised clinical hours during my years at UNC. (If memory serves, I’d logged 2700 hours when the requirement was 500.) Oh, the other stressful thing was that sometimes, no one called a student. There was usually one student each year from our program who despite their excellent application and the strength of the reputation of our program, did not get an offer. Those students had the chance to go through the “clearinghouse” process and be placed in one of the leftover spots. (These days, incidentally, there are no “leftover” spots. There are more applicants than there are spots at accredited internship sites.)

Match Day came. All of the worry about where we would live, what I would do, and would I be able to work anywhere would hopefully be reduced. 10:00 am came and went. I willed the phone to ring. At 10:02, the phone range and I answered it. It was the University of Florida and they made me an offer, which I accepted. It was really quick so quick that I said, “You just made me an offer and I accepted it, right?” The director chuckled and said, “yes.” We said our goodbyes. The first one I called was my husband. He was happy. The second call was to my parents. My mom was happy. My dad was happy though said, “Florida? You are moving even FARTHER away from home.”

Exactly two years ago, I found myself waiting by the phone again. The call that I would receive would say a lot about my future. I was waiting on a call from the Swedish Cancer Institute with the results of my core biopsy, which had been performed two days before. I knew that a call would arrive at any time. As fate would have it, I was called at 10:00 am, just like Match Day. The diagnostic radiologist told me that I had an invasive ductal carcinoma tumor of approximate size of 1 cm. She said, “This is the most common breast cancer. A surgeon will call you within the hour. I’m sorry. We will take good care of you.”

The first person I called was my husband. He told me that he was taking the bus from work to be at home with me. Then I called my parents. My mom answered and I told her, “Mom, I have cancer. Mom, I am scared.” She was comforting and I was able to stop crying so that I could get information and make decisions. (Not everyone copes this way. I like to work fast and get things in place.) I called my friend, Nancy, a 12 year breast cancer survivor and psychologist who works with breast cancer patients. I got her voicemail so I left her a message. I had not even previously told her that I’d had a biopsy. Then I left a voice mail for my friend, Jennie, who had known about the biopsy. As soon as I finished my message to Jennie, Nancy called.

Nancy was reassuring and also gave me a list of surgeons who had excellent technical skills but also good people skills. Dr. Beatty was on the list. His office called while I was talking to Nancy. I got off of the phone with Nancy and picked up the call from Rhea, who was the scheduler at his office back then. I made an appointment for the next day. I was not required to accept the first surgeon who called. I could have met with another surgeon after I met with Dr. Beatty. But I immediately adored him and didn’t feel like I needed to see anyone else. Nancy, who had accompanied us to the appointment, and John agreed.

My family has been through a great deal in the last several years and not all of it was related to my cancer. If you’d asked me even as recently as five years ago, how I would cope with all of the life events that were in store for me, I would have guessed that I would go into an anxiety spin, followed by depression, and some kind of severe mental breakdown. I certainly would not have guessed that along with the anxiety, anger, and pain, I would also find more joy and peace than ever before in my life.

I feel a mixture of feelings and thoughts today. And maybe that’s part of what these “anniversaries” are about. Experiencing a year or several years’ ups and downs in the span of a few days.

I will never say, “Cancer, you have met your match.” I know that cancer can kill. But I can say that right now, I am a match for its aftermath.

Tags anxiety, cancer anniversaries, grief, psychology internship match day, stress

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings

You all are sweet

May 19, 2014 //

I remember the thrill of discovery when I was in high school German class. There was a second person plural tense, “You all”.

I was raised in the northwest of the U.S. We are considered to have “no accent”, if that is such a thing. In any event, the closest we have to a plural second person is, “You guys.” As a feminist and inclusive person, that convention leaves much to be desired. But when I was learning tenses from Frau Johnson, my high school German teacher, I learned of the miracle of a second person plural tense. How cool was that?

When I moved to the South, I was inundated with this tense, “Y’all.” Again, how cool was that?. But as a person from Seattle, I really couldn’t pull off, “Y’all.” I just didn’t have the cred for that. Although I did acquire a Southern accent while I lived in North Carolina for six years and northern Florida for one year, I thought saying, “Y’all” was not genuine for me. I did not acquire my accent purposefully and it was not a full Southern accent. Throwing out the term, “Y’all” would classify as being a poser. (Yes, I could write “poseur” but since I do not know French, doing so would make me a “poser” twice over.) It was too different from my native dialect.

But I liked the tense. It appealed to my logic as well as my inclusive sensibilities. Consequently, I settled on, “You all.”

Yes, it is pretty nerdy but so am I. And I am not a real Southerner. But I can say, “you all.”

Time and time again I put my feelings and thoughts out on this blog. Sometimes, and rather recently, I have the fear that I am a big whiner. But I also know that many of us do not disclose our complaints, our fears, our anger, or our sadness because we fear that we are to “get over it” by now.

Yesterday, I posted about my anger and my anxiety. It is not overwhelming but it is unpredictable, bothersome, and sometimes scary. A number of you out there, people whom I’ve never met, responded with a great deal of emotional support.

My first response was regret that I had caused you worry. And then I remembered the many times during which I have been happy to offer another support when he/she was having hard times. I remembered that seeking support in each other is not just a part of life but it is also a beautiful part of life.

I have a lot of gratitude and I would like to say to you all. You all are sweet. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with breast cancer, gratitude, language

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings

Eruption

May 18, 2014 //

May 18, 1980. Eruption of Mt St. Helens. Photo from National Geographic magazine.

As you may already know, Mt. St. Helen’s erupted on this day, 34 years ago. This is a mountain in the Cascade range, one of the two mountain ranges in my state of Washington. I was in the 8th grade when it happened and although the mountain is nearly 200 miles from the city in which I grew up, I could see the ash plume from the home of the neighbor at which I was babysitting.

It was the first time I remember there being a natural disaster near where I lived. Unlike earthquakes, this seismic event could be predicted. The area was evacuated. Nonetheless, there were casualties, people who refused to leave the area. Harry Truman, an elderly man who lived on Spirit Lake, was interviewed prior to the eruption. He stated under no uncertain terms, would he leave the area. He stayed and he died.

What was most upsetting to me was the fact that two children, Day Andrew Karr (aged 11) and Michael Murray Karr (aged 9), were also killed. They actually lived in my town and their father TOOK THEM to see the mountain erupt. A photo of Day Karr’s lifeless and naked body, sitting in the back of a pick up truck was on the cover of a national magazine. I found the photo and planned to put it in this post but honestly, it is still too upsetting to me. The child had not been identified at the time the photo was published. As I recall, Day’s grandmother recognized him when she saw the cover of the NATIONAL MAGAZINE! What a horrible way to identify a body. My mother was asked to sing for the father and the boys’ funeral, which she did.

As I have mentioned, I have been dealing with anger about my cancer in the last few months. And as I have mentioned, anxiety typically underlies my experiences of anger. I feel it bubbling and sometimes it smokes and puffs a little. I have been less patient with my family.

I know that I am not going to blow like Mt. St. Helens. But I can feel something coming and I’m not sure how to prevent it. I can’t evacuate from myself. I keep walking in the woods, meditating, and so forth. I am trying to take care of myself. But this feels like a grief episode and likely increasing in part because next Saturday marks 2 years since my breast cancer diagnosis.

The other waves of grief have been ones I had to ride until I got to the other side. I suspect this will be the same. I can comfort myself with the view of a snow capped Mt. St. Helens that I saw from the airplane on my way back to Seattle from New Orleans. It was part of a beautiful range of mountains.

Tags anger, Breast Cancer, grief, Mt. St. Helens

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings