8.28.17

It was really nice to drive to work to day and enjoy the normalcy of the commute. One year ago I woke up completely uncertain as to what  8/28/17 would look and feel like. 

Less than two months earlier a routine doctor’s visit and mammogram had revealed something suspicious. I was sent to the hospital for more tests and, to be honest, I was more pre-occupied with the logistics of the procedure-childcare, insurance, the inevitable bureaucratic nuisances, than with what the procedure might reveal. I knew my odds were good that nothing was wrong and felt no reason to worry. So when I got a call 24 hours later from the radiologist telling me I had cancer, I was completely stunned. I mean, had I really beaten the odds of NOT having a normal outcome? Kind of impressive in a strange way. Yes, weird thoughts like that floated through my head. 

The next 6 weeks would be a crash course in how to navigate the breast cancer decision making process. Much of what I learned is that this journey is an incremental one which requires patience. A mammogram reveals that there is at least one spot of cancer. An MRI reveals several more areas of concern. With that, I can choose the less invasive route which requires more biopsies and more frequent follow up procedures and no guarantee that I might not be back in a similar position in the future. I can choose the most dramatic option-bilateral mastectomy-which preemptively eradicates any other dark surprises that may be lurking, but which sounds like something out of a horror movie. But whatever route I take, I won’t know if I’ll need to do radiation, chemo or both afterwards.

I choose the horror movie scenario given my family history and my young age (yes, there were bright spots to being diagnosed with cancer). Intellectually I know this is the best choice I can make but emotionally I’m completely clueless how it will affect me. In the weeks leading up to the surgery I’m terrified of falling asleep (later on I realize that anytime you are pumped with lovely narcotics and wrapped in a blanket surrounded by a cocoon of warm air you should just treat it as spa time, no matter where it may be taking place) and terrified of waking up and of what I’ll find.

Well, I did wake up, in quite a good mood actually. I remember telling the nurses all about how many AP classes I’d taken as they wheeled me to my room. I’m sure I was at least half as witty as I felt!I remember being ravenous and the nurse sneakily getting me a second tray of beige meat. I remember thinking “I made it. This really isn’t as bad as I feared. 

In the weeks leading up to and following my surgery I experienced an outpouring of love and generosity that stunned me even more than my diagnosis. That is something I will never forget.

Cancer is a crazy-making disease if you ask me. In many cases, such as mine, it is easily treatable-cause for pause and taking stock of things, but not for putting your affairs in order. And then there is the vicious, unrelenting kind that ravages body and soul, stealing personal friends and statesmen alike. On the cancer spectrum, I feel like I had the equivalent of a test drive. Just enough exposure to get a taste and feel for the disease without having to fully commit. Just enough to experience the exceptional medical care my city and country have to offer. Enough to be grateful that, for now at least, there is a definitive end point and that I can speak of it as a past event. Cancer doesn’t play favorites and yet I often find it hard not to feel like I got off easy, unlike the everyday warriors who keep fighting relentlessly.

I’ve said that the two hardest aspects of my journey (I never felt sick, so it feels odd to call it a sickness) were dealing with insurance and watching my kids process what was happening to their mom and I still feel that way. A year later, the healthcare system is no less tangled of a web, but my girls are thriving. They see the scars, they were there for the whole thing and know that but for the grace of God it wouldn’t have been this manageable.  I hope it was a good life lesson to see that when faced with something hard their mom chose to tackle it straight away rather than run away. I hope that this interlude will be a reminder that most of the time life is about hitting what is pitched to us and then running our hearts out.

Seven daze

What a difference a week makes.  Babies are born and life irrevocably changes; school starts and summer quickly fades to a bittersweet memory; biopsies come back and suddenly you (or at least certain body parts) are part of a new, unsolicited category of the population.

That's what happened to me and my family.  An annoying (yes, that's how I viewed it), costly medical  procedure that I thought was a formality revealed cancer.


I don't write nearly enough--hence the title of this blog.  I too often get trapped in my own brain and the rattling and bumping of thoughts produces more anxiety then is necessary.   So as I logged on to the blog today I was surprised to see an entry I'd started last fall.  Even then I had cancer on the brain--maybe only as a point of illustration, but it was part of my schema nonetheless.

I wrote those three paragraphs less than a month ago.  Wow, if I thought I'd lost a layer of naiveté in a a week, a month of being a student of this crazy disease makes me feel simultaneously like an energized rhetorical sage--I can now proficiently spout all the necessary terms and phrases needed to appear that I know what's gong on and it's kinda of fun to play that role, if I'm being honest--and a tired pup since playing the part of the medical intern gets really tiring really quickly and at the end of it all the blasted cancer is still there.

So what's changed?  Well, my hopes of having a simple little lumpectomy and radiation have morphed into a bilateral mastectomy.  I was and still am completely uninterested in taking such drastic measures, but it seems to be the wise choice.  Pardon the metaphor, but in a base sense my diagnosis has become like my fourth child.  We are in the newborn phase where the youngster drains me of all my energy, keeps me up at night and shows no awareness for how it's existence is changing everyone else's.  But the thing about the newborn phase, especially for first time parents, is that while we think it's the hardest part of parenting, as soon as our kids get beyond it and approach adolescence, we quickly realize that all the sleep in the world does not compare to the energy needed to parent an older child.  I am that first time parent with this new addition--I think I'm tired now an that my body has been compromised but I haven't got a clue as to what's in store for me.  Maybe I'll spring back quickly and make it look "easy" like I did with my own newborns, refusing to wear maternity clothes home from the hospital.  But maybe I won't.  Maybe I'll be the woman who never looks like she did pre-pregnancy.  Either way, fitting into my jeans-or my tops-is so trivial compared to the real transformation that's about to talk place, the internal one.  There were many moments in each of my children' newborn lives that I did not handle well.  Instead of grace and dignity, frustration and fzrazzledness prevailed.  I'd like the chance to have a redo.  That's my prayer (in addition to complete healing, of course!: that I could handle this newborn phase with a maturity and calmness that is not based on the ease of my circumstances.  Lets face it: compared to so many on this journey, my circumstance are a cake walk. As my husband reminded me, as difficult as my choice to have the double mastectomy was, I at least had a choice. May I walk with purpose, that which is not my own, but which has been a merciful gift to me.

That Which Points Me Heavenward

This year hasn't really turned out to be as fabulous or inspiring in the way that we all hope for every New Year's Eve.  I mean, it's not like I typically those midnight toasts to materialize into the health and prosperity  that we cheers to.  But if I'd most certainly gotten to the point that I felt pretty good about maintaining the status quo.  It was reasonable, I thought, to assume family members' health wouldn't deteriorate too quickly.  Business most likely wouldn't get too slow.  We'd manage to continue to lead our comfortable lives, my family and I.  We'd continue to live reasonably modestly (only an American would state such a fallacy!) and splurge from time to time.  There was nothing on the horizon that seemed that it would rock our world beyond the normal ebb and flow of the life we'd become accustomed to.  I was wrong.

I've been on the sidelines plenty of times to witness pain and grief.  My husband and I are privileged to have two dear friends who literally stared cancer in the face and told it to go to hell.  They fought hard and they are winning the daily battle against this bastard curse that we have come to call reality for too many.  We see daily that hate that infuses so many minds and drives them to acts of terror in our global community.   Shoot, we hurt when our kids experience the reality of feeling left out.

But as much as we all hate to admit it, without the struggle the victories wouldn't be so sweet.  Tragedy unites us--ALL politics aside--to me there is no more emblematic image of American pride as when George W. Bush reminded all of us from the rubble of the World Trade Center that our country would not be destroyed.  Every time I hear Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" I'm taken back to the whirlpool of emotions I had in the days following 9/11...shock, grief, patriotism.  It was a raw, horrific, beautiful time when people set aside their own agendas and looked outward to see who needed help next.  Its times like these that remind us that we are not alone.  That the artificial constraints that we allow to so frequently divide us don't stand up to Our collective hearts were broken and it was in the wounding that we vowed to press on, to not merely survive, but to go on living.  That's true redemptive beauty emerging from the ashes: to live when enduring seems like a long shot.  Our cancer ass-kicking friends typify this spirit.

So do the thousands of Paralympians who just wrapped up their games in Rio.   I spent a significant time watching events this past week and a half.  I'll just put it out there and say that I was completely ignorant about what all these games entailed.  All I knew was that they coincided with the Olympic games and that the participants had some sort of physical challenge.  Well, let me tell you that I feel like my eyes have been opened to a whole new realm of humanity.   These are incredible human beings.    I was completely enthralled at their level of athletic prowess and  I found myself fascinated by the individual stories of triumph and perseverance.  I've always been someone who wants to know "the story."  It's the journalist in me.


So it's September and in a few short months we'll be ringing in 2017.


soul searching-what makes me tick is " the story"

asking why-let go, look up.  the point is to let go

grown up struggling w/sadness

"I know we were meant for something better"

The Twelve Days of CHRIS(t)mas

Before I met my husband, when I was just oohing and ahhing from afar, I prayed that God would give him the insight to be able to know me even better than I was able to communicate to him.  I prayed a lot, in fact, about this potential relationship, since it was so clearly not up to me whether or not it was going to happen (there was a girl he'd previously dated, he was still mending a broken heart, the timing just wasn't right, yada, yada, yada).  So I prayed.  And prayed.  I cried (because that's what we girls do).  But most of all, I trusted.  I trusted and waited, not always patiently, for the Lord to show me clarity.  As much as I wanted to date this guy, I did not want to do it if it wasn't part of a greater plan--I'd already tried my hand at young love, not very successfully, and I had no interest in trying force something that wasn't meant to be.

And so after ten long (!) months, he asked me out on a non-date.  And then he asked me to non-date him.  So we were a non-couple and it was oh so cute:)  And then after about a day and a half we realized that maybe we should just go ahead and date.  My prayer had been answered.  It was an incredible time--not just the culmination, but the whole journey.  As stinky as some of the waiting was, it was incredible to be in such close communion with God and to see His hand actively penning a narrative in my life.   Our succinct courtship was abundant in laughter, hopes and decision making.  It was fun.  It was like a roller coaster ride...exciting, a little crazy, but ultimately really good.  Even our disagreements seemed to be opportunities to better learn each others' personal nuances and communication style.  One of the things we discussed fairly early on was the meaning of our names and how accurately they reflected who we were, or who we longed to be.  Mine means "beloved."  An irony on many a day since feeling truly worthy is something that had been and continues to be a struggle.  His: Christ bearer.  Fitting, not only since when I met him he was leading a bible study (of crazy characters!) but because he earnestly and passionately sought to reflect Christ to others.  I loved this about him.  I loved that he was fearless, or at least willing to put his fear behind him, in order to speak truth and grace into people's lives.  I still love that about him.  I also get really frazzled and frustrated by it at times.  That prayer that I uttered fourteen plus years ago, the one where I asked for Chris to know me more intimately that I could imagine.  That one is a real doozy.

As our swift dating/engagement phase propelled us into the week before our wedding, my intended saw a side of me that few others have.  He saw me project anger, no rage is really more the word, like a whirling dervish.  He saw me claw and rear like a wild animal caged for the first time and unwilling to be subdued.  He was stunned and it would've been understandable if he'd bowed out.  Because at that point he was marrying a stranger.   I still don't know what happened to trip the switch, raise the curtain, or whatever metaphor you prefer.  My hunch is that it has something to do with that whole "I can't hide from you" feeling.  For the first time in my life I was going to be fully known by another individual, and that was terrifying.

We got married on 06.08.02 as planned.  I know we both hoped that my "meltdown" was indicative of the stress of a fast-paced relationship and the numerous changes that accompanied it.  But it wasn't and it still isn't.  My dervish costume is still a part of the wardrobe, unfortunately.  Instead of reeling out of control (at least that's how it feels),  I'd like to be able to dance in concert with those around me and, ultimately, with God.

It's been a long time since I've felt such a connectedness to Him.  And therefore a long time since I've realized that He is still actively penning the narrative of my life.   But that doesn't change the fact that He is.  Throughout it all, the Christ Bearer has remained by my side.  He continues to hold up the mirror and bid me look at the glorious reflection of all that I've been created to be, rather than the shell of a person that I usually perceive myself to be.  He bids me to hear and live in the Truth rather than succumb to lies that slither sneakily in and out like snakes.  Much of the time I reject his invitations.  Much of the time I resent them.  And so I pen this to bid myself to respond, not to him, but to the One he points me to.  And I pen a prayerful "wish list" much in the way that I did when I so wanted to date this guy with the Wilson's leather jacket and the perpetual need for a haircut.

1. That I would know His presence, His goodness, His purpose in my life.
2. That I would not fear nor trust in the "future."
3. That I would honor my husband in my thoughts, words and deeds.
4. That I would be a Christ bearer myself.

Merry Christmas, Toph.


On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a sparkly engagement ring.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...two houses in the first two months of marriage

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...3 lovely, loud, leggy ladies.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a love for beer, domestic and imported.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a lesson in f-stops and shutter speeds.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a lesson in how to drive a stick shift, at nine months pregnant, no less.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me...the need to never again invest in an electric blanket.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...the role of "doggy mama" instead of "crazy cat lady."

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...an impartiality for bourbon, and the finer things that boys enjoy.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a trip to the Homeland with the fam!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a really amazing "dream house, meeting a litany of crazy requirements!

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...another anniversary, another promise to continue to be the Christ Bearer in my life.

Musings: David and Goliath

I have just read a tidbit of Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath. After finally parting ways with The Count of Monte Cristo, I found myself in a subtle state of mourning, not sure in what literary direction to head next…a bit reluctant to head back down the path of classical or contemporary fiction again, I started reading a preview of Gladwell's latest book.

My first (and only) introduction to his work was in reading The Tipping Point,

R-O-A-R

To say I'm not a Katy Perry fan is an understatement. I tend to find her lyrics cliché at best, offensive at worst. And the music isn't particularly inspiring. Anyone who knows me knows I don't speak the language of music. I have no rhythm and very little understanding of what goes into making music. But I do know when something is just downright bad! So when my girls asked me to listen to her single "Roar" my immediate relief had to do with the fact that I didn't have to censor anything. It's an upbeat girl power song…nothing new, but nothing bad.

 The video shows a timid Katy who relies on her macho companion for everything--to know what to say and what move to make. In short, she is the caricature of the helpless maiden. Once the Ken figure dies, however, Miss Katy finds herself alone in the jungle having to fend off fierce animals (I did mention this was a video and that it was a Katy Perry video--no further explanation needed for the dramatic flair). As you might guess from the title of the song, our protagonist experiences a transformation, and pretty soon she sings to let the world know that she and she alone is in charge of her world! Indeed she tames the lion with her voice (while wearing some nicely tailored animal skins, I might add). 

She is woman, hear her ROAR! And why shouldn't a girl be empowered to have her voice heard, right? It's a message I know very well intellectually, having grown up the daughter of a single mom for a good chunk of my youth, the alum of a progressive Ivy league school (we won't mention it was the last of its kind to go co-ed) and the mother of three future women. But I know lots of things intellectually (some days I doubt this!). That doesn't mean I "get" them. So after about the eighteenth time listening to the song, all four of us females singing, I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter/Dancing through the fire/'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar/Louder, louder than a lion/'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar! I realized that I really didn't get it.  To be blunt, the lyrics smacked me in the face like a wet rag.  What I routinely communicate to my girls is "shhhh!"  Literally, I spend a lot of time "shhhing" them.  They're loud.  They're talkative.  And they're a threesome  so it's rarely quiet in my airspace and sometimes "shhhing" is necessary.  But sometimes it's not.  Sometimes I need to enjoy the fact that they so intrinsically know they were created to ROAR and that nothing in this world has thus far squelched that in them…including me.  They push the limits, they challenge my husband and me when when they disagree with a decision, they get in trouble…they live life to the fullest and they are not afraid of what the future holds.  They are not me, the forty-some year old who has spent countless hours and countless dollars trying to find her voice.  But there's still plenty of time left and if I'm not deliberate, they will learn from me to whisper instead of roar.  So I am trying, trying, to pause and ask myself (in the midst of the chaos) if I really do need to "shhh" anyone at this particular moment.  

There's been a video circulating that shows girls responding to the request to "run like a girl" and, as might be expected they run in a half-serious manner, arms flailing.  How often do I reinforce the stereotype that I loathe: that girls are weaker or less legit in their very being (don't get me started on the lack of sensitivity displayed when people ask a pregnant woman the gender of her unborn child!)?  I think I do it quite a lot, whether by not respecting myself enough, my husband (I'm not sure where Katy stands, but ROAR to me does not equal man bashing), my kids?  Another blog I read recently dissected the comical scenario of a dad with the shotgun ready to defend his daughter from any unworthy suitor.  This mom challenged us to rethink that whole notion:

Instead of intimidating all your daughter’s potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own. Because, you know what’s intimidating? Strength and dignity. Deep faith. Self-assuredness. Wisdom. Kindness. Humility. Industriousness. Those are the bricks that build the wall that withstands the advances of old Slouchy-Pants, whether you ever show up with your Winchester locked and loaded or not. The unsuitable suitor finds nothing more terrifying than a woman who knows her worth to God and to her family.


Wisdom taken from: http://jenwilkin.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-daughters-and-dating-how-to.html?spref=fb


What a crazy notion!  Raise our girls to intimidate their suitors!!!  Raise our daughters to know their worth and to flaunt it! Raise our daughters to ROAR!

As parents we are continually realizing that we learn as much, if not more, from our kids than we ever teach them.  I live with a proud bunch of lionesses and I could learn a thing or two from them.  I'm going to start by making sure all the car windows are rolled down when we sing that song.

From Listlessness to Restfulness

Summer is a season that I alternately yearn for and dread at the same time.  Why?  Because of it's vastness.  The confines of an overly-scheduled life give way to the expansiveness of sunny, sweaty summer days.  There are so many options and in the first few weeks the infiniteness of summer makes us all giddy.  No need to figure out what to do or plan an outing, there's plenty of time for that!

We spend too many hours in the sun, eat too much sugar, play too much--if that's possible-- and generally unwind from the previous 10 months.  Life is good.  Any parent knows that if your child/children are happy, then the odds are that you're happy too.  This summer has been good in that regard.  Oh sure, we've had the dramas of not wanting to go to camp, wanting to stay longer at camp, or whatever the daily topic may be, but overall, it's been a good summer for the young Ranks.  And therefore it's been a good one for the Missus.  Until a few days ago.

Malaise is the best way to describe what I feel--or what I don't feel.  Lest I get too philosophical too soon there are pragmatic reasons for my mental lethargy: ongoing insomnia, a more relaxed mentality that can border on laziness(!), lack of work day structure, and so on.  But malaise is not the same thing as depression, which I am not currently struggling with.  Malaise, to me, is that slow moving slug of a thing that enters my being so stealthily and sets up camp in my soul.

My initial reaction when I sense malaise creeping in is to prescribe my own antedate of busyness.  After all, the WORST thing a stay-at-home mom can be is unproductive.  It's downright uncivilized!  The problem is, I've never been a great "doer" (oh, sure, I get things done, but not to the domestic heights that my German foremothers  exemplified) so trying to ramp up my productivity when I feel motivated to do nothing typically results in a few piles moved and, if I'm lucky, a few loads of laundry completed.  Not a total waste, but definitely not a remedy for my malady.

A common sense solution to my problem of wanting to do nothing but needing to do something has been to catch up on my reading.  It's been a very practical option: I can take the kids to the pool and plop myself in a shaded corner to catch up on book club picks.  At least then I could say I'd done *something,* even if the house didn't reflect my efforts.  So last week, after finishing my easily digested adolescent novels I dug into The Count of Monte Cristo.  All 2000 pages of it.  I muttered a few choice thoughts about why we had to read a book this ginormous when they typical window of alone time lasts no more than 30 minutes, if I'm lucky.  Nonetheless, I got started.  In pure pragmatic fashion I decided to try and tackle 100 pages for the next 20 days.  Certainly that was doable.  After all, I was NOT going to have any excuse for not finishing it since it was summer vacation.  After about day one I found myself not wanting to put the book down.  Its been a long time since I've re-read one of the classics like Dumas' and I was struck at how matter-of-factly he diagnoses the human condition.   There's no justification for the villains acting villainous.  They are motivated by selfish greed, pure and simple.  Conversely, the righteous are motivated doing what is honorable and the thought of not doing so is comparable to death.   They are internally driven, whether towards right or wrong.  At this point in my reading The Count has begun exacting justice against his former tormentors and my curiosity is peaked to see if he will succumb to his anger or whether Dantes will reappear.

In the midst of my malaise I ask myself a similar question: will I give in to listlessness and dissatisfaction or will call myself to the better purpose of resting in the moment.  Purposeful resting is not something that comes easily.  Deliberately sitting and listening to the world and people around you instead of shouting at them to try and be heard is what I'm attempting.  Learning that sitting peacefully to reflect on what's ruminating in my heart does not equal laziness is a new-found freedom I'm trying to enjoy.  Transforming listlessness, or a directionless, sedentary state to a thoughtful, resting state is what I desire so that summer may be a time of blessed "re-set" and repose….