Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

My younger son was on a "Life" kick, The Game of Life that is. So I did a little experiment recently where, when I landed on "Get married", I put another girl in my car (pink character). The first time I did it, both my boys said I made a mistake and gave me the blue character. In retrospect, I should have started a conversation then, but I was more than a little taken aback by their vehemence. I tried it again a couple of weeks later, and my younger son was the only one playing with me. I said I'm going to put another girl in my car, because "That's ok too", and went about playing. He adjusted to that idea. For someone (me) who has to manufacture opportunities to discuss, really anything outside of video games with my sons, this seemed a fairly easy way to start talking about non-traditional families. I would love to hear what other parents think.

This past summer I celebrated my 4th cancerversary since I was diagnosed. I did not have a clear idea what to write about so I didn't post, but this past weekend I was clearing out some old papers and got my idea. As usual, if you want to know the story, let me take you back to  June of 2011. I digress, back to my old papers. It is surprising to me that even after 4 years, just how emotional I got. As I was looking through my appointment log, information about treatment choices, books and pamphlets about eating well during cancer treatment,  Cancer 101, Preventing Lymphedema...and more, the emotions just washed over me. Here is my appointment book from the first weeks. At the end of the day, I've had 4 years, and I am working on having more joy in my life and bringing joy to others. I wanted to end on a poem printed on the cover of the Patient Handbook, entitled "What Cancer Cannot Do": What Cancer Cannot Do Cancer is so limited... It cannot crippl

Dear colleague and Facebook friend-wannabe: " Yes, I did in fact get your friend request. It is sitting in my email inbox while I decide what to do with it. You see, just because we are colleagues, it does not mean that I am interested in your friend's son's birthday nor what you and your partner ate for dinner last night nor where you ate even though I am sure the photos you would share would be very enticing. Frankly, while I am very happy to exchange work pleasantries with you, don't mistake that for being deeply interested in every detail (and I do mean detail) of your life and for me wanting to include you in my social circle of family and close friends. Consider if you will, my 'social capacity index' - my ability to have a meaningful interaction with anyone via social media. It is pretty low, and gets lower with each additional friend. I can barely keep up with my immediate family as it is, far less extended family and close friends.

I think it is really difficult raising children in this complex society, and raising girls perhaps even more so. I know there is a lot of discussion about the images of women in the media and the unrealistic expectations of girls. This is a picture taken from a recent Latina Cosmo. While no personal attack on the model is intended, she looks emaciated to me, and for sure I would not want any of my daughters aspiring to this representation of beauty. I do however have nieces, but they don't live in the US and their exposure to this is not quite the same. Fortunately. I am not sure how parents counter this (and I am assuming they would try), or even if I should be parenting my sons differently or how. The only thing I know to do is to emphasize health and personality over looks.

It has occurred to me that even though I rejoined the workforce over 5 years ago, I have not made many posts about what it has been like for me as a working mom. It can be a bit schizophrenic,  described in an earlier post - The mind of a working parent . The challenge is still the same: work/life balance, especially if you have children who are growing up in an increasingly complex world, moving at an increasingly faster pace. Here are 6 things I believe that help keep me on track: 1. Determine the scale of missed dinners. Know before you even start a job, what you are willing to live with.  Imagine you are a family that had dinner at the table every night, decide in advance how many missed dinners you'd be willing to accept before you became unhappy. Does the company support flexible work schedules? How many hours per week are you expected to work?  Would you be comfortable missing 1 dinner per week? 3? In my case, my parameters are the amount of sleep and gym sessions

I recently went on a business trip to Las Vegas - I had not been there in almost 14 years. While I was quite exhausted, (even at the start of the trip), I was not so tired that I could ignore the opulence around me. Below are the paper cranes hanging from the ceiling near check-in. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the ceiling and walls. Everything screamed wealth and luxury. Even the soda bottles were swanky, no regular bottles for this crowd, no sirreee.    In the picture below, not sure you can see, but at the front of the hotel there was a wall of water. So even though the water may be recycled, just the mere thought of the energy and water required to make that go, made me feel a little bit sick. Those little signs in normal hotel rooms that say "We are trying to save our planet, please hang linens if they do not need service", didn't exist here. And those bazillion plastic bottles that conferences supply the attendees? Only the gar

Hard to believe but 6 years ago, my little guy started down the path of karate-do.  I posted this way back in 2009 about his first belt test .  That was quite a feeling for me - the beginning of independence for him. At that time, I had no clue how long he would stick with it, or even that I would be doing it myself. Below - there he is just starting out, and his high white belt. This past April, he tested for his brown belt.  Here he is all geared up for sparring which is part of his brown belt test.  I am so proud of him for staying with the program, helping with the younger students (including me), and doing well within the program. I am thankful for his instructors and all the assistants who helped him along the way. It requires discipline and commitment and that is what makes this success so much the sweeter.

This is a picture I took from the plane as I was returning from a recent business trip. The sunset was beautiful, and I was very happy to be getting back to my family. I had also just bought a bag of Mike and Ike for my sons - getting them a little souvenir when we travel is a tradition. "I'd like the Mike and Ike." This is what I told the checkout person when I placed the bag for her to scan. "What..?" I repeated myself. It took three times, before she understood what I was saying. I eventually had to explain. " I decided to buy the Mike and Ike for my kids." It turns out, she wanted to explain, that most people don't speak with her when they cash, they just say "Here" and push the items to her, so she was very confused when I spoke to her and and actually called out the name of what I was buying. It made me feel sad, that folks are so busy that they don't take the time to appreciate, no, just exchange a few words w

Be Brave I recently took a little trip to The Domain by myself, just to walk around a bit, the last time I walked around there was more than 5 years ago. I had no particular objective other than to see what it looked like after so many years and to check out the Whole Foods at The Domain. But first I started with Neiman Marcus. If you are like me, "Be brave"  are the two words worth remembering. I had to keep repeating them to myself because: You have to be brave enough enter the stores. I went into one, picked up a cashmere sweater for about $500 then moved on to a pants, $1000 - it looked like regular linen pants to me. You have to be brave enough to ask the price of any item you care to know, even if out of idle curiosity. Be brave enough to walk out of the store without buying anything. Be brave, despite not wearing  fancy clothes or shoes. I went in with my ratty jeans and old t-shirt.  At the end of the day, they probably get a lot of window shoppers, so it

I have just been thinking about how my son speaks and what he says. He is 13 now and here is what I have discovered: 1. He does know some curse words, although he does not use them (at least in my hearing). I know this because he knows to switch the YouTube video he is watching when he hears one. 2. His language is tempered by having a younger sibling around (and he knows he will be in big trouble if he forgets that). 3. He gets more animated when he is around his friends and especially when he is gaming with them, and he uses a different vocabulary than regular speech (see #5). 4. I should not be annoyed if I am speaking to him and he shouts back "What?!!" The decibel level gets really, really high when he has his headset on AND he is gaming. 5. I am grateful that he uses expressions like, "What the fudge?",  "Crap" and "YOLO". Usually these are followed by the terms "Die!" or "Hackers!" or "Destroy" , bec

Yes, this is the kind of question you can only hear when breast cancer survivors meet and talk, in this case, about reconstruction. I recently went to my support group luncheon again, after having missed quite a few because I was too busy at work. The Pink Ribbon Cowgirls (PRC) is a support group organized by the Breast Cancer Resource Center . We share our histories and even though some are in different stages of diagnosis, treatment or recovery, and some stories may be hard to hear, I always feel blessed to be part of that group, to connect with my fellow-survivors, hear how they are doing, what new is going on and catching up in general. While it is not always easy we do laugh a lot, and I thought I'd share some snippets of the ridiculous conversations that we have : "Do you still have your ovaries?" "I get so many hot flashes all the time I don't even know what's causing them anymore. Chemo? Meds?" "Think I look good? I have a base

Where have I been? Clearly I've been doing some letting go, but not of this blog. At least, not just yet. I've been reflecting on how I've changed in recent years, and wanted to share some of what I've concluded and what I am letting go of. 1. Let go of old assumptions and constraints when circumstances have changed . Is the old thinking still applicable? When I was first married, money was limited, and we had one sheet set. When it came time to change sheets, it was a pain, (not to mention boring), because we would strip the bed in the morning,  put it to wash before work, and end up having to put back the washed sheets at night when we were both tired, before we could sleep. For a long long time I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could strip the bed and make it at the same time in the morning? Even when money became more available, I still was trapped by thinking I couldn't afford it. Then one day, it dawned on me, I could! My circumstances ha