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Thoughts on Labels

6 Feb

Lamprocapnos spectabilis, known as the Bleeding Heart flower

I don’t really fancy labels.  I’m not speaking of the paper kind, but of the kind we affix to each other.  I don’t much like them because they have a tendency to be overly general.  Yes, we can be crazy one day, but then so grounded the next. Conservative when it comes to running around naked, but liberal when it comes to eating chocolate.  Labels are often so sweeping, they ruthlessly gather up people who might not really deserve them.  And then they keep us from really understanding each other.

Let’s consider the label cancer “survivor.”  What bugs me is the implied message that those who don’t get the label, those who have succumbed to the disease, didn’t triumph. Perhaps didn’t try hard enough.  There’s also something in there for me about a race that never ends, which happens to be true but I don’t really want to be reminded of it, thanks.

Cancer “thriver” is also now bandied about.  (And how is that for a great word?  Bandied.  So light and flirty and easy to pass around, which happens to be what it means.)  Thriver is better, because it doesn’t have any of the end-game feeling about it, but it seems weird to be affixing the concept of thriving next to a word that is so ugly and sapping.

So because as of late I’m being asked to provide short, pithy titles for myself, I’d like to share what label I will be using.

Aficionado.  Oooh, so foreign sounding.  And flamboyant.  Lots of great vowels involved.  It’s also close to impossible to spell correctly the first time, which makes it feel a skosh more important.  I am knowledgeable (another component of being an aficionado) about breast cancer.  Usually an aficionado is also enthusiastic.  While I’m not enthusiastic about having had breast cancer, or that breast cancer exists in the world, I am enthusiastic about my involvement with the cancer community and how my work is helping others.

Over and out.

Sue Glader. Breast cancer aficionado.

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The Universe Speaks

19 Jan

Call it the law of attraction.  Or karma.  Or just a spectacular coincidence.

But what would you call it if you had a conversation with your mentor about how you really really should think about speaking to others about your topic of passion, and not just in a casual way but in a Stand-Up-Before-You-And-Get-Paid fashion.  Then you leave that person and stop at the library and check out a few books on public speaking before you pick up your son to go home.  And at home the little light on your answering machine is blinking.  And the nice lady who just left you a message says how she would like you to be the program speaker for her upcoming fundraising event.

I mean, what do you call that?  Other than ah-mazing.

I’ll take it, of course.  And ask for many more helpings, please.  If all I must do is focus on what I want to happen, which is sometimes harder to do than I would like, then I should get on that.

And so should you.

Maybe we should all sit down with a pen and pencil, and just focus in on a few things here this new year that we would like to happen.  Maybe say them out loud a few times.

That way, whomever is listening can get right on the job of making our dreams come true.

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I’m Coming Out

9 Jan

Do you know what it feels like to come out?

I certainly don’t, but I’m trying.

Now, please, my sexuality is firmly fixed in the heter-oh category, but I’m speaking more metaphorically.  I’m not sure why this is so hard for me, but I struggle with embracing the fact that the things I care about matter.  And that expressing my point of view is valid, and shouldn’t mean I need to apologize.  Or be embarrassed.  Or worry that I am coming off as pushy.

There are so many facets to every matter, and we all have the power to stand squarely on our own convictions, just as long as we do it nicely.  With grace. Dignity.   I’d like to reiterate that point to the two rather militant ladies who set up shop across from my local market with signs of President Obama donning a Hitler mustache.  I told them that I would have been interested in learning of their point of view, except that the little hair patch they superimposed upon our Commander in Chief was offensive.  She wagged her finger at me and told me something about thermonuclear war and Russia and Israel, and that “I should beashamed of myself” for not snuggling right up next to her and denouncing Obama, as he clearly is just like Hitler.

I wonder how successful she was pulling people to her side with that tactic.

Unlike this woman, I come from a mother who never wants to be a bother.  It’s a noble trait.  And her maternal point-of-view runs deep within me.  Although I sigh when I see her don the “I don’t want to be a bother” cloak, I do it myself.  My work now as a champion of talking to kids about a parent’s cancer means, by the very nature of the conversation, that I have to embrace my point of view and repeat it to others.

By the transitive property, that means championing myself.

So many of us are trying to sell ourselves, or our wares, or our thoughts every single day.  We struggle with, as my friend Karen so aptly described it, “the little voice” inside us that doubts ourselves, when we should be thinking of “the big voice” that carries the greater, more inspiring message we embody.

So here’s to believing in oneself.  Hip hip!  To not apologizing for our delightful points of view.  Hurray!  Because, as I tell my son all the time, if we all had the same point of view, then the world would be a very boring place indeed.

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No no

27 Nov

I know no.

No, this can’t be happening.

No, I don’t want to lose my hair.

No, thank you, I’ll pass on daily radiation.

In truth, I couldn’t say no, and neither, most likely, could you.  We had to figure out a way to square our new horrid reality with ourselves. No matter how much we wanted to turn and flee, we had to face the music.

And yet.

Last weekend I had the chance to meet an array of women who have stomped on the word “no.”  I’ll tell you about two.

Rebecca Byrne, who along with me was chosen as a 2011 Pink Power Mom for her work as an advocate for breast cancer patients, was 13-weeks pregnant when she found out she had breast cancer.  Her doctor told her that no, she couldn’t continue her pregnancy.  She needed to terminate it immediately, and start radiation.

Rebecca pivoted out of that office and found another doctor, who allowed her to be treated for cancer while continuing her pregnancy.  Her daughter Emelia is now a happy 1-year-old, and not surprisingly, Rebecca used that same tenacity to start the We Will Not Lay Down 2 Cancer non-profit.

Karen Neblett, who heads up sales for Kids II, the company behind the Pink Power Mom program, has a different relationship to the word no.  Firstly, she doesn’t ever accept “no” as the final answer.  She likes to think of a “no” as meaning something more delightful, like “not at this moment in time.”  Things shift, she said.  Options open up.  At its essence, she said, a “no” simply means you must find another path.  The path to “yes”.

I am embracing this attitude.  Because life can be filled with people telling you “no” for a million reasons, but those who make things happen in this world simply pirouette past the word and sashay on.

So, here’s to staying nimble.  Let’s juke, jive, bob and weave around the negatives in life.

Remember, just like the Australian band Bomba said in their song “Busted”:

“Cursed is the walker who will never travel light.”

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My Trade In

26 Oct

My grandma Flo behind the wheel, circa 1919.  She was a breast cancer survivor, too.

I have a confession to make.

I traded in my ovaries for a Porsche.  It wasn’t a straight trade, of course, but my perspective was that if I was going to have to give up something so precious, I wanted something really outstanding in return.

The shape and sound of a Porsche has held my heart since I was a teenager. I blame this on my first boyfriend, who drove a 914. In a bold statement entirely disconnected from any financial implications, I told myself that someday I too would own a Porsche – preferably before I was 30. At 15, it seemed like a reasonably long timeframe, and even then I understood the importance of not pining away too long for something beautiful.

Life came into sharp focus when I turned 33, and was handed a breast cancer diagnosis only a year after I was handed my new baby boy. I did what was needed to be done for treatment at that time, and attempted to get on with life. Five years later, after doing some real soul searching about the implications both for my family and for myself, I opted to remove what was the last known impediment to my long-term health: my ovaries. I wanted, as I’ve mentioned, something more tangible in return than just the knowledge that I “did all I could do.”

My story is not one of unearthing my car in a barn in Maine; rather, I watched the car ads in the paper and online. So when I found a 1984 silver 911 Carrera convertible with close to 92,000 miles that cost 1/2 of what a new car would, my husband and I jumped at a test drive. And just like that, I slid behind the wheel of the car of my dreams. We drove home with the top down, although it was November and 50 degrees.

The car doesn’t have power steering – that came in the next model year – so driving her is really an active pursuit. You have to steer with your muscles, especially when parallel parking. Her tires are squat and fat, all the better to hug the road. And she does.

She goes everywhere with me. The longest drive she’s been on was a family trip down Highway 1 from San Francisco to San Diego, top down, all our luggage snuggled in the bonnet truck in the front or wedged behind the driver’s seat. My son spent countless hours in the jump seat in the back (sometimes with a blanket over his head) trying to sleep. When it was my turn to take the back seat and I wriggled in there with my legs going sideways, put my head back, and watched the clouds.

And yes, I did stick my young son in a car seat in the back, and then as he grew he eventually moved to the front seat next to me. And yes, I did it with the top down and the wind in our hair. I’m sure there are mothers all over town who wondered what I was thinking to be so reckless, but as I know all too well, life is short and it begs to be lived.

In my case, that’s done behind the wheel of an old Porsche convertible, tunes turned up high, singing into the wind.

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Squeezing Life

2 Oct

Liz from Mill Valley Life (a local online resource from my hometown) asked me to define what I meant by “squeeze life.”

I put it in my video, for heaven’s sake, as the essence of my life.  So I talked about saying yes to opportunities that might make your innards squirm.   To approach life with a bit of bold enthusiasm.  Add a little “yee ha” to your battle cry.

That’s all fine and good, but there are other ways to squeeze life that don’t require a gut check or loud outburst.

Take the fellow in the sedan this afternoon.  He was approaching me on a road that is not quite wide enough for two cars.  I hugged the edge and stopped my car to allow him to pass.  And when he passed, he flicked his lights, two times.

Flash.  Flash.  As if his car was acting all flirty.

This put me in a very good mood.  (Granted, it doesn’t take much.)  I mean, with those two zips of non-verbal light, he told me that he was thankful.  We connected.  And you know what, I couldn’t wait to do the same thing to someone else.  Like I was looking for a way to pass it on.

So let’s hear it for letting someone go first.  And then letting them know you appreciate it.  Let’s try out a friendly wave, a high beam shout out, or just the common ordinary big ‘ol smile.   It’s just being neighborly, really.

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Live live

8 Sep

Do you read that as repetitious?  Or do you hear the difference in the two words?  The first word being the thing that we all wish to do.  The second, as in “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”  As in paying attention.  As in with energy.  As in right now.

My name is Sue, and when I was 33 I found myself focusing on the word “live”.  I was handed a breast cancer diagnosis just about a year after being handed my first (and only) child.  The duality of this situation wasn’t lost on me for a moment, and I vowed,  as I scrambled after his adorable little toddler bottom, that as he grew ever onward, I would do the same.

I mean, really, what else could I think?  It was a potent incentive, to be sure.

It’s funny how, when I look back on that day 12 years ago, I was more a “glass half empty” kind of gal.  Not in a tragic, Eeyore way, but just in a subtle way.  I was (and still am) married to Mr. Sunnyside Up, and his positivity at most everything sometimes baffled me.

Not anymore.

I understand now with piercing clarity that life is what happens every single dingle moment of the day, and why not focus on the positive and steer away from the negative?  For those of us who have pondered the end of our own lives, we are considerate of our time.   We appreciate our time.   All of it.

As I try to not let cancer define me, I understand that it has left an indelible mark on me, both physically and emotionally.   What I don’t want this blog to do is wallow in the yucky.  I choose to inspire.  To tickle your curiosity.  To make you smile.  Snicker.

Most of all, to make you squeeze life a wee bit more.

Words have always been my friend, and I enjoy storytelling.  I also try and listen (both with my ears and my eyes) to what is happening around me, and remind others of the sublime, ridiculous, and beautiful moments that happen when we live live.

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