83 Wonders & Worries



that's me -- bottom row, third from the left

I volunteered in August 2010 for the ¡Qué Maravilla! fundraiser that benefits Wonders & Worries and worked at the event performing registration and checkout duties. (¡Qué Maravilla! is Spanish for "What a Wonder!")  After three years of chairing the committee handling those tasks for the BCRC’s Champagne Brunch and Silent Auction event, it was nice to take the mental break and just follow someone else’s instructions.


I'm on the left, seated


My goal was to lend a hand, not to learn anything new, but the exposure to a successful silent auction with fewer items and fewer attendees became a great teacher of new ideas I ended up applying a month later. I’ve held firm in my resolve not to participate in the Champagne Brunch this year. I still need that mental break; but I allowed my friend Bill Bastas to talk me into handling registration and checkout for The Smile Never Fades gala last Thursday. There I worked at the registration tables almost the entire night so I didn’t observe the event in action. For ¡Qué Maravilla! I wandered around during the live auction. ¡Qué Maravilla! became an emotional experience.

I think the strategy was brilliant. They called child life specialist Kim Fryar to the lectern for a short speech before the live auction. She spoke about the services Wonders & Worries provides for families around Central Texas. She spoke of the number of clients they help each year and how their services are special. I adore Kim because she taught our Child/Parent Relationship (CPR) class that my husband and I attended last year and her gentle, accepting manner is perfect for supporting and guiding families through difficult times.

 

Kim spoke about Wonders & Worries. A client spoke about the service she had received. And then the live auction began. I stood at the back searching for cocktail napkins to wipe away the tears in my eyes. People raised their paddles and bid on fantastic items. The auctioneer worked the crowd and the items sold. I strongly suspected that many of the people attending the event were just as moved as I had been.  

people pledging cash with their paddles



the silent auction area

 

 

back side of the silent auction area with beautiful old tree

Wonders & Worries is a non-profit organization in Austin, Texas that helps children and their families cope with the life-threatening illness or incurable disease of a parent or caregiver. They have wonderful, compassionate, trained child life specialist on staff and their services range from private sessions between a child and a counselor, to group sessions, to counselors traveling to schools, to classes conducted for parents. The first thing they helped us understand is what a "child life specialist" does.

When children are sick and in the hospital for cancer or other life threatening illnesses, a child life specialist generally comes to the hospital to help the child cope with the ramifications of the child's illness. To quote from their web site's "About" page:

Meredith Cooper, MS, CCLS, LPC and Melissa Hicks, MS, CCLS, LPC, RPT are two certified child life specialists who have attended to the psychosocial needs of children with cancer and blood disorders for several years. Both began work with pediatric oncology patients and children affected by other chronic illnesses. This work expanded to services with children who have a parent with a chronic illness, primarily with cancer. In 2001 Cooper and Hicks created the W&W program because they saw the need for more formalized psychosocial services for children and adolescents who have a parent diagnosed with a chronic or life-threatening illness. As professional Child Life Specialists (CLS) working in a hospital setting, they saw first hand the devastating effects a family member’s illness can have on the emotional well-being of the entire family.

I first attended an open house at Wonders & Worries in 2007 that invited the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls members. My cancer was diagnosed just before Kelric was born and my treatments all took place during his infancy, so Kelric wasn't directly affected in ways that he can remember. Do we tell our child that Mommy had cancer? we asked during that meeting in 2007. The answer was, "Yes. He needs to know that cancer is part of your family's collective history. If he learns about it unexpectedly somehow when he's older, it can be a traumatic revelation. It should just be a part of things that he feels comfortable discussing and asking questions about, and not a deep, dark secret that he uncovers one day by accident."

They suggested that we wait until our son was three before bringing him in. We wondered if he would really need any counseling after all, but after losing our dog Wendy in December 2008 (when he was two) and Kelric’s great grandfather the following April (just after he turned three), we saw profound effects on our little boy and decided it was time. I’ve even written about that in earlier blog entries. We took the Child/Parent Relationship class at Wonders & Worries in 2009.

Kim Fryer 2nd from left

Since then I’ve been able to talk with my young son about my having had cancer and about his great-grandfather having died from cancer. We’ve worked towards using the parenting and communication skills we learned in the class.

I’ve come to view Wonders & Worries as an amazing resource for families. It’s a powerful thing to know in a time of stress that you are not alone. Wonders & Worries helps parents communicate with their children at age appropriate levels, and they give the children tangible proof that those children are not alone, and their feelings – even strong negative feelings such as anger and fear and resentment – are not only normal but acceptable.

The value of this service goes to that place beyond words. It is priceless.

And yet…there are dollar values attached to things because we live in the real world.


Kim Fryer



During the live auction they stopped the auction part to conduct a cash donation portion. The auctioneer would announce an amount, and would solicit people to pledge to donate that amount in cash. Kim stood once again at the lectern stating succinctly what that amount would buy. Certain amounts would buy enough supplies for them to support one family for a year. Other amounts would pay for the food for an entire 8-week CPR class. Kim described the goals, and people contributed generously. I stood around in awe that in this economy there are still people who will contribute to causes like this. I hung back, deliberately trying to be inconspicuous and unnoticed, and felt enormously proud that I was giving my time to support this cause.

After the CPR class in 2009 I made a point of telling Kelric that his great grandfather's death was not his fault -- that nothing he said or did caused his grandfather to get sick or to die. My goal was to inoculate our egocentric preschooler from the typical young child reaction of thinking the world revolves around him so the death of a family member must somehow be his fault. Kelric didn't quite take that message to heart the way it was intended, however.



Shortly after that conversation our little boy brought up the subject at dinner one night. He started crying, telling us how Wendy died and he missed Wendy, and how his grandpa had died and he missed his grandpa. Then he added (while looking thorougly depressed), "It's all my fault."  Oh! That broke our hearts into a thousand pieces! We quickly reassured Kelric that these losses were NOT his fault. We held him and comforted him and wondered if he believed us. It's so hard when a child asks "Why?" and the answer is "It's just one of those things that happens."

The important thing, however, was that our little boy was actually talking to us about these feelings. He was trying to work things out. He was trying to wrap his young mind about the enormity of death.

It was a painful process, trying to guide our child as we dealt with our own grief over these losses, but we kept at it and made healthy progress. Wonders & Worries helped us figure out how.



I think other groups like Wonders & Worries exist, but none are exactly like them – and that’s a shame because this group should exist everywhere. Wonders & Worries provides all of their services free of charge for their clients. They have wonderful flexibility on when and where their child life specialists work with the children. They actively try to reach out to underserved communities. Most of all they help innocent children cope with experiences so stressful, so traumatizing, and so painful that most people turn away because they don’t know what to say. Wonders & Worries makes an impossible situation bearable, and they do great works in helping to heal the human spirit.

Their goal is to someday have a Wonders & Worries in every major city (and small town) to support this large and vulnerable population of children. I hope this goal gets realized.

Previous - 82 My Time on Capitol Hill - April 2010

82 My Time on Capitol Hill - April 2010

April 26, 2010

A week ago today I was in Washington, D.C.  It was a fantastic experience!

It started last year when someone from the Pew Charitable Trusts noticed this blog and contacted me.  They have joined with four other non-profit organizations to create an alliance that drafted legislation.  They scheduled a lobbying campaign with volunteers like me, and earlier this year invited me to join them.  Thrilled to be included, I accepted the invitation.

The bill was introduced to the House just three weeks ago.  It's H.R. 4959.  The link takes you to a web page that summarizes the bill and gives you an easy way to pull it up in a PDF file.  Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the summary of what the bill is about.

The job of the volunteers was to schedule time with their state lawmakers to discuss the bill and why it's worth supporting.  We told our stories about having had diseases that were cured or controlled by medication derived from nature.  An employee of one of the non-profits was with us to directly address the contents of the bill.  It felt like a job interview almost, with being very conscious of the passage of precious time and dressing formally and professionally.  There was polite small talk and hand shaking upon greeting and leaving, and yet it was thrilling to walk through the halls of buildings where this country's laws are pondered, discussed, debated, trashed and supported by our elected officials.

I loved it that Pew agreed with my recommendation that my friend Amy Huff should come along.  Like me, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006.  Like me, she was diagnosed while pregnant.  Like me, Amy had Taxol as part of her chemotherapy treatments.  Like me, her story makes for a compelling reason why we should protect those wild places around our planet that could lead to future discoveries of life-saving medications.  We mothers want to stay alive and watch our children grow up!

Sidebar:  Like me, Amy has earned an accounting degree, only Amy still enjoys work as an accountant and I hate doing pure accounting work. That's why I'm a data analyst instead.  If you're in the Austin metropolitan area with a small business and you need an accountant for payroll, bookkeeping, taxes and other business needs, you can't go wrong with her.  My friend is an incredible lady.  The year she chaired Graphic, the main fundraiser for the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls, the event more than doubled what was collected the year before.  She bakes cookies that are delivered to people in treatment, and involves her children in her philanthropic pursuits so that they learn the importance of helping others in need.

This is Amy Huff with David Hahn, a Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor from New York who is a pianist and a fellow volunteer at the event.  Being coffee addicts, naturally we're having breakfast at Starbucks.

For me, it was a scary thing to e-mail the schedulers of my state's Senate and House representatives and ask for someone to meet with me.  I thought about what I've learned after cancer, and how much stronger I've become.  I thought about how much better I am at facing my fears so I wrote those inquiries and delighted in each response.

What is this bill about?  There is a web site that eloquently describes the problems, why it matters, and what to do about it.  Rather than try to rewrite all of that information in my blog I'm going to put a link to their home page.

What I find compelling is that half of the prescription drugs used in the United States and one quarter of all prescription medications worldwide were derived from some element of nature.  At the current rate of extinction, we'll lose one important new future medication every two years.  "More than 70 percent of cancer medications are based on natural sources," the web site tells us.  Want a list?  Here it is.

I got to speak members of the staff of my two state senators, Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn.  I felt amused and also proud to see a flag from the State of Texas on display at the end of the hallway where her office is located.  While we waited for an audience, I acted like a silly tourist and insited on taking pictures and having pictures taken.  Here is a picture of me in the waiting room of Kay Bailey Hutchinson's office. 

When we met with the actual staffers, though, I was relaxed and to the point.  Our person from the World Wildlife Federation explained that the bill proposes to task an existing Capitol Hill employee with coordinating the efforts of the six agencies that already touch upon and overlap one another with global conservation efforts.  The bill actually asks for no funding at this time.

We spoke about how important plants and animals are to life-saving medication, how it is estimated that one major medication will be lost every two years if the current rate of environmental destruction continues, and how our personal experiences with Taxol lead us to be especially sympathetic with our desire to save our planet.  What we didn't have time to mention was that 75% of the world's plant and animal diversity lies within the undeveloped countries who have no laws or weak enforcement of laws against things like rainforest destruction, illegal logging, coral reef destruction, over fishing, and so on.  We also didn't have time to mention that this conservation effort would mean a continuation of things our country is already doing, such as training people in countries whose populations don't even average a high school education how to be good guardians of the land and how to live more in harmony with the planet.  We teach them better agricultural practices and they stop burning down forests.

Our first night as a group, all the volunteers met with the people from Pew as well as representatives from the other non-profit groups for dinner.  I sat next to a gentleman who has been in one of the groups, I forget which one, for the last ten years.  I asked if he is optimistic or pessimistic about the changes he's seen.  He said he feels pessimistic these days.  His work has been in South America.  Over the last ten years, most of the forty million acres his group has set out to protect from deforestation has remained protected, but over twice that amount in other areas has been destroyed.  It grieved my heart to hear that.

At a D.C. Starbucks shop, conveniently located a mere two blocks away from the hotel, I noticed a sign that claimed Starbucks partners with Conservation International.  I got to speak with a man who works for Conservation International and he backed up that claim, telling me that Starbucks has focused on finding and supporting coffee growers who use sustainable farming techniques.  And he added that Disney has partnered withi Conservation International to help the cause, too, though their area of assistance was different.

This neat looking sculpture is an Alexander Calder piece named Mountains and Clouds.  It is in the building where Senator John Cornyn's office is located.  That's the same office of Tom Udall from New Mexico, the champion of the bill in the Senate.

To my delight, I got to meet Representative Lloyd Doggett, who was every bit as nice in person as he is rumored to be.  I spoke with his staff member first, but had a bit of luck as Mr. Doggett was returning from another meeting and wanted to meet me in person before I left.  Another staff member took our picture together with the Capitol in the background.  They mailed me a print and I'm planning to frame it.

While the staffers and I were standing outside the building after Mr. Doggett had left, we were talking about cancer.  The one woman mentioned that her mother is a breast cancer survivor.  I was glad to hear that her mother is doing fine.  She's glad to hear that I'm doing fine at four years and counting.  I told her about Shannon Iezzi Watson, though, our Pink Ribbon Cowgirl member who was not doing fine.  This conversation was on a Tuesday.  Shannon passed away from breast cancer the Friday before, in the arms of her husband.  She was only 29.  We agreed that cancer is a beast of a disease and needs to be erradicated.

Update from May 2010:  Lloyd Doggett is supporting the Global Conservation Act of 2010.  Hooray!

My trip to D.C. wasn't all work and no play, however.  Amy and I had plenty of time to hang around museums and the lovely Botanic Gardens.  Here are some of the photos from that fun time.

Amy

a powderpuff tree

orchids

 a really interesting cactus of some sort

 

 

It turns out that the Botanic Gardens have a yew tree and signage telling the story of the Pacific yew tree (from which Taxol is now synthetically derived).

Amy and I got to meet Dr. Susan Horwitz.  She and her team figured out how to leverage Taxol into a cancer-killing drug.  The picture is a little blurry (thanks, Amy) but that's me with Dr. Horwitz.  It was an honor to meet her, and I told her so.

I felt amusement when I was in one of the buildings where our some members of the House of Representatives work and I saw fancy trashcans labeled for recycling.  First I was impressed to see recycling in a federal building.  Way to go green, U.S. government!  Second, I was impressed at how pretty the trash cans were.  The people around me were amused at how I scrambled to get my camera out to take a picture before the elevator arrived.  I needn't have rushed.  The elevator took a while.  The building was pretty and stately, but it's old.

I figure if I'm going to post a picture of trashcans, I ought to follow it up with another picture of flowers. 

So there was my first trip to Washington, D.C.  By the time I came home I was extremely happy to be with my husband and son again.  Kelric spent the week telling everyone at school that his mommy was in "Washington AC" saving the plants.

Thank you, Pew, for including me in your lobbying event.  Thanks to my friend Margery who picked me up from the airport and played host to my tourist for the first day and a half that I was there.  You are awesome.  Thanks Amy for being such a fun person to hang around with in an unfamiliar city.  Thanks Guy and Kelric for letting me go!  :-)

Angela

Next - 83 Wonders and Worries
Previous - 81 A Deer, My Dear

81 A Deer, My Dear

February 2010

Driving around Austin I have seen oppossum, skunks, armadillo, and even a fox on the side of the road or darting across it.  I've seen red-tailed hawks in the sky, heard owls in the green belt and seen a heron in a South Austin pond.  This February I saw a white-tailed deer.

In some places around Austin there are so many deer in the wooded areas next to neighborhoods that they will enter people's yards and nibble their flowers and decorative plants.  That's why the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center and nurseries like The Natural Gardener will have "deer resistant" listed on labels of certain potted plants for sale.  (Those are the plants you want, by the way.  Plants missing the "deer resistant" label are prone to be stripped bare when food gets scarce in the green belt or woods if such places exist near your home.)  The nibbling of yard plants is what leads my husband to refer to deer as "long-legged rats."

Still, they're beautiful animals to me.

I was driving along a divided road with a 35 mph speed limit when a deer darted in front of my car.  That in itself isn't odd, but this was in a residential neighborhood rather than a two-lane country road so it really got my attention.  I'll guess that the deer was a doe because it didn't have any antlers.  Maybe it was fleeing coyotes.  I've heard them in the green belt from time to time.

The deer got lucky.  I was the only motorist in that part of the road at that moment, and I was able to slow down enough for it to pass in front of me unharmed.  It ran up to the fence between two houses.  I glanced at a confused-looking deer staring at the 6-foot tall wooden fence as I made the left turn.

The deer also turned left and ran through the various front yards, parallel to and slightly behind my car.  It must have crossed the road behind me because I suddenly noticed it on my right and a couple of houses ahead of me.  Once again the deer headed towards the 6-foot high wooden fence between two houses.

This time, however, the deer didn't stop at the fence.  Instead it jumped up and over the fence without missing a beat.

"Whoa!" I said out loud in my car, thoroughly impressed.  The power the deer used in its legs to make a jump like that awed me.  Wow!

Suddenly, I felt extraordinarily grateful to be alive, and to have been in the right place at the right time to witness that little explosion where nature met neighborhood.

I also wondered how long the deer would stay in that homeowner's back yard and whether it would be there long enough for anyone living in the house to see it.  Now that I think over the situation, I also wonder if the deer took time to nibble any back yard plants before it left.

It's now March 2010, a month that is about to slip into April.  I reached my 4-year anniversary as a survivor on March 3rd.  Hooray!  Four years and counting is an exciting statistic for me.  Later this week I'll get my annual mammogram again, and hopefully there will be nothing in that film to indicate I'm anything other than cancer free.  Our son turned four this month and I must admit that I already like his attitude as a 4-year-old better than the 3-year-old days.  It keeps getting better and better.  (I'm glossing over all the rough moments, of course, because I have forgotten them in the wake of this morning's smiles and hugs before work and school.)

Next - 82 My Time on Capitol Hill - April 2010
Previous - 80 Reflections Upon 2009 - Less Squeamish

80 Reflections Upon 2009: Less Squeamish

I discovered the text in italics in January from an unposted blog entry I had started in November 2008 but later rewrote before posting.  It became Choices: Parts 1 and 2.  I rushed the Part 2 entry because I had just learned that my co-worker Diana Knight had died from breast cancer and I wanted to write a tribute to what an awesome person she had been before too much time slipped past.

In 2009 a newly diagnosed woman asked me if my cancer experiences had permanently changed anything about my life.  I admitted that it had.  Honestly that topic is one that could fill a lengthy blog posting, but the part of the answer I write about today is that my touch with breast cancer left me less afraid of confronting things.

So here I am at the early part of 2010 with this entry from late 2008, and I think this part of the unfinished blog expresses more eloquently what I was trying to say.  I know what kept me from publishing it initially.  I wasn't sure that I was comfortable using the words "my" and "nipple" in something the world could see.  I was embarrassed to think that a male co-worker might read it.  Or my dad.

Now I don't really care.  Nowadays I'm not afraid of a whole bunch of things that used to make me uncomfortable or squeamish.

Maybe that means I've reached another level along the path to maturity or wisdom.  Maybe I'm more comfortable with past events that aren't so fresh. 

In any case, I think the original bit below that I extracted from the 2008 blog entry is superior to the one I posted.  I want to correct my error from 2009 by posting in 2010 what I wrote in 2008.  How's THAT for putting a year in review, eh?


PARKING
When I returned to work in May 2006 from maternity/cancer leave, I felt disoriented. I had been on leave for nine weeks and a lot had changed.


Some of the staff had turned over and new faces replaced the old. Familiar people had moved to different desks. My furniture had been pushed back a foot or so within my office and all of the books I had left on the credenza – some of them personal – had been scattered throughout the department. I was no longer a manager of seven people, and my body couldn’t tolerate a 40-hour work week.

I had gone on leave as a pregnant cancer patient, feeling much more like a victim of circumstance than like a survivor. I returned, proud of my new status of Mommy, yet still adjusting to the changing needs of my baby and to the changing needs of my body. I had made it halfway through chemo.

Cancer had taken a lot away from me at that point. It had taken away my choice to go into labor when my body was ready, and replaced it with a scheduled inducement of labor. It had taken away working breasts that could feed my baby; and replaced them with a tender lumpectomy scar, bottles of formula, chemotherapy-poisoned milk I couldn’t pass on, and one nipple that bled if I didn’t sleep in a bra. It had also taken away the natural situation in which I could put the needs of my child first, and replaced it with a priority to put my needs first. Oh, that was hard! Cancer seemed like a beast, and fighting it felt like succumbing to a heartless machine that stripped away my humanity.


I needed something over which I could have control.


I found it in the parking lot. I broke the old habit of always parking in the back. I began parking in the front of the building, or at one side or the other. I followed whatever mood suited me that day.


Oddly enough, this was freedom to me.


I shrugged off the old constraints I had given myself about my “favorite” area to park the car, and I took on the attitude that my habits didn’t have to define me.


This was a small way to express that sense of personal power, but it mattered, and emotionally it helped me heal.

-------------------------------
That part at the end was what inspired me to cut it from the original entry and paste it into today's entry.  The taking back of some small part of personal power helped me to heal.  Once in a while I get e-mails from people who've let me know that my blog helped them.  Those messages make me feel really good, and let me know that recording such a personal journey through a disease that impacts a woman's image of her sexuality was and still is worth it.

I still park in random parking lot spots at my place of employment.  It's a different parking lot at a different job, but I like how it feels to not be mad that somebody else "took my space" and I like how it feels to make a new choice each day.  It's also a step in the direction of being less rigid. 

I'm a high strung, Type A kind of person, but life has taught me to appreciate what I already have even as I yearn to attain the goals I've set.  I can roll with the punches and find something positive about most any parking space in the garage, even if I have to drive several levels up.  The optimist in me finds something positive in just about any situation I'm in.  If I didn't, I'd cry.

So here's to being less squeamish about saying what needs to be said.

I'm still not going to give details about how cancer treatments affected my sex life, though that is a topic in general that really needs more attention than it gets.  I really sympathize with the women who have had mastectomies and lost all nerve endings in their breasts.  I especially sympathize with the women who are dating and have to add "doesn't care that my breasts aren't my own" to the list of qualities they look for in a mate.  But these are the things you face when a medical event has altered your body.  It is what it is and it doesn't have to be the end of the world or the end of your sexual satisfaction.  Focus on the things you can control and let the importance of the things you can't control dwindle to something trivial.

Anytime I'm faced with a situation that causes me continual stress, I start looking for the pieces that I can change.  If I don't like my job then what new projects can I take on, what new skills can I learn, or what new employer should I try to work for?  If I have a "friendship" that feels more like a battlefield than a friendship, then what do I lose by letting it go?  Or what can I do to make it better?  If I feel like all my time goes towards others so that I never get the time I need to relax and recharge, then what can I shift so that I take back enough time to feel balanced again?  This isn't an exercise I complete once and then forget about.  Life doesn't stand still.  New challenges come up and old situations require new evaluations.

So what did I learn for my life after cancer?  I learned to stop running from the evaluation exercises.  Life is too short to hide from the things that make you uncomfortable.  It's the same advice you've heard a million times from a million other sources, but it's a universal truth because it's true.

Where will I park tomorrow?  I have no idea.  That choice gives me power, and I'm not giving it up.

Next - 81 A Deer, My Dear
Previous - 79 Reflections Upon 2009: Vitamin D

79 Reflections Upon 2009 - Vitamin D

I'm a skeptic when it comes to most things involving cancer prevention or cancer cures. If it isn't backed by double blind scientific trials with a sufficiently large pool of participants, then I will take the conclusions with a grain of salt only.

In 2009 a study came out that pointed out high levels of Vitamin D as having something to do with better odds of surviving breast cancer. I appreciated the way that Dr. Susan Love described the study and its conclusions. The study points out, in a nutshell, that people with higher levels of Vitamin D in their bodies seem to be less likely to develop breast cancer and those who get breast cancer anyway are more likely to survive the disease. Dr. Love challenges that perhaps these people had higher levels of Vitamin D because they spend more time outside and maybe they are outside more because they are exercising more, so we can't conclusively claim that elevated Vitamin D levels alone are absolutely tied to cancer prevention. Maybe Vitamin D helps. Maybe it doesn't.

Then two things happened for me around the same time.

Thing one was that I went to my regular annual checkup with my oncologist. This man keeps up to date with all the breaking news concerning cancer. He is also not likely to grasp at the latest thing without significant evidence that it is meaningful, valid and relevant. When I showed up for the routine lab work that always comes before checkups, the nurse informed me that my doctor now tests all breast cancer patients for Vitamin D levels.

It turned out that my level was low. (My checkup went fine, by the way. I'm still living with NED - No Evidence of Disease.) I got a prescription for an obscene amount of Vitamin D - 20,000 International Units (IU) a week for six weeks - and afterwards followed instructions to take an over-the-counter 1,000 IU per day supplement. If my oncologist believes that bumping up my Vitamin D level will help prevent recurrence, then I'll stand up and take notice.

The second of the two things was an article published by Cure Today. Here is the online version of "The Vitamin D Difference."

This article fascinated me because it drew my attention to the possibility of low Vitamin D levels being a factor in why breast cancer is more deadly to people with dark skin. (I would say "African Americans" but really the issue transcends Americans altogether.)

Here is a powerful quote from the second page of the article:

“A question you really have to ask yourself is, ‘How are African-Americans like Norwegians?’ ” says cancer biologist and epidemiologist Gary Schwartz, PhD, because they have almost the same rate of death from one of the most common cancers in the world.

Schwartz, a researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, says, “They don’t look a lot alike, and they’re not genetically alike,” but it turns out that members of both groups tend to have low levels of vitamin D in their blood.

Oh!

So Norwegians have low levels of Vitamin D because they don't get a lot of sunlight due to their location on the planet.  And dark skinned people have low levels of Vitamin D because the pigmentation of their skin decreases the amount of Vitamin D their bodies create when exposed to sunlight.

Here are two more paragraphs from page four of the same article:

Recommendations for adequate vitamin D supplements depend somewhat on a person's lifestyle, skin color, age, and overall health. A light-skinned lifeguard in a bathing suit on a sunny summer day probably synthesizes as much as 20,000 or 30,000 units of vitamin D, says Giovannucci. People with very dark skin probably need about 10 times as much sun exposure to synthesize the same amount of vitamin D as people with very light skin—or may need more from supplements if they aren't getting that much sun exposure.


Obese people may need more vitamin D (because the vitamin is sequestered in fat), and so do people who can’t readily absorb nutrients from their gut into their bloodstream. Also, people need more supplementary vitamin D as they age, because their skin and kidneys gradually become less efficient at synthesizing vitamin D and converting it into its active form.

That last paragraph, in my opinion, hypothesizes that obese people tend to be more susceptible to getting cancer because their bodies store Vitamin D in their fat.  Older people are at a higher risk for getting cancer because their bodies have gradually changed to where they produce less Vitamin D from the same amount of sunlight.  That could explain why obesity and age are risk factors for getting breast cancer.
 
The article concludes by stating that it is difficult to get enough Vitamin D from diet alone, and that supplements may be necessary.  My oncologist feels that supplements are necessary for me, and I'm in favor of doing what I can to reduce my risk of recurrence.

So, starting in 2009, I'm taking Vitamin D supplements daily.

Next - 80 Reflections Upon 2009 - Less Squeamish
Previous - 78 Reflections Upon 2009 - Exercise, Hair and Friends

78 Reflections Upon 2009 - Exercise, Hair and Friends

EXERCISE
When I switched jobs in 2009 from Company A to Company B, I went from a 9-story building to a 4-story building. My job at Company A had me attending meetings on other floors regularly, so it was common for me to walk up and down three stories of stairs at a time several times a day or week. By the end of my time there I was walking down all nine stories at the end of the day and beginning to walk up as many stories as I could in the mornings before I got too tired. It was great!

But Company B has a locked door on the third floor so I can't walk up the stairs in the morning. If I do I can't exit onto the floor where I work.

Company B has a parking garage, though, and on the mornings when I arrive 15-20 minutes early and don't have work that needs an early start, I will spend the first part of the day walking around the parking garage. We have security guards who patrol the garage regularly, and it's on a side of town where I feel safe, so I'm aware of my surroundings but not especially nervous when I walk in the parking garage.

As a result of my early morning walks, I'm beginning to learn that gloves on a cold day are a smart thing to wear, as are hats. I have debated with myself whether carrying a peppermint mocha from Starbucks while walking counts as exercise or not, and decided the second time I did it that it does.

The parking garage and office building have a pleasant view of downtown Austin, with lots of trees between us and the buildings downtown. The other morning the city was enshrouded in fog from Town Lake (now called Ladybird Lake) to the north side of town. The south side where I was, however, had clear skies. So I walked along the top level of the parking garage and saw this thick, beautiful mist caressing the city. It made me feel good to be alive.

That gratitude about life never leaves me. Nor does the gratitude over having eyebrows, eye lashes, and hair.

HAIR
In 2009 I had my hair cut short again. In 2007 and 2008 short hair reminded me of the strength I gained after surviving breast cancer. I kept it short then to honor that ferocity and determination to live. In 2008/2009 I felt like I had reached a certain level of healing from the trauma that accompanied cancer and its aftermath. I grew my hair back to its layers and shoulder length, which felt long to me. Having long hair once again was symbolic to me as I no longer needed it short to prove to the world that I was strong.

Then in the fall of 2009 I got tired of the long hair and wanted it short again. The length of hair lost all connection with cancer. I just liked the ease of care and the perception I'd developed of short hair looking professional. It was another step along the path of healing, actually, that I could view my hair length as something entirely wrapped up in personal preference and with no lingering connections to anything cancer-related.

After going far too long between cuts, I just had it trimmed yesterday back to the short and sassy style. Ah, freedom!

FRIENDS
In 2009 I made a point to reconnect with some of my friends I don't ordinarily see. Life is too short to have regrets over never seeing people who are important to you, so I've been reaching out as schedules allow, and initiating lunches and get togethers. A certain richness of life has returned as I've been a part of creating new happy memories with people I care about. It's fun. It's emotionally healthy. It's a practice I plan on continuing in 2010.

Next - 79 Reflections Upon 2009 - Vitamin D
Previous - 77 Reflections Upon 2009 - Locked Out

77 Reflections Upon 2009 - Locked Out

We had a surreal event one evening during the "warm but non-unbearably hot" part of the year. (I live in Texas. We don't have a change of seasons so much as we have the "hot" and "not so hot" times of the year.)

Kelric surprised us one evening by asking to go on a walk after dinner. He's three, but once in a while still enjoys a ride in the stroller. This was one of those evenings, and since I'm always interested in increasing my exercise level in pleasant ways and since I get to walk a lot less since my son was born, I was all for the after-dinner walk.

We ended our walk at the neighborhood playground. We arrived just in time for Kelric to play with T., a little boy about the same age who lives in our neighborhood and whose parents with whom we've always enjoyed talking. The big boys and little boys focused on playing with T.'s basketball, and we moms chatted off to the side.

When we finally parted ways and went home, our next door neighbors were sitting outside on their front porch. Before we could attempt to enter our home they informed us that the power was out. Nobody knew why, but there was no electricity on our side of the street. Houses across the street had power, but our side was out and so was part of another street we could see.

The power outage was a big problem for our family because we had brought only our garage door opener with us for household access. With the power turned off, we could not open our own garage door.

We could have called my mom and asked her to come over and bring a house key, but we had recently installed bolts high up on each exterior door. All of the bolts were engaged, so an unlocked door wouldn't help with both front door and back door bolts in place. We were stuck!

We couldn't drive anywhere because we didn't have any keys for the vehicles with us. We didn't even have a cell phone with us.

We were still puzzling about how to spend our evening when the other family walked up from the playground/park and started to walk home. I told them about our situation and they invited us to their house to hang out while we waited.

That was exciting, as these were people we wanted to get to know better but didn't want to seem too pushy about becoming better friends. They live on the street behind us, and as we approached their home we saw that the power was out on their street, too, but only to their house. The house on the left of their house had power. The house on the right did not. So weird! And funny, in a strange way.

The mom made tea, and the little boys played together as we all clustered on the front porch enjoying tea and time together. After a little while the power came back on, and we visited for a bit more before heading home to a late bedtime for Kelric.

I loved how an inconvenience like a power outage led to a pleasant evening sharing interesting conversation with nice people while our children played.

That was Lockout #1 for 2009.

Lockout #2 came when I misplaced my desk key at work.

It was the end of the work day. I was ready to go home and I had my purse locked in the overhead bin of my cubicle. I searched and searched for the little key that should have been in my pocket, but I could not find it anywhere. It wasn't in my jacket pocket. It wasn't on the floor. Most people had already gone home for the day.

I went to my boss who, fortunately, was working late.

"I'm ready to go home but my purse is locked in my desk," I explained. "My car keys are in my purse." He looked at me. "I can't go home."

My boss paused a beat and then smiled. "Sweet!" he said. "You have to stay at work forever!"

He was teasing and I was able to laugh at myself. Then he set about finding the key to the closet that held the keybox with spare keys to all the desks and filing cabinets. By the time he located the right key and walked to my cube, a co-worker had already popped the lock with a crowbar. Airtight security, those desks... No wonder my boss instructed me to take my company laptop home each night rather than leaving it in the office!

So I got my keys, thanked both men, and went home.

Sometime later when I laundered those pants, the key appeared in the laundry basket. How it had remained hidden while I dug through my pants pockets for a dozen times that day, I don't know.

Lockout #3 happened a short time later to my husband. His truck keys fell out of his pocket or off of his beltloop while at the grocery store. He called me at work for a ride home. He had already purchased the groceries before the noticed that his keys were gone, so he had cold stuff in the bag and needed to get home.

That incident wasn't quite so funny, but it wasn't too traumatic. I had the second set of truck keys in my purse so I left work early, met him at the grocery store, and gave him my set of keys. He left word with the service desk just in case anybody found the keys and turned them in. Amazingly enough, somebody did! We got a message the next day that the keys had been found. Guy picked up the original set of keys and things went back to normal.

I returned the lost-and-found kindness later in the year when I found a woman's ring in the grocery store's parking lot. It looked well worn which I took to mean it was much loved. I took the extra time to turn in the ring at the service desk. I have no idea what happened to the ring after I did that, but it felt good to give the ring's owner a chance at getting it back again.

And I found a purse left behind at a fast food restaurant in 2009. I gave it to the staff in case the owner came back for it.

I think back to how wonderful it felt to have our truck keys returned. With all the rotten things you read about in the papers and online articles, it's nice to know that kindness still exists and gets practiced in our society.

Next - 78 Reflections Upon 2009 - Exercise, Hair and Friends
Previous - 76 Reflections Upon 2009 - Employment