Season Changes: What Season Are You In?

Posted October 19th, 2016

This is the beginning of my favorite time of year, this golden-aspen-football-pumpkin season that extends to turkey-more football-pie-gratitude season—(although gratitude season should be year-round)—followed by the Christmas-music-lights-knitting-scarves-gift-giving season. Photo credit: Unsplash It’s also the season of the long slow sweet good-bye as I walked beside Hubby. Just two years ago. (Why does it seem like last month?) The Byrds […]

Why We Should Think About End-of-Life Wishes

Posted September 28th, 2016

Hubby made a good choice when he was offered a third chemo. He declined. “The other two didn’t do much good,” he reasoned. That’s when the oncologist asked if we wanted a referral to hospice care. We were hesitant. Isn’t it too soon for hospice care? I mean, after all, Hubby was planning to walk out of […]

Extreme Ownership: How Cancer Patients Lead and Win

Posted September 6th, 2016

After Hubby was diagnosed with late stage prostate cancer, we recruited a full team to help us face down this disease. Gary was the coach; I signed on as assistant coach. In their best-selling book on leadership, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win, former Seals Jocko Willink and Leif Babin have this to say: “Leadership is the most […]

Why Telling Our Stories Can Be Healing

Posted August 24th, 2016

I met this amazing young woman, Sarah Thebarge, at a writers’ conference in Portland this past week when I took her coaching class, “The Healing Power of your Story.” Coaching classes are eight hours in length, spread over three days;   they include writing exercises and the time allows for some excellent in-depth instruction. This […]

How to Dare Greatly With Cancer

Posted August 8th, 2016

Granddaughter Lilly, a black belt in Mixed Martial Arts, recently competed in an MMA tournament and captured two third place finishes. On the way home, she and I FaceTimed and of course she was disappointed, because she has some rather nice first-place hardware in her room at home. But by the time she and her dad stopped for lunch and she […]

4 Brave-Making Action Steps For Cancer Survivors

Posted August 3rd, 2016

Sometimes when things hit hard and fast — like loss of health or a way of life, or loss of a loved one — there can be a tendency to wrap our lives tightly around ourselves, much like a security blanket, and stay put. All of a sudden, venturing out doesn’t feel very safe. Two summers […]

3 Great Reasons To Have Gratitude On Your Cancer Team

Posted July 25th, 2016

When cancer showed up (on top of financial setbacks), I’m sorry to say I did my share of whining. For the most part it wasn’t out loud, but there was a definite lack of gratitude in my heart for much of anything. There are some concepts, though, that we all sort of know. And one […]

12 Simple Ways to Get Back Into Life With Cancer

Posted July 19th, 2016

This past weekend was the annual Tour des Chutes — a multi-distance cycling event and walk/run in my hometown to help local families dealing with cancer. Founded by cycling enthusiast and brain cancer survivor, Gary Bonacker, the event has surpassed the million-dollar mark in fundraising. Which is pretty amazing for a small-town, grassroots venture. But […]

What a Great Cancer Support Team Looks Like

Posted July 5th, 2016

A spontaneous group hug from The Littles—can you count all four heads?—took place at the train station in New Jersey after hanging out with the youngest of my support team members. (The Teens, of course, are way too cool to do group hugs. Not that either of them were even out of bed when this photo was taken, […]

The Essentials For A Cancer Vacation

Posted June 21st, 2016

My first thought—as we were hugging good-bye and someone said, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”—was that it took something like cancer to motivate us to plan this sibs-and-mom-in-law vacation. And then the next thought was, with everyone’s crazy busy schedules these days, how does anyone have time to plan memory-making experiences with larger, extended groups of the people […]