Every hurdle you clear keeps confidence near.
~Dog
In the morning, I shopped.
In the afternoon, I visited my oncologist.
The Gail of 10 years ago surely would have picked another line. The posture of the young man scanning groceries in line 9 transmitted an I’d-rather-be-anywhere-than-here signal.
The last time he checked me out, he slid a glass container — perhaps more forcefully than intended — down the stainless steel ramp toward the bagger. Spaghetti sauce and apple juice met with a bang. Thankfully, their containers held fast.
The checker looked up at me.
I smiled, shrugged, and said, “All’s well that ends well?”
* In the space of a mere decade, I’ve continued to upgrade a mouse-like modus operandi that once had me scurrying away from people, places, and things emitting whiffs of potential conflict.
It has been just over ten years since I started writing stories. Writing stories has taught me that every day my thinking, being, and doing are writing the story of my life.
With my cart heavily laden, I chose my checker. If tomatoes and apples were to collide, I was certain I could handle it.
When I got up to the register, a cheerless greeting was delivered without eye contact.
“Good morning!” I chirped before asking the question I’d been practicing in my head. “How’s my favorite checker today?”
Oomph! A grimace accentuated his reply. “Terrible.” Yet in a second of pause, he caught himself, looked up, and gave me one of the brightest smiles I have ever seen.
“Your smile says otherwise.” The laugh lines around my eyes deepened. “Working your way up to bigger and better things no doubt!”
I’m four years post-surgery.
I continue to do my best to live up to something nurse Nikki said to me at one of my early chemotherapy infusions:
What I’ll tell you is that some patients make it to the other side of treatment healthier than they come in. What happens on the outside matters — of course it does — but the shifts you make on the inside is where your true power lies.
~ excerpt from Poise: Facing Cancer with Grace and Resilience
Dr. S enters the exam room. Since we first met, his children have aged out of grade school and into high school. I hope that my abundant health at today’s follow-up offsets some of the somber cases he might have seen throughout his day.
“How are things going?” he asks.
“I have two things for you today.” I can see this piques his interest because all I usually say at our catch-ups is that I’m good. I’m good. I’m really, really good.
“Okay. Let’s start with those.”
“I have a riddle… and gratitude. Which would you like first?”
“I’m terrible with riddles. Let’s start there.” (I know he’s not actually terrible with riddles because he figured out how to get me through chemo with less than cooperative blood counts.)
“What do you call a cow who just gave birth?”
Thinking… thinking… “I don’t know.”
“De-calf-en-ated.”
“Mmmm-hmmm. Good one.”
“And now the gratitude… I attended my fortieth class reunion a couple of weeks ago. A handful are dead… two or three from breast cancer. Thank you for everything you did — you do. I’m still here.”
As I drove home, I contemplated how cancer is one of this life’s challenges that has helped me grow into the kind of person who runs toward the change she wants to see in this world… instead of away from it.
Everything you do — with or without an audience — provides evidence to you about who you are and what you are capable of.
~Steven Bartlett