I asked my friend Christi to write up a little something for the site about her experience. She has gone from being given 6 weeks to live, to being given the "all clear". I am so proud of her spirit and determination, and also amazed at the number of people - friends, family and even complete strangers who sent their prayers, positive thoughts and general good wishes to Christi during her journey.
Here are her thoughts:
Forever is our today. This sums up what it’s like to live as someone who has a terminal illness. You are forced to make memories which have to last a lifetime and always seem to come up short.
My mother and sister were with me at the oncologist’s office on the day I received the biopsy results. I didn’t break down and cry or believe it was the end. I knew it was serious and that I had better get my shit together, so to speak. I asked my family to leave the room so I could talk to the doctor. I said, “Okay…so what are we talking about here, really?” He said, “About six weeks.” He recommended I start chemotherapy right away with radiation to follow. I agreed because I was ready to hit it and hard.
It took a long time for me to really cry over being told I was “sick”. I was dumbstruck trying to find what I thought might be the appropriate response to living with lung cancer. How could this happen to me – a non-smoker? What did people do when they were given this type of information? Cry for days? Give up? Deny it? I just couldn’t find an answer…
How in the world were my two toddlers going to remember me? Mommy would just be someone in a picture or whose jewelry or lock of hair they touched trying to remember what it felt like to be in her presence. These thoughts gave created a deep sinking feeling inside which paralyzed me with fear and sadness. I am thankful the terrifying moments were fleeting.
My self-esteem had suffered since I was young and I didn’t believe in myself…in my own strength. It wasn’t long after being diagnosed, however; that my true self came forward…a woman of action, immediacy and strength with a positive nature to support what I knew would be torturous times.
I never felt compelled to read anything about cancer, whether in print or online. I know some cancer patients savor every scrap of information they can find to feed their need to be actively involved in their own care. But somehow, I quietly knew that I was going to be okay. I believed it, lived it, said it and even dreamed about it.
At night, I would visualize the cancer being engulfed in a white light, rolled up into a ball and hurled out into space. I begged and cried for whatever mysterious creator and/or protector who might hear me to obliterate the mass and never allow it to return.
During the illness, I would sometimes have the distinct feeling it was not about me. It seemed to be more about other people in my life…that they had something to learn from it. I knew I had the strength to weather the treatment and ensuing sickness. I knew I was going to be okay and that this was an experience I was meant to have.
I have come to believe that we are all here for a purpose much greater than ourselves…to learn how to overcome negativity and grow and expand our soul. One of my favorite phrases is “Don’t block the way and the way will carry you.” The exact meaning and how it applies to our life is something we must each figure out.
Christi L. Drake
10/18/05
Monday, October 24, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
My Washer Does Not Spin by Jeannette Balleza
Today was one of those days. Yes, the kind that makes you want to throw in the towel.
After spending a day dealing with various and sundry technical problems, pesky tasks and surly customer service people, I decided to do just that—literally.
Late this afternoon, I tore myself away from my sadly, yet aptly, described “non-billable” work day to do some laundry—a nice housekeeping task that has an easy enough beginning and a tidy ending that results in clean sheets, neatly folded towels in the hallway closet and, my personal favorite, one less thing to do on my mental “to-do” list.
I shuffled around the house, gathering sheets from this room and handpicking same-color clothes from that pile, and shoved my findings into the washer. I selected “large” for the load size, clicked the timer to “casuals,” shut the lid and went about my happy way.
Less than an hour later I returned to the washer to move the load to the dryer, and when I lifted the lid, there it was. A wet, soppy mess. Mr. Spin Cycle had abandoned me, kicking me in the stomach when I was already down for the count, just one week after I’d rebounded from Mr. Toilet checking out to the tune of 600 dollars in repairs and a replacement. I mean, c’mon.
I tried the various “I’m-a-homeowner-but-that-doesn’t-mean-I-know-what’s-going-on” tricks: opening and shutting the lid, frantically searching the perimeter of the tub for some hidden magical switch and, of course, shaking the entire machine.
It was actually a pretty sad sight, as the only troubleshooting to which I’m accustomed involves force-quitting my e-mail program or rebooting my Mac.
After my roommate came home and surveyed the situation, we both leapt into action, doing what we each felt was our only remaining option. She called her dad, and I rummaged through my files to see if I could find the warranty.
It turned out that she, even with her dad’s advice, couldn’t find the hidden magical switch either, so I did a search for General Electric’s web site.
I found the FAQs page in the Support section and scrolled through the list of choices, trying to find the description that best fit my particular service problem. I quickly found that I was not alone in my predicament because in the top tier of the help topics was the link “My Washer Does Not Spin.”
Click.
What I found may as well have been my horoscope in the free weekly newspaper. The information was vague, but yet I still felt like everything applied directly to my situation. It read almost like a self-help guide about how to keep one’s head in any given stressful situation.
Wait for a few minutes because pauses of up to three minutes may occur between cycles as the timer advances in steps.
Translation by the stars: Take ten deep breaths before you blow a gasket, you overreactor.
Check your house fuses, circuit breakers and the wall outlet. A loss of electrical power to the washer will cause a failure to spin. To check for power at the wall outlet, carefully plug a small table lamp or hair dryer into the wall outlet and turn it on. If it does not work, you may have blown a fuse, tripped a circuit breaker or have a defective wall outlet.
Translation by the stars: Take a step back, look beyond symptoms and try to identify the real stressor at hand. A loss of power in one area of your life can throw things off balance, causing a disruption in other areas. Often you can glean the most effective solution by examining the context of a particular emotion.
Make sure washer lid is down.
Translation by the stars: Don’t miss the obvious by being oblivious.
Advance timer slightly to make sure timer was not in a pause mode.
Translation by the stars: Look to the future for perspective now. Will this matter in a day, a week or 10 years? Most of the time, the answer is “no.” Sometimes people stagnate by focusing so hard on what’s wrong in the present moment that they cannot conceive the possibility of a silver lining.
If machine pumps water out and you are positive that the motor is running, but tub is not spinning, then the problem is mechanical involving a clutch, belt or possibly the transmission and will require service.
Translation by the stars: Lady, you better keep looking for your warranty AND your original receipt. If you think your life is in working order, but you find yourself taking advice from the General Electric web site, you require some professional help.
At any rate, luckily I’m just 10 months into my washer’s one-year warranty, so until the washer repair people make a service call, I guess I’ll have to wait to throw in the towel.
I wonder if they charge extra for palm readings.
____________________________________________________________________
Copywriter/editor Jeannette Balleza owns Scribe Marketing, Inc. (http://www.scribemarketing.com), which offers content development and refinement. You may contact her for creative concept development, copywriting, editing and research at jeannette@scribemarketing.com.
After spending a day dealing with various and sundry technical problems, pesky tasks and surly customer service people, I decided to do just that—literally.
Late this afternoon, I tore myself away from my sadly, yet aptly, described “non-billable” work day to do some laundry—a nice housekeeping task that has an easy enough beginning and a tidy ending that results in clean sheets, neatly folded towels in the hallway closet and, my personal favorite, one less thing to do on my mental “to-do” list.
I shuffled around the house, gathering sheets from this room and handpicking same-color clothes from that pile, and shoved my findings into the washer. I selected “large” for the load size, clicked the timer to “casuals,” shut the lid and went about my happy way.
Less than an hour later I returned to the washer to move the load to the dryer, and when I lifted the lid, there it was. A wet, soppy mess. Mr. Spin Cycle had abandoned me, kicking me in the stomach when I was already down for the count, just one week after I’d rebounded from Mr. Toilet checking out to the tune of 600 dollars in repairs and a replacement. I mean, c’mon.
I tried the various “I’m-a-homeowner-but-that-doesn’t-mean-I-know-what’s-going-on” tricks: opening and shutting the lid, frantically searching the perimeter of the tub for some hidden magical switch and, of course, shaking the entire machine.
It was actually a pretty sad sight, as the only troubleshooting to which I’m accustomed involves force-quitting my e-mail program or rebooting my Mac.
After my roommate came home and surveyed the situation, we both leapt into action, doing what we each felt was our only remaining option. She called her dad, and I rummaged through my files to see if I could find the warranty.
It turned out that she, even with her dad’s advice, couldn’t find the hidden magical switch either, so I did a search for General Electric’s web site.
I found the FAQs page in the Support section and scrolled through the list of choices, trying to find the description that best fit my particular service problem. I quickly found that I was not alone in my predicament because in the top tier of the help topics was the link “My Washer Does Not Spin.”
Click.
What I found may as well have been my horoscope in the free weekly newspaper. The information was vague, but yet I still felt like everything applied directly to my situation. It read almost like a self-help guide about how to keep one’s head in any given stressful situation.
Wait for a few minutes because pauses of up to three minutes may occur between cycles as the timer advances in steps.
Translation by the stars: Take ten deep breaths before you blow a gasket, you overreactor.
Check your house fuses, circuit breakers and the wall outlet. A loss of electrical power to the washer will cause a failure to spin. To check for power at the wall outlet, carefully plug a small table lamp or hair dryer into the wall outlet and turn it on. If it does not work, you may have blown a fuse, tripped a circuit breaker or have a defective wall outlet.
Translation by the stars: Take a step back, look beyond symptoms and try to identify the real stressor at hand. A loss of power in one area of your life can throw things off balance, causing a disruption in other areas. Often you can glean the most effective solution by examining the context of a particular emotion.
Make sure washer lid is down.
Translation by the stars: Don’t miss the obvious by being oblivious.
Advance timer slightly to make sure timer was not in a pause mode.
Translation by the stars: Look to the future for perspective now. Will this matter in a day, a week or 10 years? Most of the time, the answer is “no.” Sometimes people stagnate by focusing so hard on what’s wrong in the present moment that they cannot conceive the possibility of a silver lining.
If machine pumps water out and you are positive that the motor is running, but tub is not spinning, then the problem is mechanical involving a clutch, belt or possibly the transmission and will require service.
Translation by the stars: Lady, you better keep looking for your warranty AND your original receipt. If you think your life is in working order, but you find yourself taking advice from the General Electric web site, you require some professional help.
At any rate, luckily I’m just 10 months into my washer’s one-year warranty, so until the washer repair people make a service call, I guess I’ll have to wait to throw in the towel.
I wonder if they charge extra for palm readings.
____________________________________________________________________
Copywriter/editor Jeannette Balleza owns Scribe Marketing, Inc. (http://www.scribemarketing.com), which offers content development and refinement. You may contact her for creative concept development, copywriting, editing and research at jeannette@scribemarketing.com.
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