Sshhh...It's A Secret

I recently had to keep a secret at the request of one of our children. Being good news, I was overwhelmed at how hard it became not to blurt it out at every encounter with a friend or loved one. Oh heck, to anyone and EVERY one!

Any discussion about it with my husband was short-lived. He hates nattering  so I couldn't dissect and relish over every bit of the news. Within hours, I found myself bursting at the seams. Like being filled with helium and unable to burp, the sensation swelled and grew until I feared for the worst .
That was Day One With a Secret.

I tried imagining telling- to visualize it in my head without actually executing the task. That picture in my head ballooned comic style into my sister saying, "what...and you didn't tell me?" which ended in a short e-mail to her where a little leak kind of snuck out of my fingers in an expletive kind of moment. Blah...blah...Baby... OOPS!! Had I said that out loud? But really, it was my SISTER who has a government job where keeping secrets is mandatory.This secret was safe with her and the relief of having shared such extreme joy diffused the explosion I was sure would come.

Still, within minutes of sharing, the guilt crept up and began to choke me. There was No excuse for betraying that confidence.My head hung: my husband always said I couldn't keep a secret. How embarrassing. Maybe he wouldn't find out about that e-mail? (Funny because wouldn't that be another secret I would have to try to keep?)  Aghast and sorely disappointed in myself, I tightened my resolve NOT to tell anyone else. I could do this even against the odds our kids were probably betting.
That was Day Two With a Secret.

Determined to re-kindle my promise not to tell, I decided it easier to avoid people than it was to try keeping my mouth shut. But,  now being on the ski hill for the next four days made that impossible as you find friends at every turn, every chair lift or t-bar.So I would say things like, "One of these days, probably very soon, I might find out I'm going to be a (cough) Grandma.
Then I got too brave and said to my girlfriend who knew the daughter and the situation "that I can show you something but I can't tell you anything" before presenting the e-mailed photo evidence which bore the name of the recipient in the high left hand corner.
Day Three ended with a firm mental whipping. I am such a lousy secret keeper. I should be put in the middle of the town square and stoned (with rotten fruit, not real rocks)!

Day Four ended with news that I was free to share the joy, although not on FaceBook. (Does a blog count, I wonder? Am I in trouble again?) Ahhh, such relief. Almost like reaching the end of the trip and finally using the washroom. Ahhh.

I share this tale of woe with you because whether you have good news or bad news to share, sometimes it can help to tell just a little bit. Especially if that secret is keeping you awake, stressing you out or having you do extreme things to avoid telling (like avoiding your friends). If the secret is something you absolutely don't want others to know, the only thing you can do is share with complete strangers or NOT tell it in the first place to anyone. Because as sure as there are secrets in the world, there are people who cannot keep them. Like the characters in the Soap Operas. And okay, like me.

Now, if you want my advice on something and need to tell me a private thing, THAT I can and will keep a secret. What's the difference? The difference is knowing what could happen if the story were to get out.

My news was good and wouldn't hurt anyone to know so it was very hard to keep. You want to make everyone else's day as happy as yours. With bad news, you don't want to ruin anyone's day so you want to keep that to yourself . Maybe it's a cancer diagnosis or nasty test result, a death or a horrible situation: the first reaction is often to keep it to ourselves. In the old days, everything was private. Suffering was encouraged to be done quietly behind closed doors. These days, we share and talk about everything. No holds barred. We talk about incest and abuse, we talk about our cancers and our prostates and now there is help and information available. You only have to come out of the closet to get it.
Besides, the relief of sharing news can be enormous and possibly even beneficial. "A grandma? Have you heard about the latest self-help book on becoming the best grandma in the world?" Get the idea?

So, sometimes keeping a secret completely isn't the best thing. Turns out "Grandpa" didn't have much luck keeping it in either. And yes, you're right, that doesn't excuse a thing.But, did you know...I'm going to be a Grandma? Sshhh...

Scenting Sensibly

My post cancer regime of cutting down on as many toxins as possible has made one remarkable change in

my life. I have regained my sense of smell, something I never realized was missing until I found it again.

After CT scans, radiation therapy and the ensuing mammograms, I consider myself lucky not to be a Wicked Witch of the West  shade of shimmering green. I can't do much about the radiation I have been given but I can resolve to be smarter about what I put in, on and around my body.




After reading the David Suzuki's Top Ten  Dirty Dozen list of substances to avoid, (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/dirty-dozen-cosmetic-chemicals/) I began to take a reality check through-out my bathroom and kitchen cupboards.I couldn't believe how many toxic products I was using!

So many that I couldn't afford to simply trash them all and start over, but since ending treatments four years ago, I began to transform my collection of beauty and cleaning aids with healthier choices. The easiest and probably most important was throwing out my chemical immersed dryer sheets for hard plastic re-usable dryer balls. I use one plastic ball and one Norwex  wool dryer ball to completely eliminate static cling a more health-friendly way. Between them and the unscented natural cold water laundry soap I insist upon using, there is nothing but clean clothes travelling with me and my skin every day. That same skin is washed with a coconut all natural salt scrub and my deodorant and hair gel are also all natural and unscented. which means head-to-toe I only retain a slight coconut aroma. Not the usual cacophony of  five-to-seven over-scented products between hair, make-up and skin products. Start thinking about it. How many aromatic products are you sporting every day? Would you have ever guessed that this onslaught of scents is slowing down that sniffer of yours? (Then again, maybe it's for the best if you're really piling them on?)

 It took a bit of talking myself into omitting that daily shot of "Angelic"(pseudonym) between my breasts and just slightly south of my navel every morning and the slathering of Angelic cream onto my arms and legs, the dusting of Angelic body powder across the bee-hind but before long, I realized those extra few minutes every day could all add up to a second cup of perk-me-up ( called Bengal Spice tea by Celestial and it's the best Chai tea you've ever sipped without the sweetener or caffeine). On top of giving my skin a chance to breathe, I was reducing my scent over-load; something I'd been reading was a no-no when entering hospitals and clinics, places I am still prone to frequent.

Sometimes I find my "new" self being overwhelmed by the smells around me. In a restaurant, my nose goes crazy with my brain in hot pursuit as I try to discern a fragrance. I can tell a smoker from a non-smoker at a dozen paces which might be a handy tool IF I was a life insurance agent. I can often tell if you own a pet (other than a fish) and sometimes what you cooked for dinner last night (especially if it was a fish).

 This new realization of all the smells drifting in the air helped me relate to people with scent allergies. Some scents are enough to reduce me to coughing and gagging fits, red, watery eyes and sneezing. All because someone ELSE wanted to smell like something else.Or maybe didn't know that something smells so strong to someone else.

I wonder how animals manage these smells with senses much more amplified than ours? A dog has 220 olfactory receptors to a human's five.

Of course the market is loaded with naturally scented products but again, few are delicately scented, instead giving you a full blast of their lavender, orange or ginger alternatives.So there's coconut in your hair, lavender on your skin, orange counter top spray, lemon scented window cleaner and linen-scented air freshener. Even the all-natural aromas can be bothersome when mixed together, like a cereal bowl of cherries, flowers, lemon juice and cotton. Mmmm. Not.

 Remember the good old days when there was pure soap and the only other smelly thing in the house was cinnamon buns? Cleaning was done with vinegar, baking soda and water. Okay and maybe a little lye. Not the healthiest option there either.

Sometimes the best smelling things are simply the fresh air in your hair, the rain water on your clothes hung from a line or the sunshine on your skin. Could it be so easy to smell so good?

:

2015 "On Hold"

A New year and a new concern. Apathy has crept into my life. After a hectic end to 2014 with two deaths and a birth in my husband's family, plus having to move his sweet father into a senior's home that could deal with his increasing dementia, I found myself still in a whirlwind of clutter and loose ends, but then SMACK! I  ran into a wall marked "on hold" and that's when the apathy tip-toed in together with a lack of resolve to do much about it?

 Fund raising for a bladder scanner for the Houston Health Center is on hold due to a possible grant, although I had approached local businesses and am up to $1000 toward the $20,000 needed. Slow wheels moving there. Then the idea for raising money for a CT scanner for the Smithers hospital went by the wayside when I was told it wouldn't happen is now being re-considered, but again, I'm on hold to see if that WILL be a go again. Will Houston be hosting a Daffodil Dash for the CCS in the Spring? Waiting to get people to a meeting to decide but I'm playing phone tag with the connections.
The writing is on hold to hear from a publisher regarding the book series. The story about Yerts on our ski hill is a maybe for NEXT year and I am waiting for a surgery date for my Dad's hip which means my going home to NB again for a bit this winter. Soon? Later?
My life is one big wait for what's around the corner. More cancer, more health issues, more family health concerns, a lottery win perhaps? WILL my stocks ever go back up?

Maybe I AM dealing with things, it's just the sideline buzzing that is upsetting me, all those irons simmering with nothing I can do to move them forward. Gee, what if they all come through at once?

The discovery that exercising, playing Anagrams on the iPhone or watching movies moves time just as well as sitting waiting for answers has helped. But it's not very constructive for a person figuring there might be less than 20 years left to make the most out of my life.

The health? We're waiting for the Dr's appointment to talk about a possible para-thyroid issue. Getting little head-ache flashes upon exerting myself , an imbalance has cropped up, my calcium levels are too high and my moods are swinging large again. I almost blew a gasket at Aquafit when the class was not working for me no matter what I tried. It made no sense, both the lesson's confinement and my absence of patience. I became a four year-old again. I even shouted "F*&#  you, Mrs. Kilpatrick (my kindergarden teacher) to the shower spray. Where did that come from?

Something is up and I have to wait to get the ball rolling on what that might be.
Until then, apathy has popped up. I'm starting to not care so much if ANYthing happens. I could almost enjoy this slow pace of waiting. What a change in my life. It used to be go, go, GO!!!!!!!!!! Well, in Aquafit I guess it still is, but other than that...

So, until something changes I'll be letting life pass by skiing or making as many words out of the letters A D S O F H G  as I can. It's probably not the WORST thing I could be doing with my time.Let's just hope there will be an end to it before the year gets too much older.

Beating Our Parents

Beating our parents...Not beating as in pummeling, but passing our parent's time lines in the race of life. That's what I want to talk about.

We all wonder about when our number will be called. If we manage to avoid being road kill or involved in other untimely accidents that take our life, then how do we gauge how long we might expect to live?

By looking at our family history. The "crystal ball of probability" I call it. Unfortunately for me, my paternal grandparents were road kill in their early 50's, my maternal grandfather was shot in the war at a very young age and my maternal grandmother smoked her way to lung cancer.

When Dad turned 60-ish, things began to happen with himself and his six siblings. Heart valve issues from plaque, high lipid concerns, almost everyone had to have a bypass or two. Then in his seventies, his sister died of bowel cancer.

After Mom died from pancreatic cancer, I wondered about my having told my physician that no, cancer did not run in my family. It wasn't hereditary. But as I've learned, wait long enough and almost everyone will better their chance at getting their cancer lottery ticket called.

For me, this means that the system of comparing our life length with that of our parents is no longer a safe gauge.

Fifty percent of the people getting cancers today could not have prevented them, meaning a good portion are  hereditary. Some families have long lineages of heart disease or cancer and so early detection and proper preventative measures should be taken without question.

 But the other  50%  need to understand that getting cancer is now more about lifestyle and what goes on and in your body. Don't think because cancer does not run in your family that you will avoid  it. The toxins we apply between beauty products, cleaning products and sun tan booths, the air pollutants, the cigarette smoke. Additives in packaged foods mixed with high acidic red meat, sodas, too much alcohol, not enough good clean water: all these things accumulate your cancer lottery tickets until one day you discover the reason you have been so abysmally tired is due to a cancer growing inside of you.

I don't want that to happen to me again. After understanding that my breast cancer was highly avoidable had I drank more water and less wine, eaten more fish and chicken instead of red meat, taken up yoga for my stress, eaten more natural sweeteners than refined sugars, then I could have given my body a better fighting chance to battle the cancer when it started to take off with my life.

Thankfully, donations towards cancer research enabled the medical profession to discover the micro metastasis already detached from my breast tumor, heading off to infiltrate more of me. That had not been possible as early as one year prior to that find. So count me doubly fortunate.

But will YOU be so fortunate? Why take chances in a lottery that is guaranteed to reduce your length of stay on the top side of the grass?

Because Mom died of pancreatic cancer, something I still do not consider "herditary" in our family but a by-product of the canned soup, packaged sauce and meal era, I am trying hard to buy better all-natural products, drink no more than a couple of alcoholic drinks a MONTH, cut out the crap as much as possible (and still enjoy my life!), exercise more, use my aromatherapy stress-buster, eat more kale and drink more water, just so that I can still BEAT her 73 years.

 My goal is 75. That might seem young, but given my toxic overload through CT Scans, chemotherapy and a penchant for cigarettes and 20-30 drinks a week for years, I figure that's a high bench mark.

Who do you want to beat and what are you doing to make that happen?

Better Choices...

PRESS RELEASE

BETTER CHOICES REDUCE RISK OF CANCER

“It’s a cancer lottery,” says DebiLyn Smith, author of Running From Cancer: a tilted memoir. “The more bad choices you make the more tickets you give yourself. The more tickets, the greater the possibility cancer will tap you on the shoulder and say ‘next’.”

A Northern BC breast cancer survivor for four years now, Smith wrote about her experience as a “ chocolate gorging, wine swilling, exercise wanker” that lost half a breast before experiencing baldness in the “chemo fast-lane”and sticking her tongue out at the large rotating radiating laser head as it passed across her flesh. “I took one for the team so that you don’t have to,” she says. I wrote this book to hit you over the head, with humour and inspiration, but to show you why you want to do EVERYTHING you can to avoid going down this road. Having cancer will change your life. If you are supplying your body with the ammunition it needs to fight back when a cancer cell sparks up, then you have a greater chance of never having to sit across from your doctor and hear those life-changing words, 'you have cancer'.”

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, almost 50 % of cancers can be prevented. (http://www.cancer.ca/en/about-us/for-media/media-releases/national/2014/world-cancer-day-2014/?region=bc) Smith says, “If you are supplying your body with the ammunition it needs to fight back when a cancer cell turns rogue, then you have a greater chance of never having to sit across from your doctor and hear those life-changing words, ‘you have cancer.’”

 “I’m one of the people that closed my eyes and hoped to outrun cancer but cancer ran right over me and flattened me like road kill. I got mad that I went through the ordeal and now want to help others avoid that same fate. It’s time to wake up out there.”

Smith’s book includes tips, recipes and a love story. Her website at www.debilynsmith.com offers more information on cancer prevention and healthy recipes.

Smith will be in Prince George at Ave Maria on 20^th Ave this Friday from 11-5, at Coles Book Store Pine Center Mall from 11-4:30 on Saturday and at the CIBC Run For the Cure on stage at 10 on Sunday. Proceeds from DebiLyn’s book sales are shared with her BV Health Care and Hospital Foundation and the many cancer fundraisers that she attends.

For contact, please use contact@debilynsmith.com

Website www.debilynsmith.com

Slipping Through the Medical Cracks

Not one or two, but half a dozen horror stories surfaced during my tour across BC with my book Running From Cancer: a tilted memoir. The story of someone waiting six months to get an appointment to see the specialist only to discover their paperwork never MADE it to the specialist's office. A phone from the doctor's receptionist makes the discovery and the wait must begin again. Talk about losing your hair... never mind the chemo...I'd pull mine out from the sheer frustration.

How about this one- a 59 year-old super healthy male had tests done in January from his not feeling good with pain in one certain area that was constant. While waiting for news, he turned yellow and lost a pile of weight he could ill afford. He did have an appointment to talk to a surgeon in Vancouver but he  never made it that far. In mid May, a week before his appointment,  he went to the hospital in excruciating pain, which once they got under control, his time ran out. His kidneys shut down. Within days we lost him. This was a man that would have been on the first plane to Mexico to be bombarded by every treatment available, but once the kidneys packed it in, we were told there was nothing to be done. I saw this man a week before he went in hospital. Knowing he was getting worse by the day, he said, "I don't know what to do? Have I a week,a  month, a year to live? I don't know what to think anymore!"
The problem? He had put his entire faith in his doctor's hands. After the family requested a copy of the test results from January, the Doctor admitted he dropped the ball- he never read the test results about the liver cancer. The papers had been filed and never read again until the family requested them. A court case is pending.No shit!

Then there was the lady who was told repeatedly her stomach pain was nothing-, to continue with the antacids. After insisting on more tests,  her wish was granted, albeit postponed a few times in a row. The results then sat on the doctor's desk  for weeks while on his holidays. Upon his return, the lady was in hospital with pain too intense to ever get out again. Time wasted that might  have been invaluable to her family.

How about this: A friend of mine waits over a year to see a specialist, gets the OK for the operation and while on the table, the anesthetist comments on her wait, "You should have complained harder." Really? Is that what we need to do? Become obnoxious whiners? Maybe make things out to be worse than they are to get ahead of the guy behind us? That's not slipping through a medical crack, but it shows you that there ARE serious issues in our medical overload.

Besides being overwhelmed with the baby boomers aging faster than bananas that have been frozen, our doctors are being top-loaded and inundated with a system already overtaxed.

Of course there are fail safes so that these things don't happen BUT, we're dealing with human error here and anything that gets overloaded will start to smoke under pressure.

So what can YOU do to make sure you don't fall into this chasm?

First off, when a doctor orders a test done on you, you have the right to receive a copy of the results. That means, after you have sat before the doctor who explains as best as she/he can in layman terms what it is you have and need, you can take that test copy home with you and have another chance to go over it. Lots of times a doctor will press you to make a decision based on test results while still in their office. Sometimes their opinion of what you should do might NOT be in your best interest. Maybe, say for breast cancer, instead of going through a lumpectomy to remove a small tumour, you might want to see about removing the entire breast instead of facing  a possibility of a recurrence later down the road. For many of us, the thought that cancer may pop up again NEVER leaves your mind. Maybe you want a second opinion on how to handle the situation, possibly non-traditionally through naturalists/herbalists and other trained specialists. I wouldn't recommend that, but some people want to give it a try and it is their right to do so.

Second, know that your health is your responsibility, NOT your physician's. Giving yourself over completely to the care of your doctor is not your best move. You need to work with them, but not totally rely on one of the busiest people you may ever meet. Your doctor is possibly juggling dozens of people's charts, concerns, tests and results every day. See how you can get lost in that?
After seeing a patient, most doctors make notes in the patient's charts. But what if they get distracted, pulled away for a bit of time, maybe they have a crisis at home ... anything can happen.

What am I saying? Look out for yourself and your loved ones. Follow through on test appointments, ask questions about how long before you can expect calls and answers and then mark that on your calendar. Take notes while in a doctor's office. Use the phone and talk to receptionists at specialist's yourself. Find out how backed up a doctor is, if they received your paper work. Do what you need to do, but do NOT just sit there and wait for your doctor to come to your rescue. It may never happen.

And wouldn't that be sad, if you lost your life because of a crack in an over-loaded system. Maybe your name was misspelled or your file was buried in the wrong row. Possibly someone's dog ate it- (worked for me in Grade School)? You going to bet your life that no-one will make a mistake when it becomes your turn?

Guess what- it's only going to get worse! So get over it and get out there and squeak (nicely, please!)if you have to, just do what you can to help prevent slipping into the ever-widening chasm of today's medical world.

Just Like Robin Williams

My heart goes out to Robin William’s family on the recent passing of someone I much admired and related to. With his seemingly manic ups and reportedly lowest of lows, I always figured we were alike:  classic ADHDers. Robin's People magazine obit labeled him with my nickname “whirling dervish” but it was hearing how he had suffered for years from depression that clinched it.

Depression is such a BIG word in so many ways. My experience with it has opened my eyes to many facets of the disorder, because that is what depression is: a DIS-ORDER; something out of the ordinary and in my case (and I suspect in Robin William's) a chemical imbalance in the brain that can swirl emotions and thoughts into a Helter Skelter world where nothing makes sense anymore. 

Depression is not a disease that you catch. It can develop after a devastating or shocking incident like the death of a loved one, a post-partem blue, the loss of health or self-image. For others of us, it is hereditary. My mother was prone to depression and as I unconsciously scratch my wrist into bloodied shreds, I often think of her with the same scabs on her arms, the highs and the lows we followed her through, the whispering about her "bad nerves." My brother committed suicide three years ago: an unfortunate result of abruptly stopping his anti-depression medication. Add to that my breast cancer ordeal through two surgeries, chemo, radiation and reconstruction and you have a recipe for despondency.

Whatever way it comes, depression can be all-consuming and it can take your life.

To the outside world, Robin Williams, comedian/actor, was as large as life. He had everything, or so it seemed. How could a man so FULL of life, turn life down?

Reports state that Robin was a happily married father of three adult children with many blessings that I am sure outweighed any troubles on the outside. A person without this infliction knows that and has that to reach out to when things get too far down. It should be enough to pull you forward.

With depression, you can know that everything in your life is amazing and still be "depressed" or feel abysmally lower than dirt for no apparent reason. Even without the physical symptoms of pain, living can be painful enough for you to want to end it.

 Let me give you some insight into a moment of depression: You are standing on a ledge between life and death with such despair and grief for yourself that the world outside of your own perceived horror is a mere haze standing behind you. At that moment, nothing else matters- not family, loved ones, thoughts of consequences, of the after math if you do leave. You do not think of the future that is still to come with its promise of rich memories, of a possible resolution to the emotional nightmare. All that matters is ending the hurt of it all: silencing the voice in your head that speaks of your worthlessness, inadequacy, of never getting anything right. You beat yourself with any image that proves what your mind tells you of your failings. You flog and writhe and commiserate until you beg for the peace you know must exist somewhere.

When a person gets to that stage, if they are not backed away from the ledge by a rational thought, by someone else recognizing their call to self-destruct, then that person might succeed in ending what might have been alleviated by counselling and medication. 

I stress the words might have.

Anti-depressants can alleviate the imbalance and a person can achieve harmony. But life doesn't always work the way it should.

Drugs and psychotherapy are well touted in their success rate but sometimes good things come with a price. Anti-depressants can also cause depression for some and like all drugs, these pills come with a list of possible side-effects. The ones that worked the best for stabilizing me were also creating havoc with my health in other areas- enough that I had to start weening off of them. This was much more difficult than I thought it would be and as I approached square one I found myself getting weepy again. Unless I am purposefully exercising, I have no energy to start something new. I have lost interest in any on-going projects, of things I used to love to do. And I am experiencing past flare-ups of temper, of unexplainable rages before crashing into the basement of despair again. It's all so unfair- to have glimpsed peacefulness only to have it taken away. Back to the drawing board. Sigh. I will get through this. 

Not everyone does.

I want to help you understand that people who are depressed need help. Professional help. A slap on the back or a reminder that things will seem better tomorrow can sink them further into oblivion. Depressed people can have blocks that prevent them from seeing things rationally. Simply being depressed depresses them further.

If you know someone who suffers from this dilemma, help them to see that they need help. Realizing one has a disorder is half the battle. The other half is seeking aid. If they're not already doing it, they need to be assessed by a health professional who can point that person in the right direction for the next steps.  

If they're a loved one, take the time to tell them what they mean to you or how they have positively impacted on your life. A hug can be an amazing gesture but at the very least, encourage them to reach out for help.

Severely depressed people can be open targets for their own missiles so you should never blame yourself if the missile manages to hit its target. You can only hope that the need to push the button is contained by whatever helps us to remain. For me it's a will to see the future. I honestly want to stay here for my children and their's. My body and mind may be failing me, but my desire to hold and smell and nurture my descendants, and my need to help reduce the world's number of patients facing cancer will hopefully tether me for some time to come.

But sometimes, there are those days. Days when the drag outweighs the buoyancy to stay afloat and you begin to sink.

Unfortunately for his family, no-one was able to save Robin Williams before he drowned, choked to death by a belt around his neck.

May he finally be at peace.

When things are at their worst, it means they can only get better. Ain't no way but "up" from the bottom. Or so I tell myself.

If you are depressed, I strongly urge you to seek professional help. Your local Health Clinic can offer you more information in your area.