A Ripple Effect

Something To Think About. . . . . . .

 

 

 

Every little thing you do adds up,

 

and before you know it,

 

you've created your life.

 

And how you create your life

 

ripples out and effects everyone

 

and everything that crosses your path,

 

known or unknown to you.

 

                   ~ Kathy Freston

Your Life, Your Movie

"Stay In Your Own Movie"

 

~ DeVon Franklin

 

When my son was a young child, he would talk about going to various friend's houses to play and how wonderful their house was, how great their snacks were and how nice their parents were and how perfect everything always seemed when he was there at whatever friends house he happened to be.  Sometimes he would even tell me that the parents of some of his friends never even ever argued.  Ever.

 

First I told him that they were waiting for him to leave so they could have their argument and then I would smile and tell him that I was glad he liked to go and play with his friends at their house and that his friends were always welcome to also come to our house to play.  And they would.  A lot.  And as my son grew up it was wonderful to see many different friends run in and out of our house as he hung out with lots of his friends, old and new.

 

My son's vision of other people's lives as perfect is something that I fall into too and maybe this happens to you too.  It's easy to look at another person's life, whether a friend or someone you don't know well at all, and think that just because it all looks good, you know what I mean -- the house, the car, the children, the spouse, the job -- that theirs is a perfect life.  However, here's a major spoiler: It's not.  I'm not saying that if someone else's situation looks good then it's got to be bad.  I'm just remarking on the possibility that behind all those things that  look good sometimes there lurks a lot of burdens and troubles and problems because they aren't always obvious to others.

 

The parental insight I offered to my son goes something like this: there will always be people who have more than you and there will always be people who have less than you.  Yes, it's a normal thing to want to improve your life and work towards goals that get you to a better place but don't set yourself up by comparing your life to theirs because you might end up being dissatisfied and unhappy.

 

Instead, look at the blessings and gifts in your life and be happy and proud of what you have worked hard to earn or achieve.  Your talents are unique and not like anyone else's.  It is hard not to compare because sometimes it is so in your face.  But there is more to someone else's story than you know and there are always trade offs being made for what arrives in your life.  I have found there is a certain quiet grace to having the confidence to live within your means and being at peace with the path you have chosen.  Your life is just as special as anyone else's.

 

Continue to develop your gifts and appreciate the wonders in your life for there is always something new to learn, something new to discover. 

 

Focus on what is happening in your life instead of comparing your life to someone else's.  Comparing is a waste of time.  You only have a partial picture of what is going on with others.

 

But you know the whole picture of what is happening to you so put your energy on you and the people you care about.

 

It's your life, your movie, so stay in it, as DeVon Franklin says, and try to make every day a block buster!!

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Falling in love and being loved is just so oh-la-la isn't it?

May your heart expand today with the joy of being with your Valentine or having great memories of a special Valentine who may no longer be with you.

I'm sending this song out today to Valentines around the globe:

More of Everything

There is always more out there for us to discover and embrace  . . .

Vulnerability

Something To Think About. . . . .

"Vulnerability is not about winning, and it's not about losing.

 

It's about having the courage to show up and be seen."

 

                                           ~ Brene Brown

 

 

 

 

Weekend Antics

Beautiful Deserted Rehoboth Beach

Hey everyone!  Hope your weekend was full of unlimited amounts good times or at least full of what one of my guy friends calls antics! Mine certainly was!! 

 

Three of my best friends treated me to a weekend at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and it was a blast; and I don't mean a blast of wintery cold but a blast of the healing powers of true friendship!!  Snow and ice and chilly winds surrounded us in our 23 degree climate -- because after all it is January on the East Coast -- but we didn't care because it was a weekend of great conversation, delicious food (Thank God Grotto was open!), unique shopping destinations and no schedules.

 

When in Rehoboth, Dewey or Bethany Beach,
You Have To Go To Grotto For The Pizza

No schedules.  Which in real life means we didn't have anyone telling us we had to be anywhere at any particular time.  We could go where we wanted, when we wanted, for how ever long we wanted to be there and that is my idea of freedom.

 

I have known and treasured these three best friends for decades and they are the salt of the earth.  I am lucky to know them and have them in my life and being with them can cure anything that life hands out!  We all love The Beach no matter what time of year it is and love to eat all kinds of seafood and just hang out, shoot the s$&t and enjoy each other's company.

 

As the saying goes, friendship isn't a big thing -- it's actually more like a million little things that are said and done and shared while living our lives and it all comes together in some kind of spontaneous combustion and makes time with those special people what life is all about.  The weekend was all about the chi or the flow of friendships and good times and it was a simple and as easy as that.

 

As I drove over the Bay Bridge to Rehoboth and tried to catch quick glimpses of the icy Chesapeake Bay, I said out loud to myself in the car:  "That's it stress.  I am leaving you far, far behind.  I am moving in to a stress free zone this weekend and you are not invited."

 

Life can change you, your personality, your expectations, your beliefs and your desires but hopefully you are not changing so drastically that you lose yourself and your friends don't recognize you.  They may be changing too in the face of life's experiences and increased responsibilities but at the end of the day you are all in it together and the reservoirs of strength that comes from good solid friendships and knowing that your friends have your back is what moves us forward and comforts our souls. 

The Notebook

I never know when I am going to read or hear something that I might want to use in writing a future blog post so I try to always carry a small notebook with me.  On the times that I have forgotten my notebook, I have written notes on the back of envelopes, cocktail napkins and business cards which then creates this messy pile of stray notes.

For now, the small spiral notebook I am using is almost full and it caused me recently to flip through the worn pages to check and see if I had missed anything that might be helpful to myself and others who are trying to rebuild their lives after a loss or strengthen their resilience when facing life's unexpected trials.

 

 

And then there it was.  Handwritten notes from a sweet conversation I had this past summer on the beach with a young woman in her twenties.  She had lost her grandfather and an uncle within a few months of each other.  We had just met and were casually talking about ourselves.  I told her about Cry, Laugh, Heal and surprisingly she then began telling me about her experiences with loss.

 

I write about this conversation today after so many months because I was struck by the common thread in her thoughts and the fact that if I closed my eyes and forgot about her age she could have been a member of my support group made up of people much older than herself.  She was voicing many of the same feelings older people have expressed after losing a loved one:  the need to talk, the shock and confusion and the contradictions brought by the pain of loss.

"People know you are going through an awful time of it and yet they talk to you as though nothing has happened," she said remarking on what it was like to go back to school after attending the funerals.  "I think people react this way because it's far too messy for them and they also think they're upsetting you.  And they definitely don't think about how you might want to cry and release your feelings."

She continued talking quietly about this experience and said after a period of time following the losses she knew she needed to be part of a  trusted discussion addressing grief issues.  The loss of her uncle and her grandfather made her realize that she needed to join a support group and she was so glad that she did.  She wasn't sure what she would find or what it would be like, but she came away surprised and also curious about the amazing dynamic that had occurred in her group.

"Isn't it weird how you can find yourself in a support group, among people who you have never met before, people who are strangers, and you start speaking honestly from your heart about how you really feel and what you are really thinking about.  I found that I was saying things to strangers that I couldn't tell my loved ones, the people who have known me for most of my life.  And for some reason the other people in my group felt that way too.  And it worked.  I felt I was with new friends."

Our discussion about life and loss was not for long; I would say at the most it was about 10 to 15 minutes.  But within that short window of time while we talked, I felt her willingness to expose her vulnerability on the contradictions of these grizzly subjects of loss and resilience was amazing.

 

Here's why:  in her young soul she had dug deep and found strength in a truth that sometimes takes many of us (myself included) a life time to discover.  That truth? 

 

Her words say it best: "Sometimes beauty comes out of pain.  I found that something good can come out of something tragic and that's hard for people to understand.  I think people are afraid to say something good came out of someone's death because we are afraid it would be seen as though we were glad that it happened when of course that is not the truth at all.  No one, no one wants anyone to feel that pain but it's surprising to discover that a light can come out of darkness."

Creative Encouragement

Each day is a new opportunity to find inspiration!

 

People, nature, architecture, words, acts of kindness or even criticism can spark inspiration in me to go forward and think about my life in a new or different way.  The world around us can serve to fuel the fire of our inner creativity or cause us to shift our ideas about the way life happens.

 

Inspiration keeps me going and renews my faith and hope in the future of myself and others.  Regardless of where you find yourself right now or what happened to you last week, last month or last year, you are capable of shaping your life to reflect your passions and goals.

 

We are a community of beings in need of each other and no one should ever feel they are alone in their precious life. 

 

We can heal.  We really can.

 

 

 

Dream A Little Dream

Here is something to think about ~

You have to speak

 

Your dream out loud.

 

               ~ Kelly Corrigan

To me the importance of this beautiful powerful thought is that when you speak your dream out loud, you start to make it real.  It's the first step in owning your dream and part of owning it is making the dream and all of its possibilities yours so that it can become real. 

 

By talking about your dream out loud, you give your dream a place in your life and it becomes a real part of your life, instead of just a passing thought that sometimes you think about but then it goes away and you continue on and put your energy into other things.

 

One of my dreams for 2014 is to upgrade my kitchen and I think I have finally saved enough money to start this exciting project!

 

 

Everyone has a dream.  It can be big or small; anything that you want it to be.

 

What's yours?

Hunk A Hunk A Birthday Fun

Today is a special day.  It's my birthday and it's also Elvis Presley's birthday.

 

Uh, Thank you. Uh, Thank you very much!

 

I'm not wearing a tight white jumpsuit today or gold wired sunglasses and I'm not wearing my hair slicked back.  And I'm not suggesting that I can sing or act but I do find it  a lot of fun that Elvis and I share a birthday because as I was growing up it would always be in the news that Elvis was having a birthday on my birthday and of course his was always a bigger celebration!

 

Elvis in 1972

 

Today I am so happy to be having a birthday because there was a time when I was much younger when I burned the candle at both ends (kind of like Elvis) and did some reckless things that today make me close my eyes and thank my guardian angel for watching over me.

 

So I am here today, pretty much all in one piece, counting my lucky stars and thanking the Lord above for all of the many, many blessings that I have in my precious life.  I have no idea what the future holds for me but I am enthusiastic about jumping into each new day and continuing to embrace my wondrous journey.

 

Me in Kindergarten

 

No Lifeguard On Duty

If you had told me ten years ago that it would take me this long to navigate my conflicting feelings of loss and truly come to grips with the fact that my husband died, he's not coming back and I'll never see him again, I would have thought you were smoking something and totally out there.

In the beginning, I was just trying to survive which meant working a full-time job and raising a thirteen-year-old boy by myself.  I honestly didn't think beyond the day I was in.  That's all I could manage.  I constantly told myself that other women have done it with more children and younger children and I could do it too.  But still it took all of the energy I could muster.

  

Photo By Sheila Hayes

Day by day, slowly, I put one foot in front of the other, sometimes falling, sometimes crashing, but always finding a way to get back up and put myself out there again.  There were times when I felt  as though I were swimming without a lifeguard on duty.  That I was screaming "Help" as loud as possible and no one heard me.  No one was there to jump in and save me if you know what I mean. 

 

And so I find that in between the making of daily decisions about working, taking care of the house, the car, and all of the other pressing responsibilities of motherhood and adulthood, somehow ten years happened.  Ten years of soul searching.  Ten years of living fully to the max. 

What did I learn?

         -- No one is going to do it for you.  You are allowed to wallow in the unknowns and unfairness of your situation for a short amount of time but then you have to stop.  As the saying goes, there comes a point where you have to pull up your big girl pants, take a deep breath and just go out there and live.  As screwed up as you feel, you just have to keep going and trust in yourself.  You are responsible for yourself and you will find your way to recover.  You will!

         -- Don't have regrets.  If it's not worth your energy, then push it aside and move on.  But if you have something to say to someone, then say it.  I'm not suggesting that you be mean or abrupt but if you have a point to make or a compliment to give then do it.  Don't wait around for a reason to do something.  You can't be afraid to try something new.  You are already living in uncharted territory.  You can make it happen.

         -- Nothing happens the way you think it will.  I don't know why it happens that way but it does.  That can be a good thing and it can also be an incredibly frustrating thing.  I worked on shifting my perspective about certain parts of my life and then sometimes ended up being pleasantly surprised.

         -- You have to take care of yourself; physically and mentally.  You need to get lots of sleep, eat well and definitely, definitely exercise.  Exercise is my saving grace.  On many days when I felt like everything was melting down I forced myself to get on the stationary bicycle, go outside and run or take a walk.  Sometimes I would walk with a friend and other times I would put the trusty ear buds in my ears, turn up the music, and try to work through some of my feelings that made me think I was constantly screwing up and that life was a mess.

           -- Reach out.  Definitely reach out.  Yes, your family and friends are more than uncomfortable with what has happened to you but you just have to keep talking and hoping that you can help them see what it feels like.  Strengthen your emotional support system.  Find a support group or volunteer to help a cause you are passionate about.  I think you will find it hard to make good solid progress if you try to push your feelings down inside yourself.  They will not go away on their own.  I know you think that you can ignore the chaotic emotional mess that's churning around inside of you but guess what?  You have to push through to the other side of the pain.

Ten years of hard work later, I feel I am in a better place and I have made huge strides in rebuilding my life.  I am writing this today in the hopes that I can lend a helping hand to others who are also on a journey to heal their hearts.  Cry, Laugh, Heal is here to let you know you are not alone in the emotions surrounding the loss of a loved one.

 

Perhaps more than anything, even as everything hits the fan, I have learned to try and stay positive and hopeful, to keep my heart open to all kinds of love and good times and the wonders of living a full life. 

 

Our loved ones would want us to find happiness without them and even though life doesn't feel the same, there is always, always the possibility for a different kind of life.  It may not be a life you had initially thought of for yourself but you are talented and special and deserve to find joy and inner peace . . .  and maybe even fall in love again.

Anything is possible!!!

10 Years

Dearest Tommy:

How can it be 10 years?  I miss you!!

                            xoxo

Compassionate Care

I write about the subject of hospice care today because November is National Hospice Care month.  I don't usually pay attention to the themes of specific months but in this case I saw a tweet about it and wanted to draw attention to the incredible people who do this important work.

I have the greatest respect for the people who do hospice work.  The time and endless amounts of energy poured into this work of providing compassionate care to those diagnosed as terminally ill is critical to the patient and the families trying to do their best as a loved one reaches the end of their life. 

Each year in the United States, more than 1.58 million people with a life-limiting illness receives care from hospice care givers, according to a report by the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization.  Most hospice care is given at home, allowing people to be surrounded by their friends and family in the last stages of their life.

 

I was told by my husband's doctors that the best time to learn about hospice care is before you need it.  No one really knows when and if that time will come but it is wise to prepare.  As hard as it is to think about the possibility of using hospice services, hospice care organizations have decades of experience and are invaluable to family members who need a break from the physically and emotionally exhausting work of trying to do all of the caregiving by themselves.

My husband did not need hospice at the end of his life but just in case it became necessary to have hospice come to the house to help me, I met with a one of their nurses.  She was very calm and reassuring about what happens when hospice becomes involved with your loved one.  She emphasized to me that hospice care is not about giving up; it is more of a focus on comfort and care and respect.  It gave me strength to know that hospice would be there should I ever need it.

 

For myself, I find it hard to imagine doing this work if you don't know the person who is ill.  Taking care of someone when you don't know them and know that they aren't going to get better requires an immeasurable amount of faith, inner peace and compassion.  This is only a few of the reasons why the people who do hospice care are so special.  They embrace the patient and their family and are honored to take care of your loved one and to try to enhance the quality of their life in the time they have remaining.

 

Ladies Home Journal recently ran an inspiring story called,  "It Doesn't Have To Be Sad: The Life of A Hospice Nurse."  It is a revealing story from a nurse's perspective about being with terminally ill patients and what it feels like to help dying patients through their final days.  Here is the link:

 

http://www.lhj.com/community/your-stories/hospice-nurse/?page=1
 

The 64 Untalked About Ways of Grief

People love to read lists.  I'm not sure why, but it could be because all of the best ideas relating to a particular subject are organized in one place.  Or maybe it's because people want to see if what they guessed would be on the list is actually on the list.

I think that sometimes lists are over used but not in this case.

Today's list comes from a wonderful website I recently discovered called What's Your Grief? (www.whatsyourgrief.com) and I bet you a million dollars that you probably have never read a list like this one.

Titled "64 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Grief," it is refreshing and revealing because of the stigma surrounding the subject of grief.  People don't want to talk about it and will go out of their way to make sure that it isn't brought up in conversation.  If you are grieving, people act as though you have an infectious disease and being around you will cause them to catch it (#9).  And then there is the idea that you think you know what it's about until it actually happens to you (#1).

#23 really resonated for me.  "Grief  doesn't come in five neat stages.  Grief is messy and confusing."  I didn't experience grief in the prescribed five stages that are always written about and I don't think anyone ever has.  You do feel denial, sadness, frustration and many other emotions but sometimes you feel some of them one at a time, sometimes none of them for a long time and sometimes you may feel them all in one day. 

It just depends on your relationship with that person, how they died and how you process your emotions concerning your loss.  Everyone's grief really and truly is unique.

A lot of thought went into making this list and I really think it's helpful to everyone, children and adults, because you may come across a truism that you have felt yet no one has acknowledged to you.  To find out that someone else has felt exactly as you have felt is comforting and tells you that it's okay.  You're not going crazy.  I think it is always a blessing to find out that you not alone.

In some ways, the list feels like a big hug!!  Please check out the What's Your Grief? list in the link below and share what you think so we can help each other.

http://whatsyourgrief.com/64-things-about-grief/

Dear Sugar. . . You Make It So Much Better!

Cheryl Strayed is one of my favorite authors.  I discovered her when I received her New York Times best seller, Wild, as a present this past Christmas.  From the first page, I was all in and couldn't stop reading and definitely didn't want her journey in Wild to end.

I was totally drawn into every aspect of her memoir and in reading Wild, came to respect the amount of introspection and hard work she put herself through to bring that compelling story out of herself.

No other writer that I know of delivers the goods about life and loss the way Strayed does.  Her writing is clean and honest, direct yet compassionate.



Cheryl Strayed

After I finished reading Wild, I went through some kind of Strayed withdrawl and had to go back and read various parts of Wild again because I really needed to feel I was in a "life is more" zone that she courageously created in Wild.

But then I found another book that Cheryl Strayed had written.  This one, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life From Dear Sugar, was written by Strayed before she wrote Wild.  Dear Sugar is an advice column that appears on the website, The Rumpus, and is not anything like Dear Abbey or any other advice column you may read.

Simply put, Dear Sugar is a million times better. 

 

But only if you are prepared for someone to give you the unvarnished truth.

Dear Sugar is a powerful book because the answers that Strayed gives to people's questions about what to do when they find themselves in troubling situations are the simple and direct truth but her guidance is also sprinkled with love and concern for the person seeking help.  Strayed takes from her own poignant and joyful life experiences and uses them as a place to begin a dialogue with the person seeking support with a problem.

It's not a "you should do this" kind of advice column but more of a "this is what happened to me, this is how I felt and this is what helped me feel better and maybe it will help you" kind of advice column.

Today I write about a letter that a young man who calls himself Bewildered wrote to Dear Sugar seeking advice on how to emotionally support his girlfriend whose mother died many years ago.  Since her mother's death, his girlfriend has moved forward to find and build a wonderful life for herself but naturally she sometimes she misses her mom and talks with him about the emotional hole left in her life because of her mother's death.  The boyfriend says he tries to empathize but "feels lame in the face of her grief" and just wants to know how he can be a better partner when it comes to handling grief.

I think that's something we all struggle with and need to know more about.  

 

Please listen below to this amazing Soundcloud link that features Cheryl Strayed reading the letter that Bewildered sent her and her amazing and insightful answer to Bewildered's timely question about handling another person's grief feelings:

http://m.soundcloud.com/audibleuk/the-black-ark-of-it-from-tiny

Never Look Away

When you consider the amount of emotional baggage we all carry around with us, it is amazing that we find love.

 

Wounded though our hearts may be, we cannot fight the attraction and pull of another person who catches our fancy.

 

 

Maybe you have been lucky and found love more than once.

I found love with a small l a few times, but found love with a capital L only once.  It's an amazing, powerful, crazy thing this love emotion that takes us over and keeps us going and truly defines our lives.  It is not to be treated lightly, as though it were something you can just toss away whenever you want and find something better when you want it.

 

Oh no.  It is not an emotion to played with.  It makes your fingers tingly and your mouth dry and when you find the one who is right for you, don't ever look away.   

 

Grab it and don't hesitate, for the one who loves you deeply, the one who heals your wounded heart, probably also inspires you, just as Denise inspires Kevin Kelly.

 

Please read this beautiful love story in the link below written by Kevin Kelly about his one and only Denise. 

 

It blew me away because it made me remember what romantic love is all about and I hope it does the same for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/booming/inspired-by-denise.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=0

Step Into Every Blessed Second of Life

I know today is Wednesday and that I have to go to work.

But other than that, I really don't know what the day has in store for me.

I'm sure I will talk to someone in my family and maybe also talk to one of my good friends, and I will work hard today to get some tasks accomplished in the office that need my attention.

Some of what happens today is up to me.

How will I react as I drive to work?

 

Will I keep a smart remark to myself or feel the need to blurt it out?

 

Will I smile when I don't really feel it?

 

Will I help another person in need of something from me?

 

Will I see something or read something that will inspire me?

 

Will I shake things up a bit and try something new?

 

I hope today is full of good things, even maybe great things for me -- and for you!!

I'm going to concentrate on staying in the moment today because every minute counts and should not be wished or pushed away because I am looking forward to something that I know will happen to me on another day, such as tomorrow or another day in the future.

 

Today is the day that counts.

 

Use it up.  Every single blessed second of it!!

A New Week

I am with you my dear readers as we begin a new week together!!!!

I hope your weekend was full of exciting adventures and laughter and love and family and friends.

Mine seemed to zip by in a blink.

While I have many things that I want to tell you about, I ran out of time to sit down and put them in complete thoughts and sentences.

There is definitely more to come but today I leave you with the below thought since change and more change seems to be the theme of my life these days:

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it,

 

move with it,

 

and join the dance

 

                         ~Alan Watts

 

 

 

 

 



Friday Jammin'

We made it guys!!  It's Friday!!

 

And it's the summer!! So let's jam and enjoy as we roll into the weekend!!

 

I love, love this song, "Take Back The Night," because is has a funky, old school sound that gets you movin' and groovin'.  Dancing always makes me feel better about life and moving forward and I bet the same things happens for you too, right?

 

Plus the video is filmed in my favorite city!!!!!

Chrysler Building in New York City

I dare you to sit in your chair and watch the whole video.  Hope you like it too!!

Take it away Justin. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEzREJbln-o

Hair's To You

Today I am giving a huge shout-out and a huge hug to a person I know who has just finished an intense round of chemo treatments and is dealing with the loss of their hair.

 

This person is showing so much courage and positive thinking in their intense and aggressive fight with cancer.  This person also happens to be the third person I have known to lose their hair during chemo and I totally get why this stage is so traumatic: hair loss makes the cancer obvious and visible to others.

 

From talking to these people about experiencing their hair loss, the first instinct is denial.  Each person tells themselves it will not happen to them and then they want to hold on to every strand of hair they have.  Our society happens to see hair as health.  In fact, lots of hair is equivalent to good health and vitality.

 

So when your hair starts to fall out in clumps from chemotherapy, most people, men and women alike, want to start wearing a wig.  The women's wigs are really nice but the men's wigs have a really long way to go in looking like real hair.  Instead, I think the men should go for it and just shave their heads.  It's a very Steve Harvey/Bruce Willis look (Harvey and Willis are not cancer patients just to clarify) and I think most women think it's sexy.

Steve Harvey

 

 

Bruce Willis

 

Plus there is something empowering about taking the initiative to decide to shave your head when your hair is falling out or when you are facing cancer in general.  This exceptional person I am thinking of today now just takes his hat off and shows you right away what is going on and then continues to talk about the positive things he is doing while receiving treatments.

 

Chemotherapy drugs are super powerful medications that attack rapidly growing cancer cells.  Unfortunately, these same drugs also attack other rapidly growing cells in your body, particularly those in your hair roots.

 

But the good news is that hair loss is temporary.  It's going to grow back, no doubt about that.  It may be a different color and it may be a different texture, but it will be hair and it will be yours.

 

Of course it is easy for me to say what looks good because I am not a cancer patient and am not experiencing the turmoil of cancer's life and death decisions.  I have the luxury of standing back and saying this is what I would do if I were losing my hair.  If it were actually happening to me, I probably would feel distraught and very scared.

 

And so I salute all cancer patients who are in the hair loss phase of their treatment.  May you continue to be brave, strong and resilient in your battle for wellness. 

 

We are with you!