“It takes courage to be on both sides of the hand that raises. The one courageous to raise the question, to ponder, to level the playing field, to think beyond the pat answer, to be open to new learning. And the one courageous to allow the question, to engage in dialogue, to level the playing field, to be challenged beyond the pat answer, to be open to new learning. Believing that all feedback is relevant is absolutely a sign of courage.”
@ThePurposedSailor
This can apply to literally anyone. It doesn’t matter which side you’re on – if you’re the student or the expert, the worker or the boss, the child or the parent, the peer or the peer…at some point in your life, you will have a chance to be both the raiser and the allow-er.
The point – you wanna have influence? You must value the courage of BOTH no matter which side you sit on in any given moment.
This Day in 2018:
PT. SS. FW.
Today……
Physical Therapy…. something that I have been doing since the very beginning of all of this and yet today, it felt different. I felt more vulnerable. From the beginning, she has seen me topless…today, I didn’t like it. Weird. I think it has to do with the tissue expanders vs. the __________ (I still don’t know what to call these new things…they aren’t breasts, the nurses were calling them “flaps” which is just weird, the doctors call them breast mounds…which is also weird….) Ugh. Stupid that I don’t even have a word to use to “name” what my body is right now.
A “survivors sister” lunch… The social worker from my Radiation Oncology office put several of us together that have some things in common (age, all breast cancer, similar life stages) and a couple of the ladies then organized a lunch gathering. Out of 9 invited, 6 came. It was all sorts of things. Interesting. Overwhelming. Wonderful. Hard. Raw. Strange. And our Doctor paid for our lunch (wow). It is so crazy to me that we all have breast cancer in common and yet none of us had anything the same…a few commonalities, sure, but not one story looked like another.
Surgeries, chemos, radiation treatments, hormone involvement, order of events…. all different. Wild.
I have been pretty distant from other cancer stories throughout this past year because honestly, I haven’t been interested in them, but I decided to go today knowing that I had the freedom to do with it what I wanted. I could get up and leave. I could stay the whole time. I could offer my story. I could listen only to theirs. I could decide it was a one-and-done. I could decide if I’ll go again.
I stayed. I offered parts of my story. I listened to theirs. I have the opportunity to go again in a month. And if I do, it will be what it is then just like it was today.
Coffee and dinner with a most treasured friend… She’s in town while she moves from one coast to the other. We always connect. We always have such amazing conversations. We always talk life and learning. It doesn’t matter that I’m 15 years older than her, she’s an amazing part of my life and I’m so grateful for her. She told me tonight that she is planning on running the NYC Marathon in my honor this November. Um. Wow. 26 miles. She’s crazy. And I love her. What a joy she is to me and my family and she was the perfect ending to a really long and difficult day.
I’m exhausted. I’m spent. And I still have lots to process from my day…….
This Day in 2019:
60%
I
Am
Sooooooooooo
Tired.
The emotional output that was required of me to get through this week has totally caught up with me. At best, I was 60% today…
But I get to enjoy a weekend withOUT studying! And that is glorious.
No post for 7/19/20