<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>LSNoe's Journal RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/rss</link><description>LSNoe's Journal RSS Feed</description><item><title><![CDATA[Learning to Live]]></title><link>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7733</link><guid>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7733</guid><description><![CDATA[I have learned to survive and now I am learning to live.  The skills for survival are much like those for battle.  Cancer is a formidable enemy and it took all of my strength and resolve to fight off the beast.  But, for now, I am free of the disease and it is time to live.  Living, real living, not just breathing in and out, requires complete surrender.  Living means accepting each day for whatever it brings, the joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain.  Life is sometimes a scary ride, but I am learning to open my eyes and experience every up and down on this roller coaster.    ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Life of Substance]]></title><link>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7732</link><guid>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7732</guid><description><![CDATA[Choose living over existing every day. 
Rise early with resolve to defeat any obstacle in your path.  Get up the next day and do it again.  Keep doing it, even after you become the person you want to be.  
Smile at anger.  
Forgive.  
Admonish doubt.  
Trust yourself.  
Be true to your dreams.  Don’t pause until you achieve your dream.  Then, dream another dream.  And, strive to achieve that too.  
Care more than expected.  
Live a life without regrets.  
Leave no monuments.  
Leave only significance.  
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Grandmother's Watch]]></title><link>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7723</link><guid>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7723</guid><description><![CDATA[Sometimes, we can draw strength and hope from the most unusual sources.  For me, it was my Grandmother’s watch.

In 1976, after separating from my husband, I decided to go back to school.  I had been married at 18, only a week after graduating from high school and had never worked.  I had no skills or means to support myself or my two small children, so completing my education seemed a natural, but difficult choice.  I decided that moving closer to my family would be best.  I packed up my car and kids, and took off from sunny San Diego to the rain of Seattle.  

While I loved college, sometimes the burden of school, dark skies, children and my vague future weighed on my mind.  As a reprieve from my daily routine, once a week, on my way home from school, I stopped to visit my Grandmother.  She was a strong, independent and grounded woman, who had lived through the depression as a single mother and outlived three husbands.  My Grandmother greeted each day of life with a certain robustness and utilitarianism.  She was a stout woman with a double chin and boisterous laugh.  Our visits were both enlightening and too short.  She disclosed stories about my father as a child and of her own childhood.  She recorded each of our conversations and would play them back later as if she was searching for a missed word or thought.  Her house was spotless, but still cluttered with collections of buttons, yarn, and everything else she ever had purchased.  My Grandmother was a recycler way before it became popular.  She contemplated every purchase based on long-term value and selected reliability and function over beauty every time.  My time with my Grandmother gave me insight for the future and strength for the present.

After finishing school, I returned to San Diego.  I few years later, my grandmother passed away.  My father sent me a few of her personal items to keep as mementos.  Tucked at the bottom of the box was her wristwatch.  It was not an old watch, but one she had purchased shortly before I arrived in Seattle, and was wearing when she died.  It wasn’t even particularly attractive, made of stainless steel with silver and gold links, but made versatile, to be worn with any outfit.  The name on the face, “Watch-it” dated it to the trendy 70’s.   I put it in my jewelry box, knowing I would never wear it.  I forgot about my Grandmother’s watch until last year during my cancer treatment.

I have read that a breast cancer diagnosis brings with it five stages of grief: denial, protest, disorientation, detachment and finally, resolution.  I believe this is true.  As I began chemotherapy, my initial shock had worn off and I began to protest this disease and the horrid treatment.  I was filled with anger, sadness and completely without hope.  I could not sleep, was sick from the chemo and knew I needed help.  It was August and the weather was hot and dry.  Since I felt cold all of the time, I thought a short walk might warm me and help get my mind off the cancer.  I walked around the block and yard by yard, all I saw, was dry, brown grass.  The grass looked like I felt, close to death.  The Santa Ana winds had dried up every living thing in my neighborhood.  Then, a few blocks from my house, I saw an amazing site.  Two tall maple trees stood among a sea of dead grass.  They were green and flourishing.  In the other corner of the yard was a smaller maple also full of life.  All of the other shrubs had lost their foliage early, but the maples hung tightly to their green, five-pointed leaves.  I stood in awe, looking at the trees for several minutes.  Their massive taproot allowed them to survive the heat.  Looking at the trees, I realized that I would also survive; I just needed to find my taproot.

A few days later, I thought about my grandmother, her strength and her watch.  I searched through my cedar chest and found it in a small box with several other trinkets.  It was not working, but, once I replaced the battery, it kept perfect time.  My grandmother always invested in things with long lives.  It occurred to me that she had invested in me as well.  I began wearing her watch and each day I became stronger and more determined to beat cancer.  Just like the watch, I needed my battery replaced, and the memories of my strong, loving grandmother help recharge my energy.  My grandmother’s watch was my taproot.  I continue to wear her watch and to thrive. 
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Woman with Breast Cancer]]></title><link>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7681</link><guid>http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/mynbcf/members/lsnoe/journals/7681</guid><description><![CDATA[My very first experience with breast cancer was a little over twenty years ago, when pink ribbons were tied in the hair of little girls, not worn by women walking for a cure.  I met a woman with breast cancer at a summer day camp.   I cannot remember her name, but I remember her story. 
  
 When I was in my early 30’s, I worked as a director of summer camps for the Girl Scouts of America Organization, in San Diego.  Each summer, I spent my two-week vacation volunteering, so that my own children could participate in the day camp program.  As a single parent, my girls often missed summer programs.  I worked full time and they were not old enough to take the bus on their own.  One year I decided to take vacation so I could drive them to and from camp.  After finding out that reduced camp rates were given to children of staff members, I volunteered.  Camp was a wonderful, creative, and hectic two weeks, but I was hooked.  For the next seven years, I worked as a summer camp director, taking my two-week vacation to be surrounded by little girls with pink hair ribbons.  

As day camp director, I was responsible for creating the camp theme, developing activities for the girls, selecting and training adult volunteer staff, and handling problems.  My sister Nancy and I worked together.  She was the assistant director and took care of the money and supplies.  We worked perfectly together and our camps were among the most favorite, filling up soon after registration began.  Nancy and I spent hours discussing endless possibilities for activities that would both stimulate the girls’ imagination and be fun to work.  In 1985, we selected “Through the Looking Glass” as our theme.  We designed camp activities that allowed girls an opportunity to explore the realm of the performing arts.  Carroll’s Wonderland was just the right space for girls to sing, dance, perform and imagine.  The camp brochure was mailed out in March and by early May, our camp was full.

About two months before camp started, Nancy and I began training our staff.  While being at camp with the girls was the most fun, training was a close second.  Most staff members were mothers just like us.  They learned to make mitten finger puppets of Alice, the Madd Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.   We stitched sequins and beads on hats made of brightly colored felt and learned the Lindy Hop.   We sang silly songs about ukuleles, cows and stinky socks.  But, mostly we laughed and shared stories of our children.  

After a few training sessions, a mother about my age asked to talk to me privately.  She had a special request.  She wanted to be the group leader for her daughter’s group.  We generally found girls had a more enjoyable camp experience when they were not with their own mother, but she asked make an exception.  Being recently been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, she thought this might be the last summer she would ever spend with her daughter.  Touched by her story, I made the exception.  Unfortunately, this mother did not get a chance to lead her daughter’s group.  Instead, she began chemotherapy.   When she called to tell me she would not be well enough to lead a group, I welcomed her to join us for whatever time she could.  I saw the woman with breast cancer several times during the ten days of camp.  Most often, she sat in a lawn chair watching her daughter and other girls participate in the events of the day.  

Camp was a huge success.  There were nearly two hundred girls caught up in the magic of performing.  The last day of camp, we planned a special “unbirthday” tea party.   Parents were invited to watch their children dance, sing and perform.  Each camp group planned a special recital.  As I looked at the audience of smiling parents, I noticed the woman with breast cancer.  Her head was covered with a colorful scarf that blended in with the bright summer clothing.  Her face was thin and her eyes dark, but her expression was the same as every other parent.  I could see the delight and pride on her face.  She laughed as her daughter twirled with several other girls dressed like clowns in a circus act.  I was thankful she could attend.  

I did not have an opportunity to speak with her that afternoon.  My duties as the camp director allowed little time for the parents, and when I looked for her at the end of the day, she had already gone.  Several months later, I received a note from her husband tucked away in one of the feedback forms sent in from camp parents.  His wife had lost her battle with cancer and he wanted to thank us for giving his daughter a special memory with her mother.  I was sad and perhaps even shed a few tears, but soon forgot the woman with breast cancer.  I did not know her.

I know her now.  I still can’t remember her name, but I know her.  She is me.  She is every mother with breast cancer.  I know her heartache; her sorrow at the thought of being taken from her children by such a hideous disease.  I know her loneliness.  And, I know the unanswerable question she asked herself each day, “Will I survive?”  I know the way she absorbed each moment of life after being diagnosed with breast cancer.  I know her commitment to make each day count.  I know of her absolute compulsion to fight this disease that kills thousands of women each year.  

I cried for her today; not just a few tears but sobbing remembrance. I wondered about her daughter and cried again for this motherless child who is now a young woman.  I have decided to keep her story close to my soul.  It will remind me that, just like every other woman in the world, I have opportunities each day to significantly impact the lives of others.  I will remember her and I will remember my own power to make a difference in the life of another. 
 
I know the woman with breast cancer.   
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