Pressure

Often it takes other people to help you realize your own potential. At least for me, it's easy to write myself off when I'm feeling really crappy. It can get exhausting constantly trying to talk myself up mentally and to overcome the negative and anxious thoughts that so often sneak in. I live with myself every day and pep talks in the mirror have lost a bit of their effectiveness after so many months of them. But I know that no matter how exhausting it gets I could never give up, not just for my own will to live, but because if I did concede defeat so many people would come ramming down my door and kicking my ass in gear. I wouldn't stand a chance.

This indisputable fact was again shown very clearly to me at a Glow Ball Tournament fundraiser that our phenomenal friends organized this past weekend. After an outdoor barbecue dinner, participants got to golf at a country club in the pitch dark with light up balls and glow sticks around their necks – fantastic.

The event's proceeds will help to offset our medical bills, lodging and travel expenses but what was taken away from the event goes far beyond finances. People so deeply care and genuinely want to help and that is continually humbling and baffling. Craig and I have been at this for a while now, but the support just doesn't waiver. When we get tired of holding ourselves up, our extended support group still displays exceptional endurance. I don't even know what to say to people in response to their stunning kindness anymore. "Thank you" doesn't come close to representing the gratitude that Craig and I feel. I wish there were a stronger phrase than the same one used when someone holds the door open for me.

Obviously having so many people looking out for us carries its own pressures. With a growing support group comes more and more people to succeed for, more and more people that I don't want to let down. It's bigger than me. Now I realize the place that I hold in other people's lives and see now more than ever how connected we all are. To me, this is a true gift that has come out of this. When I'm tempted to give up or when I begin to doubt what I'm capable of, I think of the two little girls who have donated their hair for wigs in my honor, of Craig's students that set up an afternoon lemon-AID stand to raise money for cancer research, of my family that loves me so much, of the friends that remind me consistently that I will end up on top of this. And not to forget, of Miss Sammy who depends on me for Pedigree and belly rubs.

Ya, I feel the pressure, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Community Is Underrated

I recently read the book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence by Ethan Nichtern, founder of The Interdependence Project. It was given to me by a friend that I greatly admire. The whole premise behind The Interdependence Project is that we are all connected. That everything we do, all the choices we make, effect someone or something else. As Nichtern writes: "Like the butterfly effect in chaos theory, the truth of interdependence states that no individual's action merely disappears into outer space without an effect. Each action creates the grounds for some situation that follows it."

This interdependence theory was brought to light and deep understanding for me this past Saturday in a way that I will never, ever forget. A group of our friends whom Craig has known since middle school and that I have been close with since high school put together a "Big Benefit Bash" to raise money for us to help offset the cost of the medical bills and living expenses piling up with just one paycheck to cover them. Though we resisted when we first heard of the benefit planning, they told us that they were doing this and that was that. What we experienced on Saturday was nothing short of beautiful.

Craig and I were so taken aback at the extreme generosity of our friends that planned the benefit, those that donated the raffle and silent auction items, the more than 2o0 people that showed up and the dozens more that couldn't be there but donated to the cause and were there in strong spirit. Being the "charity" is an odd thing to accept but what we came to realize is that all of these people - some we've known forever and some complete strangers - all wanted to help because they want to see me get better and to see Craig and me on the other end of this. That is a very powerful reality to digest and we are forever humbled and forever grateful.

There was face painting, a dunk tank, silent auction, raffle, door prize, pinata, lawn games, slews of pasta, salad and meatballs ... even an ice cream truck showed up for the occasion. Dozens of fellow teachers, students and their parents (current and past) from Craig's school were there. My former and former, former co-workers, our family members, family members of our friends, friends from way back and ones we've just met, strangers that we've never met but have been connected to our story through friends of friends or because they are avid blog readers. People were even donning "Karin's Cancer Warriors" t-shirts that another friend had made.

A woman came up to me and I couldn't place why I knew her. She looked me in the eyes and said her name and it all hit me at once - the effect of the entire day. I burst into choking tears telling her that I couldn't believe she was there and asking her how she even knew. She looked me right in the eyes and said: "It's because I love you, Karin." This is someone that I have not seen for maybe three years. Someone that I've really met in person only once or twice but whose organization's programs (The Artists Collective) I helped promote during my time at Hartford Magazine and the Greater Hartford Arts Council. I always enjoyed our phone conversations and e-mail exchanges and always felt a close connection with her. To find out that she felt the same way and that she thinks of me was so much to grasp.

This happened throughout the day as people from my past showed up in support. People close to my parents that have heard about me since I was a little kid, neighbors from our little village of Tariffville, some of my best friends - with babies in tow, parents of Craig's students who continually told me what an amazing teacher he is and how he has changed their children's lives. To hear the words of encouragement and see the faces behind all the messages and thoughtful gifts of support that have poured in since my diagnosis absolutely filled my chest with pure, unadulterated happiness and appreciation.

I kept looking around at all of these positive and selfless people and thinking, how could we be so lucky to have them all in our lives? I realized that this is what it's all about. You build these types of relationships over a lifetime by the way you live your own life. You are who you surround yourself with. Somehow something that we did had a positive effect on these people's lives as much as their actions had a positive effect on ours. Then that all just spirals into one big love fest within a community that we've built by the connections that we've made. It's all so much bigger than ourselves.

It's easy to sleepwalk through life and not notice the people around you, not to lend a hand to help someone through their struggles. It's easy to never do more than wave at your neighbor but if you do get the time to know them (ours was there manning the DJ booth and taking pictures), if you do take the time to connect with people in all aspects of your communities, life is so much richer. As I've said so many times throughout this journey, I never consciously thought about what kind of effect I could have on people – positively or negatively – but instead was just always myself. Now I see what an impact the littlest gestures can make and I am so much more mindful of that fact.

I feel like a lot of people in this world are afraid of each other or live their lives thinking that people are out to get them, going out of their way to avoid having to make eye contact with someone or God forbid, have a deep conversation. I've certainly been guilty of this at times. But I can tell you, when it comes down to it, the human race is an incredibly giving one and I am honored to be a part of it. Everyone has a story, something to offer the world, and also their own weight that they are carrying. Don't ever doubt that when you are down – and we all will be – that there will be people who step up to peel you off the pavement. And that those that are the ones to do it may surprise you. We all have so much to learn from each other if we just open up our hearts and our minds and let each other in.

As we said in our speech to those that were there and everywhere, we will never, ever be able to repay everyone for everything that they've done for us over the course of this tumultuous year, but rest assured we will pay it forward again and again for the rest of our lives.

"What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" - George Eliot

Big Benefit Bash

They Do Exist

Tuesday night I felt understood, accepted, befriended, appreciated, like I belonged. And I can only hope that's how everyone else felt as well. It was the culmination of a project I have been working on with my friends at the Helen & Harry Gray Cancer Center (where I am treated and at the hospital that I work at) and I'm Too Young for This!, a national foundation devoted to empowering young adults with cancer.

Throughout my entire cancer experience I have met one woman in the flesh with cancer under the age of 40. No matter what age you are, cancer can be hard to cope with and having no one else in my peer group to turn to didn't help matters. You're not supposed to be sick with a potentially deadly disease at the age of 27 - it just doesn't make sense and it's very hard when everyone stares at you with pity and wonder marveling at how young you are and why you're hooked up to a chemo drip.

I've found online communities to be extremely beneficial during all of this - especially i2y.org because the language is catered to me, it's full of humor, yet also vitally important information, but it's delivered in a way that's not so ominous and straight-edged as many other cancer support sites are. I've thoroughly enjoyed the Monday night "Stupid Cancer Show" online and its connected me with some very informative factoids and resources. I've connected with other young adults through their blogs and social networking sites, but again, never met someone like me (an otherwise healthy twentysomething who is still living her life with cancer) in person.

So, I approached my friend Val who works at the Cancer Center and asked if we could put something together. She also knew about i2y and the "Stupid Cancer Happy Hours" that they host across the country and was all for doing one in Hartford - so was the Cancer Center's VP - and the rest is history. It was fantastic to get so much support from them and I feel lucky that I'm in a position where I can point out where there may be voids in our cancer program and to know the right people to go to to get them filled. We partnered with i2y and promoted the happy hour to all current and former patients in the 18-39 age group, along with the heavy promotions of the i2y group in the hopes to bring us all together. We built it. They came. And it felt fantastic to be a part of it.

Over the course of the night 25-30 young adults showed up - some currently in treatment, some years in remission, some with their friends, some by themselves. There were other women with buzzed heads and cute hats. Others with the tell-tale lady lump in the chest where their port lies. The conversations were so easy, so comfortable because you didn't have to explain yourself away - we were all there for the same reason - to celebrate our lives, dish about stupid cancer (and anything but), learn about each other's experiences, get inspired and of course, have a beer.

I met a young guy who had six biopsies before he finally got diagnosed. He has 43 radiation treatments to go and is working full-time as an investment banking manager. Like me working the IV machine, he stamps his own parking ticket at the Cancer Center valet stand.

I met two other Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors: one four-and-a-half-years in remission, the other one year ahead of me. It was so fascinating to hear what they went through, how eerily similar, yet so different our experiences were. One was told she couldn't eat any raw vegetables for fear of the germs they could carry, while I on the other hand have made that my diet mainstay! One begged for the port - in fact switched oncologists until one would give her one - while I shied away from it until I couldn't bear the vein pain any longer.

I met twenty- and thirty-something women with breast cancer, all positive, spunky, cracking jokes about puking, losing hair, going out.

I met another young guy who has undergone three brain surgeries and just recently discovered that a fourth malignant tumor has now grown. He traveled all the way from Danbury to meet others like him.

I met some who have ridden the cancer wave from pediatrics to young adulthood - the disease creeping in and out of their lives.

I met a man who was told that it was a fungus on his head caused from his hockey helmet (not cancer). I met a woman who took four months worth of antibiotics (of course, not cancer) before it was finally her dentist who diagnosed her with lymphoma.

It was such a breath of fresh air to see young spirits fighting against all of this and able to be out in the world, to be positive, to know that it's still okay to meet new people, to be at a bar, to snack on nachos and pigs in a blanket even with the dreaded cancer we all hold closer to us than we probably would like.

The difference in talking with these people was that they get it. I love my husband, my friends, my family, my doctor, the older patients that I've met, but no matter how much they try, they can't fully grasp what it's like to go from being a blonde-haired, successful, running, hiking, biking, carefree twenty-something with big plans for the future to a bald, weak, lethargic twenty-something fighting my hardest against an invader inside my own body. I hope those people that I love never have to understand what it's like. But for those of us who know the realities, it's nice to be able to talk to each other without abandon, to not have to worry about offending someone or making them feel uncomfortable. I could look these other young adult cancer patients in the eyes and without saying anything, completely understand each other's mix of pain and elation to be standing there in that moment. One woman thanked me repeatedly for helping to make the event happen, saying that it was exactly what she needed. It felt so incredibly good to be able to turn something as awful as a cancer battle into something positive for myself and hopefully many others to come.

The cause to advocate for young adults with cancer was illuminated more than ever for me. It's so important for everyone my age to realize that unfortunately, yes, we can get cancer too, and when we know something isn't right we need to be persistent, listen to our bodies and take care of ourselves. How I got to be a stage 4b cancer patient I will never know, but I only hope that others will learn from my story and pay attention to the warning signs. We tend to think we're invincible, we can take on the world. No time for sickness, for naps, for pain ... just push through. We've got careers to conquer, charities to start, countries to visit, families to create. Who has time to be sick? Well, it all comes to a screeching halt when you're standing in a dog park with an empty leash in your hand and the voice on the other line of your Blackberry tells you you have cancer and your life changes forever.

Safety Net

I saw Funny People with my sister this week and it got me thinking about the "cancer support network" that everyone talks about when you're first diagnosed. About how important it is to have people that you can count on to make you laugh, help you cry, look at things with a new perspective, give you strength and encouragement and make you realize how important you are to other people's lives - that you're not just fighting for your own life, you're fighting to stay around for everyone who needs you as well - and that's a really good feeling. 

In Funny People, Adam Sandler plays a big celeb but one that is also a loner with no true, deep connections with people --- until he meets Seth Rogan or "Shmira" and the story progresses ... .  It got me thinking how incredibly lucky I am and how I would not be able to bounce back from the negative thoughts and the pain without the help of my taunt safety net. The net is grander than I ever could have fathomed. 

During this experience I have reconnected with people I haven't talked to since middle school, heard from teachers that had me in kindergarten, formed closer bonds with friends, with their families and with my own family. Like I said in one of my first blog posts, it's like being there to watch your own funeral. It's truly a gift to be able to see the lives that I've touched along the way and how many relationships that I've made in my 27 years. It's deeply humbling, incredibly moving and has been vital to this whole healing process. It's difficult to know the effect you can have on someone's life until you're thrown into a situation like this. At the same time you learn what a profound effect people's simple words and actions can have on your own life. 

In the three months that I have been diagnosed, there has literally not been one day that a card hasn't arrived in the mail with some words of encouragement or a crazy memory to share. That's not to mention the thousands of e-mails, Facebook messages and wall posts and blog comments that have touched me in so many ways. Keeping up with all the correspondence is a big job --- a job I wouldn't trade in for a second. And the visits! We are so lucky to have such an amazing set of friends from all walks of life and they all provide a much needed escape from the day-to-day doldrums of cancer crapness. And the strangers that I've met on cancer websites or through their own blogs who have now become close allies in this fight - people I can learn from, swap tips with or just bitch with without fear of making them feel uncomfortable because they're reeling from this too. 

I've been going back to the office more on my off-week now that I've been feeling stronger. Being around co-workers, easing back into a more regular work schedule has been fantastic on my nerves and on my confidence. When I'm interviewing someone for a story or designing a web page I'm not thinking about the multiplying cancer cells or the port pain. I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to keep on working and contributing to the greater society beyond my little cancer ridden world. 

When I was having a particularly hard time after last week's treatment and port insertion I sat down and flipped through all the cards I've received since my diagnosis. I've saved every one and have been collecting them in a basket in the kitchen --- a basket which I've had to upgrade in size twice. Then I dumped them out and just had to take a picture not being able to comprehend how amazingly thoughtful people are. 

Things that I would never even think of have shown up at my door to cheer me up: subscriptions to magazines like Natural Healing and People, Netflix subscriptions, yoga class and Amazon gift certificates, funny books, informative books, beauty products, relaxing candles, CDs, peanut M&Ms and healing crystals, restaurant gift certificates, house cleaning services, offers for Reiki and reflexology sessions, lots of movies, tomato, parsley and basil plants, hanging baskets, food, food, food and treats. 

All I can say is that I cannot wait to pay this forward for the rest of my life. My safety net is strong. I know no matter how hard I may fall at times, you'll all always be there to catch me. It's because of you that I can get past the fear and leap from peak to peak over the deep valleys of this journey with courage and determination.