Category Archives: New

Go Go Speed Racer!

Sep 1, 2014 Keeping Your Chin Up, New, Staying Fit, Survivorship Leave a Comment

Friday, February 26, 2010

“[It] felt as though he had his hand inside my chest… and he was trying to crush everything in my life that mattered to me.”

“You think you can drive a car and change the world? It doesn’t work like that!”

“As the cars take to the field, you can feel the anticipation mounting in the audience. Something is different. There’s an electricity in the air… the presence of Speed Racer has completely changed the equation.”

“It doesn’t matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change us.”

– Speed Racer (2008)

My favorite song as of late (replacing, yes, even DJ Earworm’s “United States of Pop”) is the theme song to Speed Racer. Whenever I hear it, the beat brings to mind Bangkok University Cheerleading Team-Level acrobatics and the final Grand Prix race scene in the movie, where Speed closes his eyes, finds his center, and, in finding it, rejoins the race and wins. The song gets my heart pumping and makes me feel like shifting into high gear. When it plays, I am suddenly a rocket, shooting for the sky. Amazing what a 3 1/2-minute piece of music can do.

The Olympics have been on my mind, understandably. Some people think competition is about beating other people – coming in first. At the Olympic level, though, where the difference between first and second can be three hundredths of a second, most of the competitors have already come in first – first in their class, first in their region, first in their country. When you are ALL the fastest, the competition becomes about who can, in one moment, bring the best of themselves to the table. Taking the gold becomes all about who wants it most, who has the most heart, who can look into themselves and find the champion that they have been working to be.

What I really love about competition, though, is the underdog – the Venus and Serena Williamses. The ones who come onto the scene and kick the crap – not out of their opponents, but out of our expectations. The ones who have been waiting for this moment to come into their greatness and shatter ceilings and records and boundaries. They are the ones that make you want to shout, “GO! GO! GO!” The ones who will let no one come between them and their dreams.

Here’s to being unstoppable!

 

The Top 3 Things Cancer Patients Can’t Stand Hearing From Their Loved Ones

Aug 17, 2014 Cancer, Caregivers, Family, New, Pre-Recovery Leave a Comment

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Attention all caregivers! Please read on if you *really* want to be there for someone you love who’s fighting cancer.

The Top 3 Things Cancer Patients Can’t Stand Hearing From Their Loved Ones

1. That we somehow caused our cancer. This includes reminding us of “bad” habits that we have or haven’t given up, or implying, via “The Secret” mythology, that we somehow attracted it, or, via something like Catholicism, that cancer is some kind of punishment for our sins.

2. That there is more we can be doing to fight our cancer. Once you have gone through surgery, chemo, hair loss, and radiation, then you can gauge your threshold for dealing and suggest something more we can do. On second thought, don’t even bother then. We don’t want to hear it.

3. What we should do post-treatment to keep our cancer from coming back. Please don’t tell us how to keep our cancer from coming back. Tell the American Medical Association, or the National Institutes of Health, or the Centers For Disease Control. Rest assured, they’re dying to know so they can monetize your miracle advice.

Why do people we love tell us these things? Because they love us, and they can’t bear the thought of losing us. That, and they really do think, perhaps because they’re not the one with a chest port, that we can have some measure of control over our cancer. Or, rather, that they can have some measure of control over our cancer.

Try as we might to convince ourselves that life is predictable and logical, the fact is, we live in a world of complete uncertainty. As such, our first response to the unexpected is to seek out logical, rational conclusions based in causality. Why? Because we need to believe that things happen for a reason, and if we reduce cancer to an effect with a cause, then, in a twisted way, it gives us the illusion of having power over it. If I caused my cancer, then I can cure it! Even better, not only can I cure it; I can keep it from coming back! See how that works?

This is the height of insanity, and trying to convince someone fighting cancer of it, while it might give you comfort, is a backhanded compliment at best, and a hurtful insult at worst. Most people with cancer have already struggled with staying positive in the face of relentless unpredictability. Give them some credit for STILL BEING ALIVE and stop sharing your opinion on how they can manage, survive, or prevent their disease better.