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Community

by Judy Schwartz Haley | Cancer, Community, Living Well

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Reverb 10 – Day 7 / Prompt Author: caligater)

I started 2010 with my thoughts on community.

I enjoy my friends individually, but I missed belonging to a circle of friends. It’s been a long time since I had local friends who were friends with each other. It’s even more complicated now that some have kids, and some don’t. Schedules don’t sync up, we go weeks without seeing each other, and I end up craving grownup conversation. I was looking for a community to join at the beginning of the year. Specifically, I was looking for a writers’ group.

Cancer made a difference.

I was having grownup conversations with my doctors that no one should have to have. But cancer also led me to a circle of women, all breast cancer survivors, who would become my friends. At least twice a month I connect with other women, many with babies and young children, who understand what I’m going through. This community is not only helping me through this difficult diagnosis, it is addressing issues that existed before I knew I had cancer.

As I look ahead to 2011

I plan to find more communities. I am going to renew my search for a good writers’ group; I need the writing practice, and I thoroughly enjoyed my previous experience belonging to a writers’ group.

But there is something else that has been weighing on my heart since my diagnosis. Cancer support groups tend to be divided up by diagnosis, and they tend to be exclusive. Every day I count myself fortunate that my cancer cells first attacked my breast. Breast cancer is a popular cause, and while there is still so much need, most support groups and services are exclusively dedicated to breast cancer survivors.

Sure, most women with cancer happen to have breast cancer, but that is no comfort for the 29-year-old single mom in a support group full of 60-year-old men because she has rectal cancer. Would you want to discuss your chemo induced menopause in that environment? She’s receiving many of the same chemo drugs, and the radiation differs just in location. That young woman has no access to the Komen funds that help pay the rent of breast cancer survivors, or the house keeping services for breast cancer survivors, or the circle of young moms battling breast cancer. Fundraisers for ‘Save the Ta-Tas,’ T.I.T.S. (Two in the Shirt), and any number of other tongue in cheek parties that combine boobs with booze fill our social calendars, but nobody wants to go to a save the rectums party. Just because the cancer cells first attacked her caboose instead of her headlights, this young woman is excluded from an amazing array of cancer coping resources. And she is not alone. Millions are in the same predicament.

So let’s bring those millions together.

Or, as far as the Seattle area is concerned, lets bring those hundreds together.

I want to create a community for young adults with cancer, especially mothers of young children, that is inclusive rather than exclusive.

And then I want to find a way to help get them the kind of amazing support, financial and otherwise, that I have received as a breast cancer survivor.

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

Let’s Connect

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One Word: Hope

by Judy Schwartz Haley | Cancer, Living Well

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

(Reverb 10 – Day 1 / Prompt Author: Gwen Bell)

I didn’t have to think very long or very hard to assign a word for this year. Cancer consumed my energy and time, but the one word I would use to describe this year is hope. Hope is what drives me, what gets me out of bed every day. Hope is what I see every time I look at my daughter. Hope is why I subjected myself to all the ick of treatment.

For what am I hopeful? A cure? Of course. And until then, I’d like to battle this cancer back, and not have any recurrence.

I’m hopeful I’ll have many more tomorrows.

I’m hopeful I’ll outlive my daughter’s childhood.

But there’s more than that – I’m 40 now, it’s about time for a midlife crisis. Imagine what happens to a midlife crisis when the universe says this might actually be the end of your life.

I’m a late bloomer: at 40, I’m still working on getting my bachelors degree, I haven’t yet started a career from which I could eventually retire, I’ve never been off this continent, I’ve just been married a few years, and my daughter isn’t even two yet. This mid-life crisis had already been messing with me when I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

There is so much I want to do with my life. Most importantly, I want to be the one to raise my daughter, to guide her through adolescence and into adulthood, and to be there for her if and when she starts her own family. I want to get old with my husband. I want to travel around the world. I want to finish my degree – for myself, but also as an example to my daughter. I also want to write a book, and more than that, to make a living as a writer. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I first comprehended that someone wrote the words I was reading when I was in Kindergarten. I have two big ideas for non-profits I want to get started. I want to make a mark on the world. I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place.

So hope it is: Hope that I can be here to raise a confident, intelligent, and compassionate young woman, and Hope that I can finish my degree, muster the confidence to start submitting my writing for publication (perhaps even some travel writing from all the adventures The Husband and I will have together), and get the ball rolling on righting some wrongs in this world.

That’s a lot to pack into one little four-letter word.

My word for next year: Resilience.

What word would you use to describe 2010?