Knee Deep Blog

Everyone Has A Story - A Walk in the Cemetary

If you're just catching up with me you'll want to start here to learn about my discovery of lumpiness behaving badly which is also known as breast cancer to the every day person, as well as why I am writing about my journey of breast cancer and for the time being a breast cancer blog.

My prior post is here.

A few hours ago I found myself walking through a cemetery, no not what you may think - checking out my own mortality - rather, the sun came as I had just finished picking up the films from my mammograms and MRI for the surgical appointment I have tomorrow and I wanted to capitalize upon it and get some fresh air. 

Any one in Seattle knows when the sun is out in the winter find any excuse to bask in it because if you wait even 30 minutes it could be gone for 48 more hours.  Based upon the torrential down pour we had throughout yesterday and the snow last night I figured I really wanted and needed a little sun to warm my face and soul.  The cemetery just happened to be conveniently located across the street from the hospital and breast center, as well as offered an open walking space where I could both exercise a bit and get some fresh air to think.

Tis the Day after Christmas and Still I Wait

If you're just catching up with me you'll want to start here to learn about my discovery of lumpiness behaving badly which is also known as breast cancer to the every day person, as well as why I am writing about my journey of breast cancer and for the time being a breast cancer blog.

My prior post is here.

So tis the day after Christmas and still I wait...wait to know more, wait so I can figure out what's next, wait so I can answer my own questions as well as those of my well wishing family and friends...it's known as waiting hell.  So this is what happens when you discover you have cancer and it's the holidays, every one you want to speak with is on vacation and those that are left behind to answer the frantic or perhaps impatient calls like mine are unavailable "so please leave a message."

Interestingly even though at first it felt like anxiety, it certainly wasn't the same type of anxiety of "do I" or "don't I" have breast cancer; instead it's like being suspended in a time capsule.  Now that the initial shock is over and my feet have landed back on the ground and my brain is beginning to work again I'm ready to find out more.

Today I took the only other steps I could think of, leave another message to hear back on results from the biopsy (now a week ago),  fax my urgent request for my pathology report (truthfully I don't really even know what they will send, but I do remember in my initial state of shock of learning that I did have breasking cancer and having a friend  who went on the Susan Kolman support forum tell me that one of the things every one recommends is to get a copy of your pathology report) so I wrote and faxed my request and copied my primary care physician.  Finally I set up my MRI for tomorrow.

Lumpiness Behaving Very, Very Badly - Breast Cancer

If you're just catching up with me you'll want to start here to learn about my discovery of lumpiness behaving badly which is also known as breast cancer to the every day person, as well as why I am writing about my journey of breast cancer and for the time being a breast cancer blog.

My lumpiness needs more than a time out in the time out charge, because it has behaved, very, very badly - I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Thursday, just 24 hours after the biopsy so one anxiety has been released - I now know - and it has been replace with another one - I have cancer.

I have to admit that the first 48 hours have been a blur, now as I enter the 72nd hour my brain has returned and my feet have landed back on the ground. 

I know had an out of body experience when Tim and I were sitting in my doctor's office.  I felt like I was watching a movie as soon as I heard the words,

"Michele I'm sorry to tell you, you  have breast cancer then I heard blah, blah, blah, blah I've created some fact sheets because I don't think you'll hear very much today.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah that's all we know for now.

I'm so glad you brought Tim with you, it will be good to bring some one with you each time.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah you will need to be an advocate."

Tim sobbed, I sobbed more each time I heard Tim cry...talk about an emotional party, and it wasn't even I party I wanted to attend.

We spent 1.5 hours in her office and truthfully I can only account for about 20 minutes.  Afterward we pulled the car down a block into a church parking lot so we could get our heads around what was said and get ready to pick Eli up from my mom's house by 6 pm.

Death...loss, emotion and digging in to what matter mosts

Death...is there really any thing you can say that feels just right and appropriate in that moment? A good friend from my master's program  2000 cohort just sent an email sharing his wife's death due to a ruptured brain aneurysm.  They are in their early 50's, have an incredible relationship, and are individually and together amazing people.

I want to yell out people in their prime and young kids aren't suppose to die, but they do.

Each time I experience a death it brings me back to my father's death four years ago and reopens that sea of emotion and my journey to finding peace.  Maybe it's just my age, once you hit your 40's, death happens more frequently around you.  Although life, death and dying are part of our lives, what seems so unfair has been the unexpectedness of each death - and how that rocks one's core.

My father was in his mid 70's and had numerous body parts taken out for a variety of types of cancer, the joke was always about him being hallow inside or just trying to lose weight. Although he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in the fall and give just a few months to live - which coincided with me finding out I was pregnant - he didn't die until the following Labor day weekend which was almost a year later. 

What was unexpected is that he didn't die of cancer as was predetermined. He either died of a stroke or some type of aneurysm.  Since he was terminally ill they wouldn't and didn't do an autopsy. 

Innovate or Die or the More Politically Correct Innovate and Grow

"Innovate or die" or do I be more politically correct and state, "innovate and grow"? At 5:04 am these were the deep thoughts that were meandering through my mind.  Eli had recently woken up yelling for mommy to come and after patiently waiting I knew he wasn't going back to sleep so I trudged upstairs and jumped into bed with him.  He fell back to sleep but I didn't as my mind began racing and settling in on "innovate or die" repeating again and again. OK, I'm not going back to sleep, got the message, and got out of bed.

I generally laugh at others when they say they wake up early and can't go back to sleep because 98% of the time I can, but not today. I know that the thoughts are stemming from my own coaching call yesterday which helped me pull together some of the research I've been doing to help me look at my own work and business from a different lens as well as asking me some big questions such as "What is the pay off for being great, but pretending not to see my own greatness?" that both felt uncomfortable as well as right on mark. 

I realized it's hard to shift to a new lens because I'm looking at it from an familiar and comfortable paradigm (lens, view what ever word works for you) on how I do my work, who I work with and what the processes are with clients as well as the bigger, this is how I think I should do it....oh shit, it hit me that I am "shoulding" on my self big time. A paradigm shift is lurking.

I realized that my comfort with what I do in my work has actually become a huge weight dragging me and holding me down.  More importantly I realized that I've gotten lost in the work and details forgetting what my real purpose is in my work. And that is what my coaching has been about.

I Started My Day Crying Over Paul Potts

I broke my rule this morning and instead of working off my big rocks list thought I'd spend 20 minutes clearing out my in box of junk.  Instead I ended up on internet marketer's Mark Hendrick's blog and crying over Paul Potts.

Paul came out of no where with an amazing voice (singing opera no less) to win Britain's Got Talent Show this past summer.  Mark Hendricks does a good job of summarizing it up...hope, hard work and preparation meet opportunity. 

Literally on a flip of a coin Paul entered the show.  He is wearing a cheap store suit and is very nervous when he comes out - aren't we all when we finally break through our own glass ceiling of fear.  The first video is his audition when he broke through his own limiting beliefs and showed up.  It had my mouth hanging open and tears in my eyes. 

Paul Potts BGT Audition Video - truly amazing

In a later video he said he didn't know who he was and if he was some body, now he knows, he's Paul Potts - Pure inspiration for any of us to reach inside and have that clarity.

Mom's are Master Jugglers at Work and Home

Priorities and Juggling

I keep looking at the business focused "to do" list of four items, but in the recess of my mind I know it's really more like 76 things - both business and personal I'd love to get done by the end of the week, before my Saturday speaking engagement.  Plus it's really more than four because some of them are big and really do need to be broken down.  Remember, be productive and not just busy....my mantra.

Hence the life of a mom and master juggler of home and business - tossing A (the focused four from work and a bunch more from my home life), B, C and a few interesting D priorities around and around.

Posting to my blog Knee Deep today is not an A or B, rather a C priority but I just can't stop myself.  Writing often helps when I feel at sorts and a bit overwhelmed.  In my mind there a dozen posts that are waiting to be written and keep getting put off as I focus on the A's and B's which are pertinent to my home life and home based business. 

Backpacking In the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness and Painted Mountains and Getting Sick

I still haven't posted pictures from our amazing trip to the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness area the end of August and will add a couple here.  Of course that's when I first got sick which lasted for a good two weeks and really slowed me down and allowed my list of to do build up.  I got well enough for Eli to pick up a similar illness which  became croup (this means he wakes up multiple times during the night coughing and at times gasping for air - also known as stider for you medical folks).  In the last three weeks I've been to the doctor three times myself (the first times this year) for my own version of adult croup and feeling like shit and then a menacing bee sting and bee allergy.

More Pictures from Tim's Climb on Mt Rainer

The following link is a slide show Tim put together with pictures and captions from the 4 day Mount Rainer climb and Summit.  I wanted to be sure friends on the list see it so I have posted it separately.  If you haven't read about the trip click here to read My Mountain Man Tim Summits Mount Rainier.

The photos really make you  feel like you are really there.  One of the pictures that took me by surprise was the one with the huge crevasse - it made me glad that they were roped together and that no one broke through. 

The one my "critical self" would like to edit is the last one with my mouth moving. I love the caption..."Michele is telling me something....I'm in total bliss" i.e., Michele has no clue and is excited to see me...I'm not back on earth right now and am still on my mountain high.  Yeah, gotta remember some day to look, listen, then speak!  Love you Tim!

Enjoy the photos.  Michele

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep:  A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

PS Next week Tim and I are going on a week long backpacking trip in the Strawberry Mountains in Oregon...I can hardly wait to be out in nature with not much more to do then hike, eat and relax starring at the beautiful earth!

Defining Moments: Discovering You're Really Part of The Neighborhood

Today I had an aha and deep thought - How do you know you really belong to your neighborhood  and community? 

I mean I've felt like one for a while but I've wondered how much of that is out of convenience of simply living in an urban setting on a block with 15 kids all under the age of 8 and how much has been created out of that convenience?

Today I received an email that both made me smile and has me realize that yes Michele you are part of your community.

The email read as follows:

One of our calico cats, Tigerlily, died unexpectedly over the weekend.

You are invited to celebrate Tigerlily's life at a brief

Furmorial

(that's funeral + memorial,

or maybe just furry memorial - it's Olivia's word)

Tonight at 7 p.m.

our house

Gotta go and shower cause I'm still in my jammies working at 4 (oh, hope my clients don't read this one), finish up my to do list and then prepare my brief thoughts for the Furmorial.

Regards,

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep:  A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

My Mountain Man Tim Summits Mount Rainier

Eli and I spent part of the weekend at Mount Rainer National Park.  We were there to play a bit as well as support Tim upon returning from his momentous climb of Mount Rainer - for his 45th birthday no less!

One of the things I loved about the trip is that his cell phone worked and we had some what regular contact a few minutes at a time during his four day adventure. What I also loved about this trip was being a witness to Tim's commitment to a goal and both the mental and physical stamina it took to get there.  He did some graphic facilitation work with Seattle Pacific University in March / April of this year and was invited by the co-hort on the trip. 

This started off a four month training regiment that included leaving our house and a warm bed many mornings before 6 to hike 8 miles round trip, with a multiple thousand foot elevation gain and 40 lbs of water in his pack with the goal of reaching the top in less than 2.5 hours, only to come home by 12 noon and work the rest of the day.