Its time for the BOUNCE BACK!

Preparing for the New Year, by remembering what I've been through.

It's the eve of New Year's Eve, the second to the last day of 2010... and I've been in deep contemplation about the new year and the new possibilities it will bring. It dawned on me that every day we receive the same gift... the opportunity for the bounce back.

Do you remember this punching bag toy?
I had one and I loved it. 

Lessons from childhood toys? Yes, indeed. 

When I was a kid, there was a popular toy like the one pictured here. It was a Bozo the clown bop bag. A simple toy but it provided an abundance of fun. It also provides for me now, a serious lesson for life and living. It's a simple toy really... a blow-up doll with sand in the base. Pretty easy to use too. You hit it, it leans and then it bounces back.

But it's the BOUNCE BACK that gives it all the fun -- and gives me all the encouragement that I need to step into my future and the new year.

From an extremely difficult year... looking forward to new possibilities

2010 has been an incredibly difficult year. I have attended a lot of funerals this year. I have incurred a lot of bills because of my health. My credit score has taken some dings because the bills have outweighed the money on many occasions. My love life is the pits and generally speaking... I've been just dragging. But I think that Bozo and I are going to step lightly into the new year because of the beauty of the bounce back.

Seeing spiritual understanding in basic things

See, I think of the sand base in the bottom of this toy as the equivalent of my spiritual base.

I've had people ask me this year where I was spiritually because they haven't seen me in church for awhile. I have had people ask me where I was spiritually because they had not witnessed me using my tithing envelopes. I've had folks wonder about me because they think that my health concerns may have dimmed my light or my love for God and for living.

But my love of God and of this wonderful life He's given me... give me the ability to BOUNCE BACK from my failings and shortcomings.

God has had my back the entire time

I had breast cancer. He gave me the bounce back to be cured. I had one breast removed. He gave me the bounce back to get a second one. And so on, and so forth. I have been blessed... blessed beyond measure this year. And while I have taken some hits... it is time for a bounce back. Time for a move forward. I know that God doesn't give me more than I can handle. So, while things may be tough now... I know that good things are coming because that is just the way it is.

As I prepare my mind for the new year and I think of all the new possibilities... I realized that it is time for my bounce back. Some of us look to New Year's eve as our opportunity to bounce back, press reset and start over. But the honest to goodness truth is that every day is that opportunity. Every day that you wake up, you're on the way to your own personal bounce back. It is time to press RESET and get going moving forward.

Time for me to bounce back. Stand back and watch me shine. Breast cancer will not defeat me.

"...when they push you down, you've got to get back up"

If you want a Bozo bop bag... click the link below. 

There's also a table-sized version (5-inches) if the big one won't fit your decor.



The Original 46" Bozo 3-D Bop Bag

I need to get my eating habits under control after chemo

...aaahhhh... its Christmas time again!

I seem to be measuring time by how many so-and-so's I've experienced since my diagnosis. This is the third Christmas since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The first Christmas was just a few months after my diagnosis... at the end of my chemotherapy (and the beginning of the end of my relationship). I really can't remember right now how I felt about Christmas in 2008. I'm sure I was sad and feeling pitiful... but unless I go back in the blog (or my journal) to read what I wrote about that time, there's just nothing to draw from in my mind.

2009 was a little different though. I was a year into my treatment -- the end was becoming visible. I had just had my reconstruction surgery the month before and I was looking less like a cancer patient and more like a real girl. (laughs) I can remember being so excited to be alive and able to eat and taste food... those little things that I took for granted before breast cancer. Christmas was nice... a break from being sick.

This year, 2010... I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm all over the place. One day, I'm giddy and feeling special. The next day, I'm somber and wondering why it isn't over already. (shrug) Its weird and bizarre. I am still transitioning to life after breast cancer. I still feel fragile even though I know that I'm not hardly frail anymore. I am frustrated with the progress to find a new job and I am truly longing for warm sunny skies and ocean waves lapping at my toes... I can't wait for spring to hurry up this way again.

One thing is for sure... I am here and I am happy and thrilled about that. Life isn't perfect for me, but it is joyous and filled with opportunities to spend time with people I love and have some giggles.

How are you spending your Christmas season?

The difficulty with being so honest and candid

I think that I finally understand why so many cancer survivors put on the happy face and write those perky books that make it seem like cancer is just a little blip that you go through. They do it for the people who know them and love them, but mostly they do it for themselves. It is a real challenge trying to balance being honest and candid about the emotional toll and the physical changes that breast cancer treatment puts you through without unnecessarily upsetting the people who love you.

I am finding that when I encounter people I know who may not have seen me in awhile but who follow the blog... they tend to be surprised that I am fine and looking pretty good. Which always surprises me that they are so surprised. But when I think about what they probably have read on the blog, I realize that I don't often post the happy stuff... just the sad or emotional issues.

Well, my life is just like anyone else's... it has its ups and downs. I'm generally quite happy and feeling good about things. I laugh and giggle as much as possible. And I try to make others laugh and giggle too. What is life without laughter? Far more serious than it needs to be.

We're all aware that time is precious. That no day is promised to us. And that every moment we've been given is a gift that we should cherish and be grateful for. Indeed, indeed... life is good. Really good when you sit back and think of all the ways it could be different.

So... take a moment to count your blessings and find ways to be a blessing to someone else. It will make you smile all the way down to your toes, I promise you.

RIP Elizabeth Edwards - another pink ribbon sister

Elizabeth Edwards, former wife of John Edwards (presidential candidate) passed away on December 7th. Her family had just released a statement about her failing health a few days before and she shared a very kind and graceful comment with the world. Her medical team shared that there was nothing further (at that time) that they could do for her and she passed away a couple of days later.

I, like everyone else, watched this lady's life from a distance. Absorbing what was fed to me by the media machine and just pondering how she managed to get through what appeared to be tragedy after tragedy with grace and polish. I recall a conversation years ago with a work colleague in which she was referred to as a "steel magnolia". That term is used to describe a southern woman who is generally regarded as tough and independent, but still quite ladylike. I've always sort of liked that term -- and I think that it is one of the highest compliments that you can receive.

Elizabeth Edwards was a steel magnolia to me. She endured losses and set-backs that would send others to their knees... but she managed to stand tall and keep her head up through it all. The death of her child, breast cancer diagnosis, learning that her husband cheated on her and fathered a child outside of their marriage... and then the recurrence of her cancer with little possibility of curing it... that is a lot of storms for one person to withstand. But she did.

Politics aside, it takes a lot of strength and a strong resiliency to say to the winds blowing through your life... "I'm not going anywhere". To be able to bend like a willow tree and yet not break is to me the ultimate in strength. I hope that I reflect that same steel magnolia strength and reserve to people as I struggle to deal with the aftermath of breast cancer.

Cancer can wreck relationships. I've heard a lot of stories about marriages that disintegrated after the the diagnosis of cancer. There are some marriages that are strengthened by the fight to be sure. But many simply are too fractured and/or weakened by other storms of life to endure one last hurricane. I appreciated that after learning that her husband had fathered a child with his mistress Elizabeth decided that she'd had enough. I liked that about her. I don't know whether I would have done the same thing in her position. Facing the end of my life, I'm not sure that I would have the strength to stand alone. But she chose to live life on her terms even until the end. That's admirable.

In her passing, I hope that her friends and family (and her ex-husband) accept that her disease was not the totality of who she was, and how she impacted the world. Her disease was merely the catalyst that allowed millions of others in the world to see her strength and be inspired by it.

I know I have been inspired. Life is as good as we allow it to be, no matter how many days we have. Or have left.

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before," she said. "You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."

Did Puffy stiff the breast cancer community in NY?

So, a story is emerging from New York and its not looking good for a certain music mogul. Sean "Puffy/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy" Combs was hired to host a pink party on Long Island, NY back in October. Only problem is that its now December and the two organizations that were supposed to receive money/donations from the event have yet to see a penny.

Sigh.

I tell you, going pink is BIG BUSINESS people. Really big business. And just because some promoter or marketing team tells you that if you spend your money on this or that "pink" product or service... it does NOT mean that any of that money will actually end up helping a breast cancer survivor in any way.

Sean Combs allegedly was paid $80,000 to appear at this event. And while he's correct (most likely) that he had nothing to do with whatever the promoter promised the two breast cancer organizations... the fact that he's a multi-millionaire (he's allegedly worth about $380 million dollars)... I think its sort of bad taste and rather sad that he hasn't offered either group any money at all.

The groups are at fault as well as the promoter(s) and the club owners because there wasn't a written contract. So, with no contract, who knows what was really agreed to and where the miscommunication happened. But its sad when you think about it because someone's greed is going to impact another person's life in a major way.

The next time someone asks you to pink it up for the cure... ask some pointed questions about where the money you spend will actually be going. Because this sort of situation goes on all the time... this is only making news because Sean Combs is involved. You have to be careful where you spend your money.

He's 'P. Diddly squat'

By BRAD HAMILTON

Call him P. Deadbeat.

That's how two breast-cancer charities regard hip-hop mogul P. Diddy, claiming they were stiffed by a "Pink Party" he hosted on Long Island last month that was supposed to raise money for their organizations.

While the host waltzed off with a five-figure fee from the Glo nightclub in Westbury on Oct. 14, "We never got a penny," said Carolyn Spector, director of the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group Foundation, which does breast-reconstruction and other operations for underprivileged patients.

"Nothing was written down, but we were told we would get part of the take," she said. "The terminology was 'proceeds from the event.' "

A staffer for the other charity, 1 in 9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, said, "It's just a little embarrassing. People say, 'How much did you raise for your programs?' And we say, 'We haven't seen anything yet.' "

There was plenty of money coming in that night, the organizations allege, saying guests were charged $10 at the door and $1,000 to sit with Diddy in a VIP area of Glo, a swanky club that holds more than 2,000.

"By 1 a.m., the place was packed," said Spector.

The event, touted by the nightclub as a charitable takeoff of P. Diddy's fabled "White Party" in the Hamptons, asked that guests wear a "splash of pink" in honor of October being the month of breast-cancer awareness.
But Diddy, who promotes himself as a staunch advocate of breast-cancer causes, created a flap when he showed up not wearing any or even realizing he was expected to.

But he did walk off with a "consider able amount of money" for playing host, according to a spokesper son for Glo, which came up with the idea for the party.

Diddy declined to say how much he pocketed. The charities said they were told it was $80,000.

The mogul -- whose reported net worth is $380 million, and who Forbes estimated earned $30 million last year -- said he did nothing wrong and doesn't owe the charities a thing.

"I didn't know what the [club] owner promised -- that had nothing to do with me," he told The Post.

"I had no information about the charity. When the event was booked, it was just for an appearance. I agreed to let him add the charity because I thought it was a good idea."

John Smythe, whose father, John Sr., owns Glo, said the club offered Spector and Geri Barish, the director of 1 in 9, a table where they could ask for handouts. The two then ordered drinks and wandered off, he claimed.

"They were working a table for donations," he said. "But they left the table later and start drinking. Seemed like they were into partying."

"That's just a bunch of crapola," Spector shot back. She said the charities were given a verbal promise of a portion of revenue from the bar or door.

"There was never any question of my setting up a table and trying to fund-raise on my own. That's not the way we operate. There weren't even chairs for us to sit down on. And I didn't have anything to drink."

A Glo spokeswoman then called the paper with a different story.

"It was agreed that if there was a profit, a portion of it would be given to the charity," said flack Danielle Orsino. "But the night of the event, there was a torrential rainstorm. They expected thousands and only a few hundred showed up. So they lost money."

Additional reporting by Ginger Otis
brad.hamilton@nypost.com

Its Alright...



(Ledisi)

During my days of chemotherapy, mastectomy surgery and recuperation and radiation treatment... I often reached for things that would make me feel better and keep me grounded in the faith that everything would be okay. I can tell you now that I was terrified almost every day that I dealt with my cancer treatment. I learned to laugh around the pain; I learned to give the pain room and eventually to let it go. I spent a lot of time alone in my bedroom just crying and praying and hoping that it would all be alright. And it was. It is alright. I tried to be honest about my fears and emotions about having cancer without being too morose about it.

Through those days, weeks and months (well actually years)... there was one song in particular that just spoke to my spirit and soothed my soul. I listened to it just about every day and I sang it to myself while I sat in the hospital at chemo or radiation. The song is "Alright" by Ledisi. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the song... but it is awesome. (smile)

I had not listened to the song in a little while until today when someone posted an acoustic version on facebook. As soon as she started singing... my heart opened up and the tears started to fall. I am so grateful for artists like Ledisi, who pour their heart and soul into their work... because it transcends the product and serves to connect spirits to a higher place. Ledisi's song and voice helped to keep me grounded and reminded me that no matter how things looked or felt, it was going to be alright.

Today, I needed to be reminded of that. It feels like everything is crashing around me... I'm believing people who are showing up as liars and fakes, I am waiting on others to do what they say they will do... I'm waiting for miracles and blessings (mostly financial) to take the pressure off my back from these bills... I am dealing with aches and pains in my body that I just don't understand and can't seem to get past. Its a lot right now... and while I'm not complaining about any of it, I am stressed a bit. But... its gonna be alright.

LEDISI - Alright  (Lost & Found 2007)

This life can make me so confused
But it's alright
Living day by day I feel so used
That ain't right
I just wanna run and hide
But I don’t have the time to cry
And it's alright
Alright, alright
Many thoughts are running through my head
It’s alright
Wishing to be somewhere else but here
And it's alright
I can't wait to see your face
I need a smile and your embrace
And I’m alright
Alright
Yeah


Hook:
Life can bring us through many changes
And it's alright
Just don’t give up know that it’s gonna be alright
People come and they go
That’s just the way that it goes


Everything is everything
And it's alright
Sometimes the rain it makes me sad
And it's alright
Some things in the world they make me mad
And it's alright
In the morning when I see the sun
I know I'm not the only one
And it's alright
Wish I had some money to pay my bills
I can’t even buy that dress on sale
But it's alright
Having money don’t mean a thing
Loving you is everything
And I’m alright


Hook:
Life can bring us through Many changes
And it's alright
Just don’t give up know that it’s gonna be alright
People come and they go
That’s just the way that it goes


Everything is everything
And it's alright
ooo, everything is everything
ooooo its gonna be alright
ooo everything is everything
ooooo,its gonna be alright


Hook
-----------
(Ledisi, Alright - acoustic version)

Its gonna be alright... everything is everything... its alright. (smile, tear)