Thankful – The Stories Between

Cancerversary

Editor’s Note: We are always amazed at the resilience and positive approach that so many families living with cancer are able to adopt. How a potentially fatal diagnosis can be turned into a Silver Lining in their life and one they end up being grateful to have endured. We feel these stories can serve as inspiration no matter what your struggle might be.

Today is the cancerversary. Four years ago today the doctors came to Sophia’s hospital room to check in with us. We were waiting for their visit. Sophia had been brought in the night before, the cause of her illness yet to be determined. We were prepared to hear that she’d had a reaction to medication she’d been taking a few weeks earlier. Nothing prepared us for what was said next, “Why don’t you come with us to the conference room.” We were told Sophia had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and that she would begin treatment right away. It was a lot to take in and honestly the first week was a bit of a blur. What I do remember very clearly was the love and support we received – it seemed as if each day brought a new blessing.

Our friends and family went into overdrive. My sister was by my side every day with soy lattes, bistro boxes and laughs. Sophia was showered with gifts from family, friends and people we didn’t even know. Her name was added to prayer lists in Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Jewish and non-denominational churches and synagogues. The support truly helped us get through the difficult times.

They say a family trauma has the potential to break a family apart. Sophia’s cancer had the opposite effect on us. The five of us became even closer. Our time together became incredibly important. We adopted mindfulness as a way of being in the moment and cherishing each other. Even today, we try to have dinner together every single night, working around sports schedules. Some nights it’s diner at 4:30, some nights it’s 7:30. But we sit together in gratitude and share the best or funniest thing that happened to us that day.

For a while, we would categorize our lives as BC (before cancer) and AD (after diagnosis) as if we had lived two very different lifetimes. The first being a time of innocence and joy, the second being reality. Remembering an event or date we’d say, “That was about one month BC” or “That must have been about 3 months AD judging by her hair.” We don’t do much of that anymore. The whole cancer diagnosis seems to have been woven into our family timeline so tightly that there no longer seems to be a before and after – only a continuing story.

I love our story and I’m fairly certain each one of us, even Sophia, would agree- we wouldn’t change a thing. On this fourth cancerversary, we will celebrate our many blessings, grateful for each other and all those that are a part of our lives. There may also be some ice cream involved.

Jane McCaul is an Area General Manager for Chesapeake Hospitality. She manages two Baltimore-area Hackerman-Patz Houses which accommodate patients and family members of patients undergoing treatment at local hospitals. Jane lives in Baltimore with her husband John, their 3 children Christina, Jack and Sophia and their dog Ginger. After 3 1/2 years of treatment Sophia will be entering middle school in the fall – happy and healthy. She is very active participating in sports year-round (field hockey, basketball and lacrosse) but her favorite activity of all is playing in the ocean. She recently got a new surf board that she can’t wait to try!

Golden Honey, Silver Lining

In 2008, my garden was decimated by a small twister that took out over 30 trees. One of the trees, a stately black walnut, was home to a colony of feral bees. The trunk had been ripped in to several pieces, and the intricately constructed combs were in disarray. A beekeeping friend, Jon, attempted to rescue the colony, with the intention of hiving it somewhere on the property. His best efforts to find the queen and move her with her courtiers were thwarted: it appears she died on impact leaving the colony to dwindle and, already weakened, to die. Unable to save the colony, Jon removed big clumps of comb and our children sat around the increasingly sticky kitchen table squeezing pounds of oozing honey into a bowl. We bottled the honey and it is the best I have ever tasted.

This brush with bees inspired me to become a beekeeper myself. It was not a straightforward path: first, the night course I was to take was cancelled, another to be offered in the spring. When spring came I could not take the course as I was a little preoccupied with a very sick son, Gregory, being treated at Johns Hopkins for Stage IV Lymphoma. Eventually, however, Gregory made a recovery and returned to school.

Another spring came round, and the bee keeping course was offered again: I signed up immediately. Coincidentally, my children’s third grade teacher, Rosie, took the course too. She had been Gregory’s teacher when he became sick, and took a particular interest in his sister, Alessandra, when she joined her class a couple of years later. She has an excitement and enthusiasm that is almost childlike, certainly infectious and, on April 19th, 2015 Rosie and I successfully hived our very own colony of bees, and have tended our “girls” this year with increasing fascination and affection for these extraordinary creatures. In addition to co-parenting several thousand 6 legged delights, we have become fast friends, working together more and more smoothly as we open up the bee hive, examine each frame of comb for eggs, pollen and honey.

Rosie’s family has health challenges of its own, and we can speak to each other about our experiences in a kind of shorthand, a waggle dance of sorts. Having that implicit understanding of each others day to day difficulties, the exhaustion of continuing to function with as much grace and gratitude as can be mustered, having that inner knowledge, it takes the weight off our shoulders, if only for an hour or so. Having borne witness to how painful, frightening and fragile life can be ensures that Rosie and I are not great dwellers on the unhappy and we both tend to look for the joy in life, even on days when it is particularly elusive.

This beekeeping business helps us in that endeavor, watching these industrious, collaborative insects drawing out their beautiful comb, hexagon by hexagon, filling it with pink, yellow, even blue-ish pollen, storing honey to nourish the tribe in the depths of winter, keeping house, spic and span, each with a defined job to do, carried out efficiently, coherently, elegantly. I find myself talking to my bees when I am near their hive, or if they are working next to me in the garden foraging for nectar and pollen, their legs and abdomens liberally dusted with the good stuff. When we break open the hive and disturb their good offices, they fly up and around us and it is not fearful, but provokes a feeling of great warmth as we are enveloped in their thrumming cloud.

As Rosie and I continue our journey of care for family members with a chronic illness, on an often bumpy and rocky road with unexpected twists and turns, we have found a happy place, one we occupy together in empathetic companionship, striving to find the good, the pure, and the joy in life with our girls, our bees.

Laura Leach was born in England but currently lives in Baltimore. She is a horticulturist, a fundraiser, and freelance writer. She is married to Paul and is blessed with two children, Gregory, now 13, and Alessandra who is 10.

Cancer: Turning Adversity into Opportunity

By the time I was 16 I was a two-time cancer survivor. And I have been surprised to find that it is possible to benefit from the cancer experience.

I count myself very lucky to have lived through experiences and challenges that most of my peers cannot imagine. I have become a passionate writer and advocate for young people living through cancer treatment or cancer survivorship. Through my writing, I have chosen to be a proponent of positive attitudes and try to encourage my readers to stay positive in the midst of some very negative times.

In doing so, I have learned a lot about cancer – both my own experiences and the impact cancer can have on others. For me, I am grateful for the lessons-learned, friends made, and dreams realized thanks to those two bouts of cancer. Although it can be hard to understand this gratitude when going through it, I have come to find that cancer can impact your life in just as many positive ways as negative ones.

In my own case, there are several things that have happened in my life – several very good things – that I don’t know if I would have experienced had it not been for cancer. For starters, my cancer treatment as a toddler sparked in me a lifelong passion for helping others, and that passion that provided me with direction during the early teenage years in which many young people feel most directionless.

My cancer relapsed at 13 and, while it stole 3 years of my adolescence from me, it gave me much more. That relapse treatment provided me with a family of doctors and nurses who showed me the meaning of hope, the value of dedication to one’s work, and the wonderful impact one can have on the lives of others when you choose a career about which you are passionate. I then had the opportunity to be an honorary team captain at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Fall Ball Lacrosse Tournament. I was assigned as the honorary team captain for the Duke University women’s lacrosse team. Although I couldn’t come to the game itself, the team sent me a beautiful and thoughtful care package. When I later went to look at colleges, Duke was at the top of my list because I wanted to find a school like that where students were involved in on-campus activities that could benefit people in and around the community. No less than 5 years after that lacrosse tournament, I received my letter of acceptance from Duke University and will be graduating with honors in May.

Shortly after the LLS lacrosse tournament, I took the opportunity to share my cancer treatment journey at a fundraiser for the hospital at which I was treated. This led to 30 subsequent speaking engagements that allowed me to become a practiced public speaker and give back to hospitals and organizations dedicated to helping children with cancer. At the same time, being out of school because of my treatment led me to realize the unique needs teenagers with cancer have, and the lack of age-specific social and emotional support that they so justly deserve. That realization led me to take an independent research class in high school to research the psychology of teen oncology, a project that led me to writing my blog and eventually publishing my book for teenage and young adult cancer patients and survivors.

Writing my blog and my book allowed me to process my cancer treatment experience and deepened my passion and interest in psychology – specifically in research into and development of social support interventions for adolescents with chronic illness, to help improve their quality of life. In following that interest, I hope to pursue a PhD in pediatric health psychology and work with children, adolescents, and young adults who have cancer or other chronic illnesses.

Long story short, you can take a challenge like cancer and turn it into one or many opportunities. By maintaining a positive attitude and open mind, think about your future and use the challenging experience as leverage to achieve goals that can help to make your future the best it can be.

Clarissa Schilstra is a two-time cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia for the first time when she was two and a half years old. She went through two and a half years of chemotherapy and survived. She led a happy and healthy life until June of 2007, when her cancer relapsed. So, she went through another two and a half years of chemotherapy, this time accompanied by radiation. She is now twenty-one years old and a senior at Duke University. Her passion is helping others cope with the ups and downs of life during and after cancer treatment. It is her goal to become a clinical psychologist after she graduates from Duke, and she would like to help improve the psychological care available to adolescents and young adults who have serious illnesses. You can read more about Clarissa on her website and blog at www.teen-cancer.com. To order a copy of her book, Riding the Cancer Coaster, click here.

Don’t Let Their Beliefs Hold You Down

Like many women, my mom has been the biggest influence in shaping me to be who I am today. However, I can trace back a defining moment in my life to one particular piece of advice she gave me during a pivotal time of my childhood.

Nicole Mom and Ty — Emme Sherry with her grandson, Tyson.

I have two older brothers with one being just 18 months older so naturally I wanted to do everything that he was doing. When he would play baseball I would tag along and the boys let me play but really I was more of the person who would fetch their bat or a ball that went out of bounds. He would say, “You’re too little to do that or you’re not allowed to play on that team yet, or you’re a girl you need to play softball not baseball.”

Because I kept being told that I could not do something I was determined to not only do everything he did but set my goals to do it better. I learned how to ride a bike quicker than he did and I excelled in sports faster as well. I didn’t fully understand the little league aspect of it all and girls having to play softball. After all, up to that year boys and girls played on the same t-ball team but then the next season the boys move on and play baseball and the girls have to wait another full year until the girls’ softball league begins for them.

Fortunately, my dad didn’t want me to sit out a year so he somehow finagled a way to get me in the boy’s league when I was 8 years old. In hindsight, playing in the boy’s league made me even more determined. I remember having the grit about me to tell myself that I can beat these boys, that I was better than them, that I could compete just as well as they did.

It became clear that other parents had more of an issue with a girl on the boy’s team than my peers did. I never knew there was a gender situation until that year. I could not understand why the adults in the stands and friends on opposing teams were now mean to me and laughing at and taunting me.

I finally confided in my mom and she replied, “Nicole, some people are always going to find a way to hold you down by words or by actions. Just know that you can do anything a boy can do and sometimes you will do it better.” And in my life, that single sentence became the foundation for my future career and life path.

Because of my mom’s encouragement, I went on to study agriculture, more specifically Turfgrass management, a clearly male dominant field. Throughout my years I have come across most of the same mentalities of people as those parents in the stands or the boys in my neighborhood. I heard, “you can’t do that, that’s a job for a man or maybe you should try another line of work because you’re too pretty to do that job. Or how about you work with flowers or landscaping.”

But with my mom’s words always in my mind, I stayed the course of my passion and am now currently one of ten women with the title of head groundskeeper and one of only two women with the title in Major League Baseball. And I owe all of that to my mom.

Nicole Sherry McFadyen has been the Head Groundskeeper for the Baltimore Orioles for 10 years. She graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Agriculture. Before the Orioles she worked as Head Groundskeeper for the Trenton Thunder. She lives in Baltimore with her husband Dan and their son Tyson.

Thank you is never enough

Time is a funny thing. Looking forward six years seems crazy – I’ll be almost 27 which seems like foreign territory to me right now. But looking back six years I remember clearly. One day I came home from school to find my mom waiting for me, and then hugging me as I read an email that my friend Amanda Post had passed away. I was only close with Amanda for about two years, but in that time, I think she changed my life more than any other single person besides my parents.

Amanda opened up a whole new world for me when she introduced me to camp. All throughout my treatment, I refused to go even though the nurses encouraged me every year. Amanda insisted I go with her and I had a blast. I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing! It was hard to go back without her, but I know that’s what she would have wanted and now I’m involved as staff in three cancer-related camps.

I’ve had so much fun, both as a camper and as staff, and every year I thank Amanda for leading me to such great people and I will keep going back to give the other kids the same great experience we had. Amanda (and everyone else at camp) helped me see that I was not alone in my fight and that beating cancer was something to be proud of, not something to hide. We would email each other comparing medications and side effects, something I couldn’t do with any of my other friends. She was great at pointing out random perks of treatment, like not having to shave and getting to eat anything, that I had ignored. She made the best of everything, decorating her hospital room, getting a pink Christmas tree when she couldn’t have a real one, and anything else she could think of. She made friends with the other patients and nurses, while I used to hide from everyone. Treatment is yucky, but she made it as fun as possible.

Six years ago, I was shocked. It seemed unreal and impossible. I had been reading her mom’s updates and I knew she had some complications after her transplant but I wasn’t familiar enough with GvHD at the time to really understand how serious it was. I knew she was a fighter and I never doubted that she would get through it all. This email came out of nowhere and I was devastated. I spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing – crying, laughing and everything in between – with some of my close friends who were also friends with Amanda.

I remember sitting in US History the next day, a small cluster of orange shirts (the leukemia color) on one side of the room. We had gone to middle school with Amanda but many of our classmates had not so they didn’t know what had happened. Our history class was listening to songs related to whatever time period we were covering. They were fine until one was about people dying, and that was just too much to take. A few of us walked out and spent the rest of the period crying in the bathroom.

Most of us, myself included, had lost relatives before, but we had never lost a friend, someone our own age. We had never thought about all of the things someone wouldn’t get the chance to do – learn to drive, go to prom, graduate, go to college, start a family. It was an eye-opening experience to realize how fragile life is, not just when you’re old but even at age 15. That’s a lesson I know I will never forget.

There really aren’t words to describe how thankful I am that I was friends with Amanda for those two years. My positive attitude has gotten me so much further in life than my old attitude would have. Embracing my experiences rather than being ashamed of everything has opened up some great opportunities and I’ve met some of my best friends at camp. I’m so lucky that Amanda dragged me into this whole new world and I know I’m not the only one whose life was changed for the better by Amanda in her 15 years. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Karen Shollenberger grew up in Maryland and is currently a junior at Drexel University studying science communication. In her free time, Karen can be found eating chips and salsa, hanging out with friends and family, or volunteering. She’s always up for good food and random adventures and is more than halfway to her goal of visiting all 50 states. Karen is a four-time leukemia survivor and enjoys sharing her experiences through her blog, The Worst Best Thing: theworstbestthing.weebly.com/blog.

Originally published May 17, 2015 on The Worst Best Thing and reposted with permission.