A view of a cactus in bloom in a pot in our back yard.
I am a worrier. And lately, I have been overcome with worry. Not only because of my future daughter-in-law’s cancer diagnoses — that’s the big thing — but there’s also other things in my life that my worrying spills into.
What I have discovered is the anticipation or not knowing gets my anxiety into high gear.
Then when the “thing” is known — or it actually happens — I am in shock. I can feel my entire body shake, including my hands and even my spine. I spend some time in denial. Eventually I settle down, and face my new reality.
Acceptance slips in. It’s a part of my life. I can accept it. Until another drama, disaster or bad news hits, and then I live through the process again.
Then I go for a swim, pray and take a walk. It helps, but it doesn’t get rid of it.
Do you worry more about the unknown, not having information or do you worry more once you have all the facts and it’s not good news?
Olive got into my suitcase while I was unpacking and began scratching and biting it. I got her message loud and clear.
After a week home, I’m starting to feel settled. It’s been a super busy week, filled with long to do lists. What is helping me avoid gripping anxiety is morning walks, a few swims at the YMCA and having Olive fall asleep on my lap.
I read an article about cancer the other day in the Wall Street Journal. I learned something new that I feel is valuable to share. Cancer runs in families.
The article was called “Cancer Runs in Families. Too Few Are Getting Tested.”
Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider knew what her father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis meant for his future. She didn’t realize what it meant for her own cancer risk.
“I had no idea that this was possible for me,” said Ungerleider, 43, an internal medicine doctor and founder of End Well, a nonprofit focused on end-of-life care.
Doctors are recommending genetic tests to more cancer patients and their families. Testing costs have dropped, and the results are helping doctors choose newer targeted drugs and encourage relatives to confront their own cancer risk.
“We can test you for dozens of genes at the same time, and it’s going to influence your treatment,” said Dr. Jewel Samadder, co-leader of the Office of Precision Medicine at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Phoenix.
I’ve had cancer on my mind, obviously after my future DIL was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and has undergone successful surgery. What this article told me is all too clear. In my DIL’s family several of her sisters were diagnosed and treated for cancer in their 20s and 30s.
I think it would be wise if you have had family members with cancer, to get tested, too.
Here’s more from the article:
Some 10% of cancers are associated with genetic inheritance, including the BRCA mutations linked to breast and ovarian cancer risk in the 1990s.BRCA mutations have since been linked to other cancers, and dozens more gene variations have been shown to raise cancer risks.
Doctors have broadened guidelines for who should get tested, including all patients with ovarian, metastatic prostate and pancreatic cancer and some with colorectal and breast. Some are pushing for universal testing after some studies showed that around half of genetic cancer links are missed under standard testing guidance.
Here’s a beauty of a barrel cactus in bloom outside my window.
This roadrunner found a perch to watch the quails in our backyard.
What are your thoughts about cancer running in families? Would you get tested if your parents or siblings had cancer? Would you recommend friends to have testing done?
A photo from the river at Graignamanagh that I took during our trip to Ireland years ago.
Here’s an interesting bit of news:
Parents in a town in Ireland came together to voluntarily ban smartphones for kids as old as 13 by Zoe Rosenberg in a publication called Insider.
I think this is an excellent idea and if I could go back in time, I’d have waited to give our daughter an iphone. We did wait with our son because he was three years older — and smart phones weren’t a thing yet.
But by the time my daughter was in third or fourth grade, a few of her friends were using smartphones. I remember changes at swim meets — before and after smartphones. When the kids were young and nobody had phones, the high school kids played card games with the little ones. They also played “Catch Phrase” and made up word games.
When my daughter was in high school, the middle school and high school kids were no longer talking or laughing. They sat, staring at their screens. I found out later that a lot bullying was going on between the girls — sitting a few feet apart — on their phones.
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
Parents in Greystones, Ireland, have implemented a smartphone ban for primary school-aged kids.
The ban is voluntary, but parents said it reached a critical mass that makes enacting it easier.
The pact seeks to curb anxiety and exposure to unsuitable material, and has won support nationally.
Some kids in Greystones, Ireland, may have to wait until their teen years to partake in the latest viral dance craze, thanks to a voluntary ban on smartphones that has won the support of many area parents.
The Guardian reported that parents in the coastal town, about a 45-minute drive south of Dublin, have joined together to implement the ban that seeks to bar smartphone usage until kids reach secondary school, typically at the age of 12 or 13.
The hope is that the ban will help prolong childhood by lessening the anxiety and exposure to adult materials that smartphone usage often eggs on.
Not only has smartphone use in toddlers and children been linked to slower brain development, it also has increased anxiety and depression in teens. Not all parents are for the ban, and they aren’t required to follow it. But a large enough population of parents support it to make it effective. I guess parents don’t like to be the “odd one out.”
I think my kids would tell you that I had no problem being strict and saying no. But when it came to the iphone, I had no idea that it was harmful. It was fairly new for kids to have, and it seemed perfect to communicate with them. We started off with Tracphones with no smart features and prepaid minutes when they went to swim camp at USC. Eventually, they got their iphones.
I wrote about families in the Silicon Valley who ban screens for their kids. They are working for the tech companies, and I felt they must know something that we weren’t aware of. You can read that story HERE.
What are your thoughts about bans on smartphones for children?
The time has come. I’m traveling to Washington state to be with family and celebrate my mom’s life. She passed away from asymptomatic COVID on New Year’s Day.
My brother and I were grieving badly along with our aunt, Mom’s little sister, and we decided to wait until her birthday to spread her ashes and to be together to celebrate her life. I thought a little time would help me face the loss. I don’t know if it made it better or worse.
The trip has been hanging over my head since the first week of January. Now that it’s here, I’m feeling waves of grief and untapped emotion.
The photos are from property that has been in the family for three generations. This is where we’ll say good-bye to mom.
Our property on the Stilaguamish River.Mom trout fishing in the river when I was up for a visit from California years ago.
In a couple days, we’ll be leaving to have Christmas with my kids, dad and our son’s girlfriend’s family. Our kids suggested Palm Springs, where we moved from exactly two years ago this week. Last year we gathered in Santa Barbara, which was a fun — if not rainy and cold adventure.
I’m conflicted over Palm Springs. After leaving, I don’t have a strong desire to return. I don’t know if it’s an emotional response. If it brings up too many memories. If I miss it, or if I don’t miss it. It makes me feel things I don’t want to feel.
For the kids, who never wanted us to move from Palm Springs, my husband agreed to rent an Airbnb a few blocks from our old home. It’s all for them, not us.
What I’m looking foward to:
Seeing our big extended family.
Walking around my old park.
Swimming in my former city pool.
Going to my old favorite restaurants for a taste of Mexican food and Italian. We haven’t found any good spots here.
Do you think it’s true that you can never go home again? Why or why not?
The wreath I made on our gates at the Palm Springs house which was built in 1937.
It’s official. We left California for Arizona two years ago! I can’t believe how quickly our years flew by — and in some respects how long it has seemed.
Here’s what I thought about moving two years ago today:
The moving van arrived.
Friday was moving day. Our movers arrived at 9 a.m. and we thought it would be a couple hours and we’d hit the road. No, we were wrong. By 5 p.m. the movers realized their truck was full and we still had a bunch of stuff in the garage like bikes, a wheelbarrow and my daughter’s desk. Plus the STORAGE UNIT where we’ve been squirreling away boxes and stuff for months.
Yikes! The movers had to rent a U-Haul and we gave them the keys to our storage unit. Of course there weren’t any U-Hauls in town and they had to drive to San Diego or some place to find a U-Haul. They said they’d come back to our California house the next morning and pick up the rest of our stuff in the garage when our housekeeper and dear friend Delia would be cleaning.
We drove to Arizona and our new home, minus our furniture that night. We thankfully packed suitcases and bedding. Our fellow swim team parents and close friends drove one of our cars packed to the hilt, plus their car complete with all the stuff from our freezer and fridge. Now, those are true friends who volunteer to drive an 8-hour round trip to make our move easier!
I have driving anxiety and panic attacks driving on freeways. I couldn’t face the four-hour drive on Interstate 10. Our daughter promised to fly down from SFO and drive one car and help us unpack. Then California went into lockdown. Our daughter didn’t feel good about flying. So our friends volunteered to help us out and meanwhile our daughter’s supposed flight was cancelled. It all worked out in the end.
Our new living room. So much work to do!
We got to our Arizona home at 10:30 p.m. We unpacked our suitcases, settled into bed around midnight exhausted beyond comprehension. Thank goodness we bought the furniture in the casita from the sellers. Otherwise, we’d have been on the floor. We never saw our friends who drove our car for us. They not only drove our car, but they filled our fridge with all our condiments, frozen foods and perishables — before heading back to California.
The next day, the moving van and U-haul arrived at 2 p.m. We worked throughout the weekend to get the kitchen in order and our closet organized. Kitty is stressed and hiding under the bed in the casita, where we’ve been living.
My new backyard as the sun begins to set.
I don’t recommend moving after living in one house for 28 years. It’s an unusually hard task, mentally and physically. But, when we’re more settled the sunsets will make it all worthwhile.
Sunset and saguaros in the neighborhood.
What’s the longest you’ve lived in one place? How did you handle packing and going through years of stuff when you moved? Did you think of moving during the COVID shutdowns? A lot of people did move.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday while driving to and from the post office with my Frango client gifts. I didn’t hear all of it, but what I did hear was disturbing. Our youth are in a mental health crisis. One in five contemplate suicide. Suicide is skyrocketing. Mental health has reached a crisis level and there is a shortage of mental health care professionals.
The podcast was quoting from a recent Washington Post article. (I’m not a subscriber so I looked for other free resources online.)
New research shows the number of teens with suicidal thoughts were already rapidly growing before the pandemic’s mental health impact.
The number of 5 to 19-year-olds who were hospitalized with suicidal thoughts jumped almost 60% between fall 2019 to fall 2020.
“We need to really start thinking about the root of it all and looking at how we can prevent and intervene a lot sooner for our youth,” said Dr. Brewer.
When I was growing up, I didn’t hear much about mental health or suicidal thoughts in youth. I’m sure it was happening, but not talked about. But I’m also sure it wasn’t at crisis proportions that it is today.
What do you believe the cause is? What has changed from decades ago to today that affects mental health? Was it isolation due to COVID? Is it isolation due to smart phones? Is it bullying online? What other causes? Please discuss.
