Dear Friend,
I’m here today with bad math – news of a cancer diagnosis.
It means that I also come bearing gifts – important, sometimes forgotten, gifts:
A fresh reminder of what it is to be human – with our brilliant agency & bounded limitations.
A prompt to find your people today & hug them tight – we can't overdo it!
Permission to host grief, gratitude & real expectancy – side-by-side.
Most of all, friend, I’m here today with hope – unapologetic and ambitious hope! – and an invitation to join me in a beautiful group project. (I’d be tempted to call it the Anti-Cancer Campaign, except that many of us started in on this beloved community – quietly – so many years ago.)
I confess, I’m still wrapping my mind around the loss of obscurity – a strange visibility that comes alongside diagnosis made public. It’s odd to spend a few decades piddling about in everyday conversations + slow-growing friendships + messy, muscular love only to wake up one day – spotlights shining.
But diagnoses have a way of insisting on their own speed, scope, and platform, as many of you can attest. (They also have a way of reducing storylines – stripping away the color & shape, the nuance & beauty. Let’s buck that trend, shall we?)
In the end, it seemed neither practical nor possible to keep the whole thing under wraps – trend lines moving in the opposite direction. So, alas, here we are…
Where are we? How did we get here?
In early March, I landed news of a breast cancer diagnosis.
I’ll spare you prognosis & treatment details, but the basics are as follows: early-stage + aggressive cancer setting the table for 18+ months of treatment, including chemo, surgery, integrative support – and surely a few surprises along the way.
Though I've already started treatment, my most intensive run – a chemo cocktail called TCHP – will happen every three weeks, May-Oct, followed by surgery, recovery, and post-op treatments (which most bodies find more tolerable).
What does this mean? For you? For me? For us?!
Ha! Who knows. (Warm welcome to full-dose on mystery here – maybe we call it life?!) Most of what you & I would wish to know or control is out of range, but a few things are clear:
This diagnosis means a significant departure from my “normal” — and I am eager for your thoughts, prayers, and friendship alongside. As anyone in the throes of life change can attest – many of you right now! – it’s a lot.
Can we be thoughtful and gentle with ourselves? Long, deep breaths. Kind hospitality.
Can we give real permission to host the full range of emotions we feel, honoring all we carried last week – inside of our bodies, inside of our stories. (Maybe, even, just a moment ago.)
Can we lead with check-ins and questions, not answers and advice – even when that feels messy, scary, or new?
This pivot finds me inside of unique vulnerability: sole bread-winner fifteen months into launching a service-based business without conventional medical insurance.
Though I’m grateful for a health-share program that’s already brought remarkable provision, I’m celebrating the gift of a fundraiser friends of mine are hosting to provide auxiliary support for health expenses + lost income.
I’m also launching an alternate revenue stream here on Substack – sharing updates on my journey and repurposing cancer to serve my community with wisdom & fresh insights. (NOTE: general updates on my health & life will never live behind a paywall – so be assured that you’ll have access to read and comment on those at will!)
Though Substack takes an administrative fee of 10% on all paid subscriptions, I've reasoned that writing for some paid subscribers may allow me to step into coach-like questions & insights, without the physical demands of in-person client sessions. (It's an experiment, to be sure!) To those of you considering a paid subscription, let me say explicitly: I don't know how many paid articles I’ll have capacity to publish in 2023-2024. Are you game for experiments & risk & a 10% investment in Substack? Subscribe! Not so much? Follow along here for life & health updates anyhow 😉
Investment in my early-stage business ventures would be a gift. In 2022, I stepped into two working partnerships alongside dreamy collaborators – Jenna Brack & DJ Smith – teaming separately with each for a distinct offering:
After launching a women’s leadership cohort earlier this year, Jenna & I are also hosting three Workshop Sessions for female leaders in 2023. Join us or invite sisters you know to participate by registering here!
DJ & I are teaming to serve businesses at a crossroads — creating space to gain fresh perspective + identify their best areas for strategic growth and brand impact. Know a team we should talk to? Send them our way!
It’s still just me here – just the one! – inside of my house, my calendar, my daily life. And I’m keenly aware of new expenditures being asked from me alongside new and growing limitations.
Can we lead with patience in our correspondence – filling any communication gaps with trust in friendship that is deeper than a moment or a text thread?
Can we look toward the Substack lane as our primary channel for correspondence? (This will keep me from replicating updates AND enable collaborators alongside me to help with communication.)
Can we commit to the marathon? Some of my hardest days are eight & ten months out. Will you consider leveraging the energy of this moment to fuel future care & correspondence? (Perhaps marking your calendar to reach out during your birth month – noting in that appointment the energy you feel now or the values that will support you then to follow through. Or maybe you schedule a monthly check-in on your birth “date”?!)
Can we listen to each other – really listen? Here are a few questions I’ve found helpful alongside others in difficult seasons:
How’s today? or How are you today?
[Eye contact.] How are you? Do you even feel like answering?
Tell me about your last good/fun moment?
What’s hard about the hard things in your life right now?
What do you wish someone would ask you about?
Dear ones, cancer’s not the headline here. We can write a better story. I say we go & do it.