Park it in the corner.

I have waited over a week to write anything in my journal about the CCNC support group that met, no,no....it happened last Wednesday night. It was an open forum. It was the patients' and caregivers' chance to ask the oncologist any question....any concern. It was Maha who was up for the answering. I knew it would be good. I knew it would be intense. And I took my 21-year old, self-absorbed in her own life, daughter to let her get a true sense of what people deal with on a daily level when they are fighting the beast. When she thinks her life is in the tank, I wanted her to remember the group that gathered for this meeting and realize just how lucky she is...how insignificant her social drama can be. And I wanted her to watch Maha in action. I wanted her to know why I had put such absolute trust in this woman for the past almost eight years of my life. I got what I wanted and way, way more.

First of all, they kept having to bring in chairs because of the number of people who showed up.
Then, right before things got started, they wheeled in a patient, down from their hospital room, family and friends in tow. A newly diagnosed. A frightening and aggressive cancer. The fear, anger, and disbelief so fresh so tangible. All the rest of us knew what they felt like.....they were coming in to question why.....to try to find a reason...to try to blame somebody or something for this catastrophe. The were overly distraught, exhausted, and heartbroken. They wanted to know how to deal with their anger.

And in the midst of this emotional maelstrom brewing all around her sat Maha. The voice of intellect, calm and reason. When she spoke to their questions, she turned to the family and the rest of the room fell away. She looked right at them all and said so many true and great things, I doubt I can remember them all. The same kinds of things she said to me on June 1, 2001 during our first appointment. Like, (loosely quoted, of course)
We couldn't change the fact of what has happened. That is finite.
Fighting cancer is a marathon, not a sprint. If you insist on making it a sprint you will absolutely wear yourself out.
To the caregiver; you need to take care of yourself or you will be no good to no one.
There have been great strides in the treatment of your type of cancer, so there is hope. You have to have hope.

And the two most profound things said at that time, that moment when she had engaged the small group in the corner and the rest of us became observers of a remarkable event I have thought of this way: one statement for the family and one statement for the rest of us.

The statement to the family who sat before her with anger rolling off them like a tropical depression comes off the coast of Africa was: You need to take your anger...all that negative emotion...and park it in the corner. Put it away. It's not doing you any good. You cannot move forward through this as long as you are looking back.

The statement for the rest of us was about fear. The fear that each of us deals with and fights so hard to squelch on a daily basis because of our disease. She told us all that she has fear, too.
Every time she starts a new treatment on a patient she is fearful that it might not work. Wow.
Me too, Maha, me too. I realized that I have probably scared her a lot in our relationship. It was such a humbling "aha" moment for me that through all the things she and I have gone through, she even shares my fear.

As the days have gone by and Katie, Jan, Rebecca and others have re-hashed that night during the support group with me, by far, just about everyone talks about and will remember Maha engaging that family in an intimate and reassuring conversation about what to do with anger. That "park it in the corner" phrase is bound to be quoted and re-quoted by us all. It was great stuff.

Katie now knows what an amazing woman my oncologist is. The quiet confidence exhibited by her during that Wednesday night gives Katie confidence that I will be well taken care of and that Maha is a huge part of the reason that I continue to believe that I can live a long and full life. She will not soon, if ever, forget all she witnessed there.

As for me, I have been mostly touched and changed by her statement on fear. For almost eight years, fear has been the hardest thing for me to deal with. Fear can be paralyzing, crippling and crushing. It can change your outlook, your faith, your personality and your health. Fear is like a creeping, multi-legged insect that can cover your brain and blur your focus. There are times, days at a time, where I am constantly fighting the fear, trying to stand tall, trying to stay faithful and focused and full of hope. To know that my physician knows my fear, shares my fear, is even willing to confess my same fears means more to me than anything else she could have said on that Wednesday night. We all want to know that someone understands what we are going through. And that one revelation about fear got me thinking that if Maha has it for her patients,
so must all my girls. Janet and Jennifer and Jan and Gail and Lynn and Rebecca. They must all feel a certain amount of fear for me when I need to start something new to try and keep the beast in check. OMG I had no idea. And I know why I had no idea......because they all have an
incredible ability to park it in the corner. Fear, like anger, is negative and will get you nowhere.
My team knows that in order to treat me as well and successfully as they do, they will have to park quite a few things in the corner and set about the business of moving forward to better results, better numbers, better treatments......my better life.

"The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." Proverbs 29:25