Catherine Corley - A New Chapter in My Life

So here I am, with my feet up, recovering from my surgery I had Tuesday.  I am so thankful and so blessed beyond words that the tumor on my ovary was benign.  My other ovary was also affected, but appeared fine in the ultrasound.  I made it through the surgery with no problems and was able to come home that night.  Yesterday, was the first day of the rest of my life.  A new chapter begins.

At 46 years of age, I am now in instant menopause.  A taboo subject in my mother's era.  "The change" it was called.  Well, just like any illness, it needs to be discussed and it needs to be medically and nutritionally handled properly.

As I have mentioned, when I first found out I needed a radical hysterectomy, I was very vague on Facebook and among certain people.  I was embarrassed.  But that lasted a very short time.  Then the thought of ovarian cancer and the lack of knowledge and understanding about it kicked that embarrassment right out of this girl.  Now, I'm proud to be a survivor because everything that could have been "something" or become "something" has been removed.  I'm proud to be alive and I am whole.  I am completely whole!  Plus, I have just as much chance of seeing my grandchildren someday as most women do now.  This girl might be in instant menopause, but that just gives me more to figure out, more to write about and more to share publicly to raise awareness.

A few great things came out of this past month of my life.  First of all, I had no clue about ovarian cancer, just like most people.  Doctors tell you when to start having mammograms, when to have pap smears, what age you should have a colonoscopy, when men should be checked for prostate cancer, and young women are given injections against HPV, but no one I know has been told you should have your ovaries checked every so often.  So now I have knowledge that I can share with people about symptoms, which, if you Google ovarian cancer, you can find are mostly "digestive" in nature.  Who would think it was ovarian cancer?  Please read up on it!

Second of all, even though it is uncomfortable for men to discuss, one of my good friends who is a man, read the symptoms because of me and realized his wife had most of them and should be checked.  He asked her to make an appointment.  He thanked me and I cried.  If just one woman gets checked because of my honesty, everything I have gone through physically and emotionally will be worth it!  Please, again, read the symptoms and talk to your doctor.

Third of all, I have met and talked to some wonderful survivors.  Oh my goodness, what they have been through!  They are the strongest women I think I have ever met, even if just through computer chats.  I have read stories of brave women.  I have found out about friends who grew up without their mothers because their moms died of ovarian cancer when my friends were young girls.  I never knew!  Again, I don't know all the statistics, but I have read 15,000 American women die every year from this silent killer.

Fourth of all, I found out who my friends are!  Wow!  I have never felt such an outpouring of love and kindness and prayers in my entire life.  I tear up just thinking about the phone calls I have received.  The cards in the mail that have brightened my day.  Yes, people do still use snail mail.  I laugh at the amount of emails, texts and Facebook messages I have gotten.  Sometimes, with being on Vicodin right now, I can't keep up with them and respond fast enough...sometimes I get to read them the second time just like they are brand new because I've forgotten already!  I think I could hide my own Easter eggs too!  But if you don't think a few kind words make a difference, you are wrong.  Just a "like" on Facebook gives a sick person hope.  Hope that there is someone out there who thinks they are important and that their life and well being are necessary.

I have had one friend, Liz, who has been the first to respond to almost every update I have made on Facebook and to every blog I have written.  I can count on Liz (a friend from high school that I haven't seen in over 25 years) to be the first almost every single time.  Then she sends me encouraging emails to keep me going through the day.  Do you know how that makes a sick person feel?  Important!  Fantastic!  Loved!  Cared about!  She is just one example.

There are a million more paragraphs I could write.  I could write about my wonderful children being at the hospital and making me laugh and keeping me calm while my surgery was delayed.  I could tell you about the lovely lady who brought us two family-sized dinners last night so we would have real meals to eat this week.  They should last us several nights.  She even brought a dessert using my mother's recipe that she still has even though my mother passed away in 2000.  I don't even have the recipe.  I could write about the wonderful hospital staff who treated me so great.  I could write paragraph after paragraph about each of the people who have touched my life.  My friends at church who prayed for me on Sunday and Tuesday night.  Oh, I am so overwhelmed by all the people who cared and prayed.

But this really was about starting a new chapter.  Today, when I am not "under the influence" of Vicodin, I will be reading and studying about menopause and nutritional/fitness concerns during menopause.  It is much safer to be reading than operating heavy machinery, according to the bottle, I should avoid that!  So I have a lot of time on my hands.  No bulldozers for me today!

I proudly embrace instant onset menopause and I will learn everything I can about it.  I still want to become a personal trainer for people who really need it including the morbidly obese, people with special disabilities and now women moving through menopause.  I want to learn everything I can!  You know I will share.  Maybe start a separate blog so you "youngins" don't have to read it!  But someday you will wish you had!  Just sayin'.

I have a lot of things I want to start blogging about as I recover and move into this chapter.  I have a couple of blogs already, this being my primary one.  I really want to write about things I have gone through that some of you might be interested in or might have been through too.  If you have concerns or want me to share about something, please let me know.  I am an open book.  God has kept me on this planet over and over again, there must be a reason for it.

Thank you again to all those who have cared and prayed!  Please take care of yourselves.  Put your health closer to the top of your busy to do list and let's all make 2013 a wonderful, blessed year!

STRENGTH!

Simple Paths Forward - What It's All About

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."  Proverbs 3:5-6

Why did I start this blog today?  I have been thinking about starting a new blog for some time now, but today seemed the perfect day.  I have been handed more than I thought I could handle in the last week (over Thanksgiving week as a matter of fact) and I know today is the perfect day to begin a new path.  A new blog with a new attitude, to be more precise.

Sometimes I forget that I need to reach out and share in the midst of a crisis.  Other times, I think I don't shut my mouth for a second.  Lately, I think it has been a combination of both.  So my blog will be a way for me to truly express myself and I hope you will give me feedback and express yourselves as well.  We are all in this world together.

My life is pretty ordinary.  I live in a nice house in the suburbs.  I haven't worked outside the house since I quit my job at a large law firm to take care of my father for three years until he passed away in 2010.  I lost my mother to cancer ten years almost to the day before I lost my father.  

After my round-the-clock care giving days ended, I really didn't know what direction my life should take, so I didn't take any direction!  Most of my days were pretty ordinary.  My children are in their twenties and they don't need me very often, but they love me all the time and I love them!  Each day seemed pretty much the same, that is until I got an unexpected addition to our family.

No, not a new baby at 46 years of age.  But a lovely, caring adult cousin with special needs who was added to my family and my home.  Ruth is a 42-year-old who brought with her her own set of requirements and concerns.  She lives courageously with mild cerebral palsy, epilepsy and learning disabilities.  She also came to me complete with one of the nation's biggest health problems, morbid obesity.

Now that I have mentioned her "disabilities," let me tell you Ruth's "abilities!"  I will name just a few, because there is only so much space!  She is the bravest person I know.  She is also the brightest, cheeriest, warmest, kindest and best person I have ever met.  She has courage beyond measure and strength to do what others wouldn't even try.  I am blessed to be her cousin. 

Ruth also has the best memory of anyone I ever met.  She can listen to a CD and remember most of the words after the first time and sing along the next time in the car while I mess up all the words even though I've owned the CD for years!  She doesn't forget anything.  If you told Ruth to call you on such-and-such a date, say six months from now, to remind you to make a doctor's appointment, she would not only remember and call you, but more than likely, you would probably have forgotten the purpose of her call.  She is spectacular!

We now have new challenges that Ruth and I face together and individually.  For instance, I just finished my weight loss journey (if you can ever consider yourself "finished" since it is ongoing) and she has just begun hers.  

We spend our days together and look for ways we can help each other and people around us.  Ruth has the most giving heart I have ever seen.  She loves to help touch the lives of people.  I think she does that automatically just by being herself, but in addition, she looks for ways she can purposely touch people's lives and bless their hearts too.

I want this to be about paths.  Paths we all take whether we are prepared for them or not.  Sometimes those paths are so unfamiliar we don't know whether to sit down and cry or run like a maniac to find our way!  You may be a new parent.  Maybe you are part of the sandwich generation like I was--taking care of children and a parent or two.  Maybe you are an empty nester.  Maybe you, too, have a challenged child or adult family member.  Or perhaps you just need a little more sanity in your life, your home, your food habits, your job or your relationships.  

Let's get on the path and move forward simply together.