Be Strong

When it comes to cancer, there's only way to be and that's strong.  In fact, for all of us, fighting cancer or not, being strong is what's needed.

These days, there are so many things we have to deal with that we never had to before.  When I was a kid growing up, the incident in Ft Lauderdale might have made a mention in the "world news tonight" segment of the news hour, but constant or instant updates didn't happen like they do now.  Our lives are instantly changed by events not only in our local community or state, but world wide as well.


All of this instant information can be quite alarming, and sometimes quite addicting.

Back in April 2016, an incident happened in my store where a police officer was shot, and recently they released the tape of parts of it.  And it's frightening -- but also kind of spookily weird.  When I watched it - and let's face it, we are drawn to look at incidents - I could see myself walking through the very doors where it happened.  Something, anything can happen anywhere, but when it's in our own "backyard" we feel the effects differently.

But with information technology, we see things in an instant and nowadays events across the country can feel as if they're in our own "backyard" as well.  And it's difficult to find a way to turn it off, to set our own personal limits on when and where we let the information in.  If you're like most, you're attached to your phone -- or it's attached to you.  Either way, we have them set up with notifications that alert us to when we need to pay attention.  And even without an alert, we're checking constantly for updated information.  But when do we say "enough" ??

For me, I've set limits.  I don't check my phone constantly any longer.  I allow myself 10 minutes to check things at the beginning of my lunch hour and then 20 minutes when I get home while dinner's cooking.  That's it.  I have to limit myself and what I let in, because it's important to have "down time", time for me, time for my brain to think of things that aren't bad/scary/frightening and to learn to refocus on the good things, things that bring me happiness.  Our time is so limited, it takes great strength to be a part of the techno-info world and yet still have time for what is important to us.

In these times, I say it's time to be strong,
to set limits and give ourselves time to be us,
time to think and do and create.

My sister is doing just that:  in the face of stage iv pancreatic cancer, she is being strong and proactive.  Her first chemo treatment went well, she is also having acupuncture to deal with pain and nausea and it seems to be working well.  She also takes a med daily via epi-pen.  Technology sure has come a long way when it comes to health issues!

Just Believe