Mind Over Matter

It’s been a minute since I’ve written to you all (and also to myself).

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, as I have about 10-15 drafts sitting in my phone notes. I watched my brain ebb and flow between sharing what I thought was either too personal or too inessential on the electronic paper to matter much to others.

And then I got a bitter/sour taste of my own medicine while talking to a friend the other day. The simple reminder of what being human is all about, and what I value dearly, is connection. We cannot fully connect with those around us if we aren’t willing to go there — to get a little vulnerable, and messy, and brave, and, quite frankly, deconstructed at times. My observations about my physical, mental, or emotional state related to my cancer experience happened then and will continue. It doesn’t make those observations of any less value at whatever point I choose to share them with others. They are what they are.

I’ll be typing them here about once a month, sharing a topic about my experience, which may include a personal story, a song from that time in my life, and I can guarantee a rambling or two. So, without further adieu, the actual blog...

Looking back on Augusts past

(Now Playing: Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons)

August has always been an interesting time of year for me. It’s the summer month that hits me with nostalgia. Thinking back to summers gone by and acknowledging all that went down or all that could have been (wait, is that just me?!). The humidity on the east coast begins to simmer, yet you can’t escape the sun’s heat just yet, so you continue to find the shady sidewalks on your commute to work. It’s the one month (other than the days between Thanksgiving to New Year’s) where I see or hear people talking about how they have "let themselves go" due to vacation. Then there are those people that I follow on Instagram or read in books that talk about how if you get ahead in August, you will get ahead of everyone around you in your field. Pushing through the lazy days, choosing not to hit snooze and hit the track, or to do the routine or monotonous task of whatever goal that lies in front of you. I believe I’m somewhere in between both, letting go and getting ahead, as I’m looking to switch my career and simultaneously ending a huge leadership role that definitely contributed to much of my emotional and physical wellbeing.

August 2009 was now a decade ago. I was back at the University of Richmond to begin my sophomore season of field hockey. I had been putting in the work, making it through my freshman season of learning the ropes of a Division 1 program, and then putting in the quarterly training cycles of the winter, spring, and summer to strive to be the best version of myself. I was the person on the team who jokingly referred to themselves as not the fastest or the strongest, but you can’t miss me. I put in the work. I did the prescribed workouts, did what I could to keep a relatively healthy food intake despite having a high metabolism and a bottomless pit for all things sugar. At some point during that summer, I was struggling to finish the sprint and running components of our workout packet.

Reasons why I might be feeling fatigued

Oh, I must’ve not gotten enough sleep

​I was napping most afternoons beginning in July, and didn’t think twice about it. Like a two year old…for 3-4 hours.

Oh, I must be dehydrated

​​I was surrounded by other athletes and facilities where access to water, Gatorade, or my personal favorite, Pedialyte, was everywhere.

Oh, I must’ve not eaten the right things.

Again, an athlete on an university campus has crafted endless ways to get the best bang of their fake or real buck to have snacks available all day long.

Receiving a diagnosis of Hodgkin lymphoma

Or, as it turns out, I was physically exhausted because my hemoglobin level had significantly begun to drop. Most women at that age (nineteen years old to be exact) have a measurement of between 12-15 on that scale. My first blood draw during preseason showed my count at 6.2, which dropped below 5 before I received my cancer diagnosis of Hodgkin lymphoma at the end of September. The doctors couldn’t believe I had been training and sprinting all summer long, let alone making it around campus on my own two feet.

Enter survivors guilt and self-doubt

It’s one of those things that seemed to leave it’s mark on me the most: self doubt. I say self doubt because until recently, that was the default reaction to any new experience I went after: the negative what ifs, the comparing to past experiences that were laid thick with the undertone of guilt as I was still around, living and breathing on this planet.

I consistently look to improve (working on saying ‘balance' here… promise) that doubt with facts of my life. I used to be the athlete that blamed my body or pointed to it to find the problem. I would (mentally) scream or deny that I was cramping or too fatigued or what have you. "It was my fault," and because of that, it wasn’t acceptable to cater or change what I had to accomplish.

Focusing on my mental health

Flash forward, as I head into this transition phase of my life, and I’m still searching to try new avenues of support or revisit old ones to find breakthroughs within my mental scar tissue. For those curious, I’ve been in and out of working through overall health care with therapists. I’m opening the door again here in New York for the first time, and — good news — it’s gotten easier to begin to ask for help. Now, I can get to it clearly: the ‘it' being what I would like the person in the room with me to have a background in, be it from the type of treatment or therapy styles they provide to their experience with specific demographics. You can even have the choice of an in-person or a video chat session. I’m telling you things just keep getting more and more accessible in this area!

Question is (for you and for me): when will you stop trying to push something that is not working for you or causing you harm (despite what your expectations originally were) as soon as you become aware of it?

Please know, I’m not suggesting that things will never be hard and to never rise to the challenge. There’s a time and a place for that. And it shouldn’t be your every day / 365. My favorite coaches as of late tend to say in a session or class, even on social media, “Learn to know the difference between pain and discomfort. It is okay for the body to be uncomfortable, but it is not okay for the body to be in pain. Learning the difference takes time and take it easy on yourself while learning this new skill.”

Take it easy on yourself while learning this skill.

Finding balance

You know what they say, you keep dating that same type of human or you keep facing a similar problem until you learn the lesson from it. You’ve got a wicked sense of humor, Universe.

Maybe a little less mind over matter, but a little more balance between it all for the next decade.

Cool, cool.

Yeah. Sign me up.