Okay
It’s been a busy day. I never thought six years ago I would feel the way I do today Persistence saved my life.
A lot has happened, and I learned lessons from a major illness I want to share with you. I learned to leave space and just be. I’ve learned that because I’m a questioner, I don’t give up. I keep asking questions until I get answers I understand.
New Eyes, New Glasses
Now I can read without my glasses, but I’m a lot more comfortable with these guys on if the distance is any further than where the camera is right now. So I had to get new glasses made and I. Weighted the prescribed amount of time before I did that, but I kept not feeling right. And I have several pairs of glasses, so if you’ve seen any of my other videos, you’re aware of this and none of them quite felt right.
And I just kept thinking, “Oh, I’ll, it’ll get better. It’ll get better.”
Stuck in the land of discomfort
But it didn’t. And I went back to the ophthalmologist, the surgeon who had done the surgery on me and got fitted for computer glasses ‘cause I was mostly having the biggest difficulty looking at my computer screen. Well, I got those glasses made, and they didn’t work at all.
They were miserable. And I did this and doing this, and I couldn’t seem to find the right place to put my monitor. It was worse on my desktop than it was on my laptop, but it still, I didn’t have any place that was comfortable, and my progressive glasses really didn’t work on the computer, so I was finding I was avoiding doing work.
Because I didn’t enjoy looking at my screen and I even lost some business because of it. Cause I couldn’t do what I do well, which is writing, designing, and I just was miserable. But I didn’t give up. I kept at it and I went back. I think this was my third time. And finally. I felt I got heard. So we’re still trying to figure this all out.
I went back to the optician who made two of my glasses pairs of my glasses. He’s looking at them and he said,
“Well, let’s try this and let’s try that.”
He was looking to see if my focus, relative to the lenses, could see. Trying to determine if the lenses were giving me (the corrective power) I need, where I need it, and he tried several minor adjustments that he could do without having to remake the lenses to start.
Small Changes, Huge Results
And you know what? Finally, this pair of frames and lenses is not making me crazy. Simple little things and, and I didn’t just take the first answer and walk out the door. We spent, we spent a good hour trying this, trying that, comparing the different pairs of glasses, which all have the same prescription.
Mind you and I felt heard. And that optician is going to contact the manufacturer and see what we can do because I waited a little while longer than I probably should have before I went back and said, these are not working for me.
I was willing to think I was wrong, and then I went,
“Oh, maybe not. I don’t think so.”
I wasn’t comfortable physically not comfortable, and it was affecting my enjoyment of life and my ability to do my work. So I kept going back and now I feel like I’ve been heard. I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist’s office and we’re going to look at all and like my glasses too, because.
On paper, everything looks like it’s supposed to, and there’s nothing wrong with my eye health, but somehow, I am having a miserable time.
What is Out of Whack for You?
Think about your life. What are you putting up with? Is there some nagging little thing that’s happening and it’s not feeling good to you? Okay. What I’ve heard over and over in the stories of women with ovarian cancer, their doctors didn’t listen.
They dismissed the symptoms. If after they went through treatment and everything’s supposed to be cool, but something’s still doesn’t feel right, some doctors will dismiss you again, like you know what? You know your body. You know, if something is off and don’t let anybody tell you, you don’t know if something is wrong, you may not know specifically what it is, but be persistent.
Stand up for yourself
Do not allow other people’s perceptions to impede you having maximum health, being comfortable getting what you need because you know what? Life is way too short. If you had, if you had a pair of shoes that pinched your feet, it probably stopped wearing them. I mean, everybody’s made a mistake buying a pair of shoes.
I don’t; I don’t know who hasn’t, but if you had a pair of shoes that every time you wore them, they hurt. Wouldn’t you do something about it? You could give them away. I mean, that’s one thing you could do, but maybe you would go to a shoe store where you bought them and say.
“These don’t feel quite right. Can you help me?”
Maybe they just need a little change if your bite is off and, okay, I know about that too, because of this disc, the one that was right in here in my skull. The removal of the disc, relieved the pain in my jaw, permanently. I had temporal, temporal mandibular joint dysfunction and guess what? I had a defective disc in my jaw. It was a physical issue, not a psychological or behavioral problem.
I had physically something inside of me that was causing this pain, but I put up with it for years, they diagnosed me back in those dark ages. Oh, we tried. We tried biofeedback because I was causing this. We tried cortisone shots. That was the worst. We tried a night guard. That didn’t help. Well, it protected my teeth from breaking them repeatedly because I did. I wound up breaking all of my fillings. Three times and had to have reconstruction and crowns and root canals. But when finally, I had an MRI done and they could visibly see the defect in that film, that I had something wrong, and that surgery would fix it.
And when I had the surgery, Oh my Gosh. Instant relief. In fact, I woke up from the anesthetic and I went, my whole body went, I don’t hurt anymore. I had been in pain for years, for years, but I didn’t give up. I worked with doctors, chiropractors. Massage therapists for years until I could find what was a reasonable solution and one that fit me.
No Picnic
Having cancer is no picnic. You know what’s going on and if your body feels right or not. During treatment. If something is off, say so if after you’ve completed your treatment, something feels a little wonky, go back in and if one doctor doesn’t help you, there are millions of others out there and always get a second opinion.
The takeaway from this is to be persistent. Get answers that make sense to you. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have, I don’t have a degree as a doctor, so sometimes. Doctors would speak at me as if I knew what they were talking about and I had no clue. So I said,
“Could you please say that in a way that I might understand you?”
“What is the impact of that procedure? “
“What is, what are you trying to accomplish with this treatment?”
“What does that drug do?”
“What might I expect?”
Be a Questioner
Sometimes I wish I would have asked more questions, believe it or not, and I know that it may not feel natural to you to stand up for yourself to ask questions, but you need to be an advocate.
You need to be courageous, persistent. It doesn’t mean being obnoxious. It simply means. Feeling heard, feeling, seeing, being treated like an individual. Because all of us respond differently. Each of us has a unique body. How I respond to treatment is not how you respond to treatment. There’s a spectrum, but Of all the hundreds and thousands and millions of people who’ve ever had ovarian cancer, not every single one of them will have neuropathy because of chemotherapy. Not everyone will need the same number of chemotherapy cycles.
I’m optimistic. I’m optimistic that you will learn how self-care is self-love. I’m optimistic. You’ll connect with other cancer patients and you’ll connect with people like me, survivors and thrivers, wellness warriors, and ask questions. There are no stupid questions. We don’t know what we don’t know.
And I’m so grateful for the women who shared their knowledge with me, who helped me on my path to wellness. Is that being curious, listening to others, listening to yourself, possibility thinking?
Being willing to ask for what you need without knowing if what you ask for will be given.
Doing one act of kindness
Doing one act of kindness for yourself and one act of kindness for someone else every day. It can transform your experience, can transform your life and think about your impact on the world, the contribution that you make. When you take care of yourself, you will be available to help others. And think what the world would miss without you being in it.
Every day, do something, no matter how small it might be, it might eat another piece of fruit. It might be you fixing the squeaky door that’s been bugging you. It might extend a walk for one more minute than you did yesterday. Gratitude is contagious, and it changes everything. Being consistent and making small changes.
Making a small commitment to yourself every day. So one of mine, Oh God, one of my recent ones, and I mean recent and I, and it’s partly because of, you know, even though I had all this nonsense going on with my jaw, which now is great, it doesn’t hurt me anymore; It took having laser treatment on one of my teeth, where I have an implant. I lost a tooth, and I had an implant. It took that and cancer to get me to floss regularly. Well, I could never see the value of it before that, but now that is a habit that I can’t do without. It feels weird for me not to take care of my teeth.
And unfortunately, I had some dental issues because of going through chemo. Not everybody does, but there’s a strong possibility you might too, because of the drying effect of the treatment. But what I’m getting at is. These small changes taking care of yourself. If you do that, you’ll notice what’s good.
You’ll notice if you need a little extra, a little extra love, you’ll notice what is right and you’ll notice what you need to pay attention to. Don’t ignore your wisdom. Get the answers you need and be willing to be persistent and think about this. What if you could share what you learn with others? What if you could then turn around and do something that makes a positive impact? On the women who come after you with ovarian cancer, what if you could help educate doctors, nurses, patient navigators, insurance companies, politicians?
Lift up your voice
What if you could lift your voice and share what you learn on this journey? You do matter. You are important. You have value. Please see yourself as a positive beacon of goodness and take what you learn and make it count.
Judy Baker, wellness warrior, my guidebook and memoir, Wellness Warrior, will be in your hands within the next nine months. It sounds like a baby. That’s a promise.
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