Be Well bill – Retirement

Be Well bill – Retirement

It was Christmas eve when I realized I did not have a present for my mom.  She’d been sick, and my denial as a 10-year-old kid that I was so scared every time my dad tried to explain my mom’s cancer that I’d do my best to live in my own little make-believe world.  A world where I’d forgotten about Christmas.  My mother and I enjoyed doing flower arrangement with candles, so that night before my dad put me to bed I worked on decorating a candle for my mother’s Christmas present.  Sleep didn’t come easy, for even at ten-years-old I realized my make-believe world had kept me from giving and receiving my families love, and I so missed the specialness of my mom.  This experience slowly woke within me the need to fully feel life, and over the next eight years I practiced channeling and sharing my feelings with my mom and special people in my life through my poetry and writing.  A practice I continue today. 

Friday, I met with my oncologist to review bone and body scans completed last week.  Looking at the scans it was clear that much of my cancer has remained somewhat stable with tumors shrinking and others growing, but two new lesions appeared in my liver.   Living a metastatic cancer journey, I knew there was always the opportunity that someday my cancer would reach a major organ, but that little ten-year-old scared kid and his safe make-believe world is long gone.  Those of you, who know me well, know my life has always been about possibilities.  Possibilities that explode from the Airborne Ranger deep within me driven by life’s challenges, and the poet that fully feels fear, anger, frustration, happiness, and the love that accompanies life. 

Sunday, as MaryBeth drove us home from the lake house, I looked back and watched the sunset through the side mirror, and was in awe of life’s possibilities.  We decided this weekend I would retire from MD Anderson in January 2017 and begin a new life chapter of possibilities with all of you.