If I Had a Million Dollars

Today has been the sort of day where I really wish I had an extra million dollars lying around. Today I realized that so many of my work frustrations could be resolved if only I had a million dollars lying around. That caused me to think about all the other things I'd do if I had a million dollars. And before long, I was singing my own catchy little version of the song "If I Had a Million Dollars".

So, what would I do if I had a million dollars?

Make sure cancer patients had access to better resources and programs. The reason I thought of this today is because money seems to control every interaction I have with every cancer patient. Cancer is financially draining, even for those who are well-off to begin with. Now imagine the patients I work with: uninsured, usually unemployed, tendency to be first-generation immigrants or undocumented citizens, very low literacy level, and living in one of the poorest, crime-ridden cities in the United States. Cancer is more than financially draining for people who are already financial drained. My job is to provide these individuals with access to programs and resources to help make their lives a little better. Well, recently I'm being told that the money within the organization is tight (what company isn't feeling the pinch of Obama's terrible economic policies?!). When money is tight, services and programs get cut. One of the biggest barriers my patients face is transportation. People don't have it. So, if I had a million dollars, I would create some sort of public transportation company that would help drive cancer patients to and from treatments, doctor's appointments, and hospital stays. It would be completely free! This may seem like a small thing to most but once you've worked in oncology you'll realize that transportation is key to everything. Today, I could have used a million dollars, that's for sure! Truth be told, if I had a million dollars, I would quit my job to focus all my energy on the next point.

If I had a million dollars I'd start an organization specializing in Orphan Care Ministry work including global orphan care, foster care, and adoption services. Being a social worker myself, I am certainly more than qualified to run such an organization. With this organization I'd help families fund their adoptions by using a good hunk of the money to create adoption grants. And I'd use a little bit to help us bring one or two (or three!?) kids of our own home.

Other things I'd do with a million dollars...you can bet I'd donate money to various organizations that Dave and I are both passionate about and whose missions we feel are worth supporting. I'd put some extra money in the church offering, too. Dave would probably take some money and buy tickets to every major PGA event and I'd go with because let's face it, they only play golf in absolutely beautiful places. Dave would also probably want to start a foundation of some sort related to children and sports. I could see us running some sort of foundation for children in developing parts of the world to help get them sports equipment, sports camps, and scholarships to play in college.

And since it's my million dollars I'd be a little greedy and use some to pay off all my student loans, to build my dream house (nothing too fancy, just something perfect to grow a family in), and take Dave to Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. I'd put a little away in savings, our kids college savings accounts, and my 401K and use the rest to fund all the brilliant ideas I talked about before.

Yes, if I had a million dollars I'd be singing my own song. Only difference between mine and the original is that my song doesn't end in the words "I'd be rich!". I'd likely be pretty broke. With the exception of the money I put away in savings, I'd probably spend every single penny. Yet, I know my life would feel so much richer. I would finally get to help people have access to services they need to have a good quality of life. I'd be able to start an organization or foundation that supports the things I am most passionate about. I'd get to see the joyous smiles and feel the loving embraces of sweet children every day who were united with their forever families thanks to our million dollars. Using my million dollars to help others - now THAT would make rich!

Babies, Babies Everywhere

There are babies everywhere. Pregnant women, too. Maybe I am just noticing it more because of what has has happened in the past few months, but I am seriously convinced that there are babies and pregnant women everywhere! And this weekend, for some reason, I found that realization made me sad. This weekend I was making my way through an incredibly packed Costco when it hit me. Aisle after aisle was filled with expectant moms with their round, swollen bellies and expectant fathers, pushing gigantic carts filled with gigantic-sized boxes of diapers and formula. Then there were the new moms, the ones pushing carts with pink and blue car seats, with tiny little babies. They too were stocking up on the baby goods. After surviving Costco on a Saturday, I decide to tackle Target. Big mistake. There were more babies. Lots of them. New parents picking out spring clothes for their infants. Expectant parents with those magic little guns that allow you to register for all the things you want the doting grandparents-to-be to buy you. I cried all the way home. Church was really no different this week - more babies and toddlers too. There was even a baptism. On the way home I told Dave it wasn't fair. The entire weekend was one big constant reminder that I'm not pregnant and that we don't have a baby of our own to stock up on diapers for, or to pick out spring outfits, or to baptize. Yes, this is me complaining.

They always say that you want what you cant have. In my case, I want what I DON'T have. If you would have asked me last summer, up until about December if I noticed babies and pregnant women I would have told you no. Then I found that I was pregnant and my whole world shifted - the focus was babies. From the moment you find out you're pregnant you become a mother. You feel like a mother, you act like a mother, you notice other mothers-to-be. When our pregnancy ended a few weeks ago, those feelings didn't end for me. It was so weird to not feel pregnant anymore... I had gotten used to the nausea, fatigue, and constant hunger. I got used to protecting my body from harmful things like caffeine and stress. Now I'm not pregnant and my body has returned to normal. Well, a new normal I suppose. Needless to say, Dave and I went from being completely content newlyweds, to longing to grow our family together. Contrary to what others may say, including those pesky ladies with their miscarriage advice, we ARE ready to have a family and we WILL be great parents.

Patience. It's what I told myself I was working on this year during the Lenten season. This weekend I not only realized that I was being completely impatient but I was being envious, jealous, greedy, and a down-right terrible Christian. Maybe it's delayed grieving. Or maybe I'm just really really bad at practicing patience. Either way, this weekend showed me the ugly side of myself. I should have looked at those parents-to-be and new babies with happiness, and love, and gratitude. I don't know their stories. I don't know whether they too suffered the pain of a miscarriage or two. Or whether they had fertility problems. Or even whether their children were biological or adopted. I need to learn to not only be patient, but to be non-judgemental and to rid of envy. For the remainder of lent, I'm expanding my focus to include both of these things (I have a slight feeling they may extend beyond lent, just saying). Because someday I'll be the new parent stocking up on mega-sized boxes of diapers at Costco and I want to be an example of hope and grace for those women who might silently be hurting, too.

I'm still convinced that babies are everywhere, though. Must be something about the fresh, spring air!

Big Mike

There's a homeless man that I see every day while I'm waiting to pick Dave up from work. Now, I've never asked him if he's homeless but given my experiences working with the homeless population, I'd say it's a pretty good bet that he is. I've started to refer to him as Big Mike, mostly because he reminds of the kid from The Blind Side. He's tall, weighs probably a good 250 pounds, is African American, and appears to be about 20-25 years old. Every day he is wearing the same outfit: maroon sweatpants, a camouflaged sweatshirt, a black winter hat, and those tan worker boots. Every day he carries a small black duffel bag that appears to be rather empty. Every day I pull up next to the US Bank Tower downtown Milwaukee, call Dave to tell him I'm outside waiting, and wait for Big Mike to appear from around the corner. Sure enough, every day for the past few months he's appeared, at the exact same time. I'm not sure where he comes from but I'm assuming it's from one of the buildings across the street - he always emerges in my review mirror as he rounds the corner to where I'm parked. He walks really slow with his head down. People carrying brief cases, dressed in suits, walk past him every day, hop into their parked cars (mostly the fancy type - BMW, Lexus, Audi) and flea the city to their warm, suburban homes. I sit in my warm car, radio on, wondering about this man I see every day. The Salvation Army shelter isn't far from where I see him and given the time I usually arrive to pick Dave up, I'm assuming that he's walking to the shelter to get in line to wait for the doors to open, hoping to be one of the few who actually finds room in a shelter that night. Every day I wonder about his story - where did he come from? Does he have any family? Is he educated? Where does he spend his days? Mostly I wonder if there's anything I can do to help him. I remember a day in January where there was a good foot of snow on the ground and it was still falling - Big Mike was trudging along as usual, without any gloves, without a warm winter coat. I wanted to roll down the window and tell him to hop in - he'd be coming home to the suburbs for a warm meal and a warm place to sleep. I WANTED to do that but didn't for many many reasons - mostly because I knew my husband would divorce me, right after committing me to a psychiatry hospital.

I've been thinking about Big Mike for a while now and wondering what, realistically, I COULD do. I realized that what I CAN do is continue to care about him. I CAN donate money to the local homeless shelters in hopes that it helps Big Mike have a place to stay, food to eat, and rehabilitation services to get him out of his current situation. I CAN encourage others to look beyond the stereotypes of poverty and homelessness and support finding solutions that work. I CAN be part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. Most importantly, I can PRAY for him - that he stays safe, finds comfort in knowing that God uses all bad things for good, and that he eventually finds a place to call HOME.

Making Strides

This morning I had the privilege of attending a kick-off breakfast event for the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event taking place this May. While I attended as an ACS employee, I was surprised to see nearly 400 other people who were not ACS employees. While most of the other people represented various businessness and hospitals, nearly half of them were cancer survivors who were in attendance as just that - breast cancer survivors.

Even though I've been working in Oncology for almost a year now, it hasn't become a passion area for me yet. I didn't really choose to work with cancer patients, rather the job sort of landed in my lap. I was about to finish graduate school, the economy was continuing its downward spiral, and I was about to buy a house a get married - I needed a job, and quickly! After applying for several, ACS was the first to call me back and the first to offer me a job. So I took it. Why gamble with the chance that something else would or wouldn't come along? At first I was excited about the job, excited to be working for the nation's largest voluntary health organization. I thought over time I'd become as passionate about cancer as I am about other things - orphan care, adoption, impoverished children, HIV/AIDS, everything Africa. But that never really happened. I've come to accept that maybe this isn't my calling but just a temporary stop in finding a career that aligns with my passions and interests a little more. This morning, sitting in a room filled with so many breast cancer survivors, talking about one of the biggest breast cancer awareness events in the nation, I couldn't help but feel a little emotional, a little excited, and a little passionate about helping these women continue to survive and helping to prevent so many more women from having to fight to survive.

A young 33 year old woman shared her story of being diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She shared the struggles of losing her hair from chemotherapy, finding the strength to tell her two small daughters of her diagnosis, and trying to work full-time as a second grade teacher while battling the never-ending side effects. She shared her story with such honesty and compassion. She made me realize that breast cancer, or any other type of cancer for that matter, is something all young women should be thinking about - whether diagnosed or not. For some reason, SHE is the woman that put a face to breast cancer for me. I see nearly a hundred women a month that are diagnosed with breast cancer as a part of my job and none of them have ever stood out to me the way this woman did. Maybe it was how young she was, or the fact that she found the lump on her own. Maybe it was the fact that she was so honest about her cancer diagnosis and how unexpectedly something like this can happen. At some point, I knew it would happen - I knew that cancer would go from being a job to something more. That some point came today. While I certainly wouldn't call it my life passion, I've realized that the job I do impacts the lives of those living with cancer, those affected by a family member or friend's diagnosis, and those calling themselves survivors. My job allows me to participate in the fight against cancer every single day. My job isn't about raising money, it's about raising spirits, hope, and courage and that is equally as important in fighting cancer as raising money. I thank the woman this morning for sharing that with me, although it was likely something I already should have realized.

The Making Strides events are taking place across the nation in upcoming months. I plan to tell all my patients about the Milwaukee event taking place on May 1st and will encourage them to fight back by participating. I encourage you to do the same. With multiple events in each state, I'm certain you can find an event near you. By participating, you help raise awareness, hope, and dollars that are used to make sure people like the 33 year old woman I met this morning don't have to be the face of breast cancer anymore. So that WE don't ever have to be the face of breast cancer. That's a pretty powerful thing if you ask me.

A House with a Little History

I've always wanted to live in a new house. One that I designed and built (okay, had people build for me)...one that nobody else has ever lived in. I especially love that with a new house, nobody has ever lived in it before. There is no need to scrub the place from top to bottom before moving in. There have been no memories made in build a brand new home. That was until we started house-hunting this time last year and I realized just how expensive houses were. My fantasy bubble was burst. I'd have to settle on one of those old, already-lived in, dirty houses. Okay, that's a little exaggerated. Our house isn't really all that old and it wasn't all that dirty, but it was certainly lived-in. It had that lived-in look: scratches in the hardwood floors, dings in the kitchen cabinets, traces of dog hair on the trim from the previous owner's dog. For the past few months I've complained about these things and we've been working to fix the house up, make it feel more like our home. But I learned something on Saturday that made me take a step back and appreciate our already-lived in house a little more.

We've heard a little about the history of our house from our neighbors. The addition that was added in the back a few years ago. The couple that didn't take care of the lawn. The family with the dog that would terrorize anyone walking by. Our neighbors graciously shared all that up front. What I learned on Saturday though from my kind old neighbor was that our house had a history to it worth getting excited about (if you're me anyway). It turns out that two of the previous owners had adopted children. Imagine the big smile that came across my face. We already knew that the couple we purchased the home from had an adopted son - an African American boy from the inner city of Milwaukee. I had met him before. What I didn't know was that another family that previously lived in our house had two adopted daughters. They were also adopted domestically, although my old neighbor couldn't quite remember from which state. Some might just call this a coincidence and laugh at my excitement. But not me. I know how rare it is for people in our community to adopt. Adoption, especially trans-racial adoption, isn't something that people in our community talk about, let alone do quite frequently. So to think that three precious orphans were welcomed into their forever families in our house made me smile. Someday we'll be adding to that history. I'm so thankful for my neighbor who helped me to realize that my old, already-lived in house was absolutely perfect - it was filled with great forever family memories and a rich, beautiful history that only He could shape. My old, already-lived in house is as good as new!

I'm thinking someday when we sell our house and move onto the next one, we'll have to put a pre-requisite in the listing: must have a heart for orphans and be open to adoption.

Conversations with an Alzheimers Patient

My great grandma is one of the funniest, strongest, feisty, hard-headed, loving people I know. She also happens to have a good case of dementia, and is slowly being overtaking by Alzheimer's. While I have to remind her who I am every time I see her, she has her moments where she'll recall things from her past. Usually she remembers the trivial things, like who she's beat in Bingo and the prizes she has won. Sometimes she'll tell a story about when she lived up north - like the time the bears tapped on the bathroom window. My great grandma has quite the potty mouth, especially for an 88 year old. In her mind, it's completely acceptable to say "Bullshit" and "Hell" in normal conversation. I'm not sure she even knows what those word mean anymore.

So why am I writing about a potty-mouthed, Bingo-playing, 88 year old woman? Because this week I've had the privilege of interacting with her when the dementia and Alzheimer's had really really taken over. She's been in the hospital since Monday - the same hospital where I work. I stopped up on her floor to visit her Monday morning. My mom was there, too, and according to my grandma, the room was filled will lots of other people too. Obviously I need to have my eyes checked because I didn't see any other people - not even a nurse or a doctor. From time to time, grandma would just giggle and stare high into the ceiling.

Me: Whatcha looking at up there grandma?
Grandma: The people. Flying around my room.
Me: Hmmm what do they look like? Who are they?
Grandma: There's Anne, with pretty brown hair. And look at those birds!
Me: Hmmm I don't know anybody named Anne (mom didn't either).
Grandma: Carol (my mom), I don't like your hair. You need hair like Anne's.
Mom: Well that's not very nice to say to me. What's wrong with my hair?
Grandma: It's ugly.

A few minutes after the flying people conversation, grandma says to me, "I was wondering why Stanley never comes to visit me anymore. I found out today that he's dead. For nine years!". She laughs. A lot. Stanley was my great grandpa and she's right, he died nine years ago. Grandma LOVES her some male company. When we moved her into the senior home, she kept asking for a male roommate - there were 12 female residents so her wish wouldn't be granted. Last time she was in the hospital, she kept telling the male doctors they were good looking, telling us they just kept getting better and better looking each time they walked into her room. This hospital stay, she finds out her husband's dead and she asks for a new one. A part of me thinks she wasn't joking.

I feel so blessed to have grown up with my great grandparents and to still have one great grandma alive today. When I visit with her, I like to remind her of all the fun things we've done together throughout my life. On Monday I told her stories of how we used to pick raspberries and make home-made jam in her kitchen up north ("Oh I remember", she says). Or the time she won that big camper at the casino up north and all of us kids decided to sleep in it until great grandpa told us to watch out for bears ("Oh, I remember that too", she says). Or how she used to make us homemade pancakes in any shape we asked for, even Mickey Mouse ("Oh, yes, I remember", she says). I have a feeling she doesn't really remember but it's always fun to see a smile come across her face as I share stories of what her life used to be like before dementia and Alzheimer's invaded her memory.

Let me tell ya, if you ever have a chance to interact with an 88 year old Alzheimer's patient, I encourage you to. It will make you wonder what they see and what they think. They will make you feel imaginative, like a child again. And just when you think they are crazy, seeing flying people in their room, you might believe that just maybe there are angels visiting them instead, and that they're really not all that crazy afterall.

Where DIDNT I go to College?

Today someone asked me where I went to college. I responded with, "Undergrad or graduate school?". Graduate school. Oh, that's easy! I went to UW-Madison, I told them. Then they asked the question I hate the most: "What about undergrad?". Ummm, not so easy. I always hate being asked this question. Most people are so proud of their Alma Mater and beam when telling others about where they graduated from. Me, not so much. Maybe this is because my undergraduate career was a little different than most.

Whenever I'm asked this question I say that I started at Marquette University and eventually graduated from UW-Milwaukee. People look at me funny for a few minutes and wait for me to explain. So, here goes. I started my freshman year at Marquette University. I loved it. LOVED IT! My freshman year I joined Pi Beta Phi, became involved in Hall Council, and played intramural soccer. I made some great friends and truly enjoyed being a freshman. I started sophomore year as a Resident Assistant in Cobeen Hall, was Hall Council Advisor, Program Assistant for the Center for Community Service, and a member of the International Marquette Action Program team in Belize. First semester Sophomore year was my favorite of all of college. I met Kelly and Lizzy who a few weeks into RA training became my better halves (or thirds). So if everything was so great, why in the world did I decide that second semester of my sophomore year I would leave? Well because I was in love, obviously (or so I thought at the time). I had been in a long-distance relationship with my high school sweetheart for a while and eventually we decided that if we were ever going to move forward in our relationship we should be at the same school. So, I packed my bags and moved to Minnesota.

I spent one semester at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Why only one semester? Well, there are many reasons for that. The first is probably the most obvious: I am a Wisconsinite and I missed home, my family, and everything cheese far too much to be 6 hours away. The second reason: my highschool sweetheart and I were no longer sweet. Clearly we made a better long distance couple; it helped us to not see the obvious fact that we had both grown and changed a lot since high school. And the third reason: I went to Africa, fell in love with the area of service, decided to change my major from Medicine to Social Work, and needed a school with an undergraduate Social Work major. Cue the second transfer and third school - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In my heart, I knew I wanted to transfer back to Marquette after realizing that Minnesota was a terrrrrible fit. Unfortunately, they didn't have my newly-chosen major. So I started my Junior year at UWM majoring in Social Work. And that is where I graduated from the next year.

Yes, I went to three different undergraduate schools. I had three different majors. I still graduated in four years, though. And I still had an amazing college experience. Now you can see why answering the question, "Where did you go to college?" can be quite daunting for me.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, of all those schools I went to, Marquette was my favorite :)