Monthly Archives: April 2016

It is more than about getting a little color…

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It is that time of year again to raise  awareness for skin cancer.  I am so amazed at the number of people I meet who never have been to a dermatologist. I am even more amazed when I meet someone who feels proud of their tanning be visits and think “well, something is going to kill me eventually…” Ah! The ignorance… 

I am thankful I had a doctor in Birmingham who was thorough and has made me aware of what to look for. Please be vigilant in seeking out the best in doctors.  A full body check is not a 3 minutes procedure and if you are not checked from head to toe (literally) you need to find a new dermatologist.  It took me two tries to find a great doctor here in Georgia.  Yes, I may drive 45 minutes to see her, but she is thorough.  Today is my 2016 first visit and I see an oculoplastic surgeon next week for two suspicious marks at the base of my eyelid. I want you each to remember something my Momma said: “The doctor who graduated first in his class and the one who graduated last in his class both have M.D. behind their name”.   

This is a repost from 2010 about skin cancer because I really do not think my friends take the seriousness of the matter to heart.  Since 2012, too many to count freezes of suspected precancerous spots and six biopsies–two of which were cancerous.  They were not melanoma, but it easily could have been.  It easily could have been you.

 

SUNDREAMS & SUNSCREENS

There is something to be said about the lackadaisical concern about the sun and its effect on the body. Oh! How I loved the days spent out at the Windjammer and Station 22 at Sullivan’s Island. I always felt better with “color” although I always seemed to look like I swallowed a dollar and it broke out into pennies…(Thanks, Momma…LOL) But, I loved the sun—days spent with baby oil slathered all over my body and the smell of Hawaiian Tropic! Even the worst burn never felt too bad as I knew I was getting “tanned”. Awww! Nothing better…until…

The first dermatologist called the spots on my hand “age spots”. (Now, you know if you know me well, that was just plain ugly! She could have just called them mature freckles!) A year goes by. One spot looks different and I am referred to the Skin Wellness Center by my GP. Six places “frozen” and then there was those “age spots”. One biopsy later and surgery scheduled the next week. What was the size of a speck required a three and one half inch cut! I never knew that skin cancer roots out under the skin like a tree. This was basal cell carcinoma, skin cancer. It was not a dark spot, but pearly and scaly. Here I was looking for the dark changed mole. I could not have been more off the mark! This was a big wake up call and a change in life style.

My life now consists of 55-70 block from head to toe before I ever leave the house. I tire of people asking me if I am sun burnt as my chest is a permanent dark pink due to the sun damage I received in my teens and 20s. I scour my body for new places and fret when a spot doesn’t look quite right. I faithfully see Dr. Hartman as I am high risk. Every three months, head to toe, and there is always a place of concern. Next week I see him again only a month into my three month cycle for the place where I received a vaccination when I was a child. I did not know that places that have produced a scar are more prone to skin cancer. One mere spot and three freezings later. It has not gone away. Will it be cancer? I pray not as I do so often. Now, just because I am fair and you may be dark does not count you out. My own husband had two precancerous spots frozen off. Jay, with his dark Sicilian blood and skin, was not immune to the sun’s dangerous rays.

Skin cancer is now the most common cancer in the United States. According to dermatologist, Jeanine Downey who was featured on Good Morning America, one in five people will develop skin cancer over the course of their lives. One in five…take me out of the equation as I have already become a statistic.

 About ten years ago, I watched as the best boss anyone could ever have was diagnosed with melanoma. One spot and he grew so ill. One spot caused by our beautiful sun. He went through the ringer of cancer and actually came out on the bright side. He is alive, but I am sure his life changed immensely.

Cancer is cancer—a taker. We hear everyday about how breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer takes away people we love, but seldom do we sit back and really listen to skin cancer. It is the quiet one, the one that goes unsuspected until you glance at the scars where it has taken up home.

I miss the days of full on color, the days when I could press my finger to my skin to see if I had gotten sun. I worry when I see pics on Facebook of childhood friends who glow too hard from the sun or hear young girls saying they need to get to the tanning bed. I get concerned when I see my nephew burnt to a crisp for him to reply “It’s only sun”.

God, how I wish it was…

 

 

When words are not enough…

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There’s something to be said when we begin taking people out of the equation. Oh, of course, your day begins and ends with interactions between your clients, but we are replacing the face to face, “I know you are here when I need you” with quick, on the spot, no thought given emails and texts. I want to ask you…do you think you can have customer service without customer relationships?

Columbia University saw the problem when they saw students walking aimlessly around the campus glued to the screens of their portable devices. Sadly, they had to come out with a scavenger hunt game which paid the students and forced them into daily connections. Is this what we want our customers to see? Our lives with our gadgets are more important? Maybe this is the problem and the point. We want people to see. We want them to see a screen, see the words on the page and see we just no longer have the time to build and establish the most important building block—direct, on site communication. We are asking them to see. What we are not asking them for is to feel.

I want you to think about the last time you received a text and were frustrated by the message. Perhaps it was short, they were hurried and the thought was lost in translation. Even worse, the message seemed almost cryptic, made up of some language that seemed so foreign to you. It made you feel like you needed a translator, like you needed an explanation. I am certain you wanted to pick up the phone and ask what was the meaning, but then you remembered: “Oh, she never answers her phone, she prefers to text.”

This is the everyday with your customers. They spend each day interfacing with the public and when they are trying to reach out to you for insight and your help with their business they are not getting what they need. They are getting what you give and quite frankly it is not enough. It is not enough to not have the energy to pick up the phone. It is not enough to send a quick email when they are reaching out. It is not enough when we place the value on our own time and forget they are the reason we are here.

We don’t need to be enough.

We need to be there.

We need to be more.

Be more to someone today.

Of paws and bobtails…

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Calli and her first born
The happy 5 babies
Sailor and Lil Man
Kelty and Cassisy

There is something to be said about cats and the enduring effect they have on your heart.  It would be impossible to think of my life without having a cat in it.  They have always been there.  From being a small child and dressing them in my baby doll clothes while riding them around in my dolly carriage to the harrowing feeling in my gut when Kelty died in my arms last year, a cat, to me, has always been as present as air.

I came by it organically.  My Momma was affectionately known as the CatLady when I was growing up.  We always had a cat and it seems our house was also a drop off point for the unwanted ones as we always took them in.  We had smart cats–Teedle who could open the door by placing her paws over the knob and moving it, Sunshine & her kitten Sunny who both used the bathroom on the toilet.  We had mischievous cats–Frosty, a stray Maine Coon who liked to “comb” my brother’s curly hair.  We had them all, all breeds, all shapes, all colors, all sizes.  They all enchanted our lives in different ways.  They all found their final resting place in my family’s back yard except for Sunny and we instead buried his collar that the nice man who found him hit on the road had brought us.  We each always mumbled “No more, this is the last”, well, at least until the next one showed up.

As I grew up I remember thinking if I were to die I wanted to come back as one of my Momma’s cats as she took care of them the same way she took care of us–with all of the love and patience in the world.  I also saw the same trait develop with both myself and my sister.  Our animals became family.  We sheltered and made them our own.  We talked to them like they were children and included them in adult conversations. We made sure they were taken care of in the best way possible.

I met my husband in 2002.  He had never been owned by a cat.  I know, I, too, was shocked by this.  We all know there are cat people and there are dog people, but there are just some people who miss so much by not having had the experience so during the halftime of an Alabama football game  in 2003 we went out and adopted Kelty, a long haired tortie from an abandoned litter of nine.  She adapted well and soon my husband was smitten.  She was named after a camping gear brand since she was quite the adventurous one.  She rode in the car on top of his head  resting her paws on the bill of his baseball cap during trips.  She was smart and loving.  She made us a family of three.  We adopted number 2 in 2006.  Cassidy, a beautiful Tabby who attached herself to Jay from day one.  She was very protective of him, perhaps because I was with Momma when she fell ill for three months, but she made sure I knew he was hers.  In 2011 she fell victim to kidney disease and the vet suggested we put her down.  We found another vet. We lived with  daily IV bags and injections, but we had her with us, playful and vibrant for another year.  When she came to the point of failing health we made the decision to have her put to sleep.  We blessed her with holy water and slept on the floor with her throughout the night.  Even Kelty licked her head as to say it would all be okay…Blessedly she passed in her sleep in the night.

Fast forward to 2015 and a move to the mountains with Kelty in tow as an only “child”.  It seems it is easy to become so used to your life as is that when things change rapidly it is sometimes so hard for your heart to catch up. Sailor came to us on July 16 at 4 weeks old, abandoned at my sister’s seafood restaurant in the middle of a storm and found seeking shelter under the Captain statue on the back deck.  She was tiny, fluffy and no short of love.  Kelty found her as an annoying, hissable piece of fur, an intruder in her home.  Toleration came four weeks later, but so did tragedy–we lost Kelty.  I still cannot talk about how she passed, it was unnecessary. Time has taught me it was to open our house and hearts to all we have now.  I think Cassidy needed her more in heaven.

Upon Kelty’s passing I knew we needed to find Sailor “a friend”.  It was off to the local shelter and making the point of saying we weren’t just coming home with a cat.  We needed a connection.  We walked in and out of the cat room to no avail.  We were about to leave when they took us to a room with the quarantined babies, some sick, some needing medication and some needing to be spade/neutered. And there he was–actually reaching out and grabbing my husband by the sleeve–a sleek, strong Mackerel Tabby kitten. The bond between Sailor and Lil’ Man took only  36 hours.  They began to do everything in tandem–eating, playing, sleeping, even sharing the litter box at the same time.  I felt God had placed them into our lives to help us heal.

Come November we had really settled into our home and were getting ready for the holidays.  We all know as soon as you say settled things become unsettled.  I was at the restaurant and watched as a Calico was darting between cars in the parking lot.  You know what happened next–I was up the mountain, new kitty in tow with a mission to find her family.   I posted with the shelters and after we had no response we had a new family member and a vet appointment where we were told she was pregnant!  After passing the gestational period with no babies we figured we were given a wrong diagnosis so the holidays went as planned, glass ornaments remained boxed and we all settled in as what our normal would be.  We had become a family of 5, three with paws, but still our family.

We rang in the new year with our new normal.  Cat toys everywhere, cat paws on the counter (which makes me cringe) and teaching manners along with new tricks.  Sailor became the quiet, docile one with a hidden bad streak.  Lil’ Man learned to sit, fetch and play catch with an outspoken streak of menace.  Calli got out of the house the week before she was scheduled to be spade.  She came home with a smile.

I did the things my Momma did when we had kittens when I was little.  I planted boxes with soft blankets throughout the house in closets. I placed a calendar on the fridge with her potential due dates. I watched her food intake and I could not help but laugh when my husband dubbed her “The Hindenburg”.  When the time came she ignored all of my planning and decided to have her babies in a box a placed next to my desk as I worked on company spreadsheets.  She wouldn’t let me leave her side.  It seemed she was telling me since I had no children of my own (without paws) she wanted me to be able to experience the wonder with her.  Calli delivered her kittens on April 20 during a labor lasting over 4 hours.  The first was a dark orange Tabby, the second a Calico and the third a bobtailed blonde Tabby. Two hours later, another orange Tabby with a bobtail, one hour after that the last one arrived, a blonde Tabby with a stump tail.  Momma and babies all healthy, myself and Jay in awe of the births and proud grandparents.

I can’t imagine a life without the “babies” as we call them and now, the additional 5 real babies downstairs.  They each have brought us laughter and joy just as the ones who were here before them. They teach us that a little claw mark doesn’t ruin your day it just enhances texture. They show us it doesn’t take much space for your heart to be moved in the right direction. They remind us that taking a leap doesn’t always have to involve fear and that in the long run, you don’t have to be a dog or cat person.  You just have to be able to love and make room in your heart.

 

IMG_6153.JPGFootnote:  The children turn one on the 20th of April.  All have wonderful homes!  Two are here with us (1 & 3), the orange bobtail as well as a 2nd kitten our Calli fostered are with my sister, the calico, Tipper, is in Charleston with a dear friend & my insurance agent has the last, the stumped tail named Tupelo. Always room for one more cat!