You are listening to Best Life After Cancer Episode 31

Well, hey, friends! I am so happy to chat with you all today! I hope you have had wonderful holidays, despite all the changes in life currently. I had a great Christmas, but I admit, I let my brain convince me that NYE sucked because we couldn’t do what we always do. I ended up missing out on a great night with my husband and kids because I was in that space, so I know one of the places I have my work cut out for me in the next weeks! As we start out this new year, I want to acknowledge where so many people are after cancer. If you finished treatment, and it felt like you were sent out into the world with a “It’s all wait and see” and “Make a follow up for 6 months” and you felt lost and terrified, you are not alone. This is so common. If you want to feel like there is something you have control over to decrease recurrence, but are unsure what, I hear this so often. If you are living in fear,...

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer Podcast Episode 30!

Well, hey, my friends, how are you today? When this podcast is released, I will be off with my family, enjoying some time away where we can be outside and have a white Christmas, but I wanted to have this ready for you to listen to. This is the first time we will be away from home at Christmas since we had kids. It is the first year that officially no one believes in Santa (although I am pretty sure my youngest was paid by his siblings to keep up the show for a while, but that is another story). Because so many of our usual holiday events were not possible due to Covid, we decided to change things up and go away, and create some new traditions. And, oh, my brain has so many thoughts about that. So today is part of the “working on your brain” aspect of living your best life after cancer. I think for so many, emotions are more heightened after cancer, and the holidays are times when emotions are running high...

Well, hello friends! Hope you are well, and getting into the holiday spirit. I don’t know about you, but I have this thought I should be MORE organized this year, because I am not doing lots of the things I normally do, so WHY am I so much farther behind than normal in my holiday prep? Anyone else finding this? But, I am on a roll this week knocking out some podcasts to make sure I have great content for you awesome folks AND time for my awesome family. Now, if I can just find an Xbox, which I didn’t get and they are now all sold out. Hmmm.

Looking back, I realized it has been a while since my last solo science podcast, so am going to do one today. Today’s episode is all about what I know inside out and backwards – I could talk about this in my sleep – who knows, maybe I actually do! Today, we are going to talk about radiation and its use specifically in breast cancer. All the questions you had, answered without even having to ask! How awesome is...

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer, Episode 28!

Hey, my friends! How are you today? I feel like this week I am running around like a crazy person! There is so much going on these last weeks. Work has been a bit crazy – the patient volumes are up, I think lots of people trying to get everything done before the holidays and before Covid worsenes. I was out of town for a week – I turned 50 and my husband and I decided to get away for a breather. The Covid numbers are rising so quickly, so my brain is spinning on what that will mean. But, I try to remind myself – it is all ok. Everything in it’s time. Life will unfold, exactly as it will, and nothing I think or say will change it. I just read a book called “Hollow Kingdom” and there is a quote that life is like the tides – in and out, in and out, like life is up and down, up and down. I thought – how true, and fighting the up and down is like a child trying to hold the tide back...

Hi, friends! Hope you are well. When I am recording this, it is Thanksgiving week. I am off this week, taking a breather from medicine to celebrate my 50th birthday. We almost always travel with our kids, but my husband and I decided to take some time and do something just the two of us. He is a surgeon, and with both of us in medicine, with Covid numbers rising, it is a good time to pause for a bit, get a bit of a breather, and reconnect. I think this time is really hard on couples with one or both in medicine, because there is so much stress at work. I am blessed to have parents that are willing and able to come and help out for a bit. But I wanted to leave you with a podcast and thought a Gratefulness one was a great idea for Thanksgiving week.

There is so much data on a Gratefulness practice today, and the benefits attributed to this are rapidly increasing. I want to outline some of the benefits, and then we will go through some of the studies supporting this data. A Gratitude...

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer, Podcast 25.

Hi, My Best Lifers and Welcome Back! Hope you had a great Halloween weekend. We had a trunk or treat for my youngest son's grade, with all of the kids and adults masked, to try to keep everyone a bit safer, and it was fun to chat with the adults around the bonfire, while the kids ran around laughing. Seemed almost normal, despite the steadily rising Covid numbers across the country. We got to see my oldest row in a regatta against one other school, and Miles played his last soccer game in the pouring rain.

It is interesting, in my household, there are varied emotions about Fall. Fall is my husband and two of my sons’ favorite seasons. They love the cooler weather and Football. For me, I have long said that Fall was my least favorite season, and Fall with Covid seems like the worst of the worst. Or is it? How do these thoughts affect my experience in life? This week, I was reading an email from a fellow coach, Simone...

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer, Episode 23.

Hi, My Best Lifers and welcome back! I am launching my first weight loss coaching group November first. There is a focus for breast cancer patients, but it is awesome for anyone who has struggled with weight, and just not known why they can’t follow their plan. It is not a medical treatment – I don’t prescribe pills or surgery, I help you figure out what in your brain is keeping you from doing the things you know you need to do to be healthy. I’d love to have you join us. You can get information on my website, Best Life After Cancer under the services section.

In addition to working on that, I am coaching myself into loving fall (it used to be my least favorite season). And it is working! I have been so grateful to see all the beauty around me this fall. I am planning an upcoming podcast about this topic, so stay tuned. This week is the 3rd podcast in breast cancer month, and is by request a medical one...

Hi, All,

If you are an animal lover, this post will be a trigger.  If  you have lost someone in a traumatic way, this will be a trigger, and I ask you to consider seriously not reading it.  I  am sharing with you a very personal story about how coaching changed my life, but it is gory and gruesome along the way.  

As you may know, we go to Maine every summer.  You may also know we have dogs.  Our first dog was a chocolate lab named Hershey.  She was the sweetest, and so good with our boys.  We got her when the twins were about a year and a half old.  When she was about 8, we were in Maine and rented a pontoon boat.  We didn't know there was supposed to be a gate on the front to keep anyone from slipping off the front, and going between the pontoons and through the motor.  At one point, with all of us on the boat, we slowed down.  Hershey lost her balance and fell off the front.  We felt the motor hit her....

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer, Episode 19.

Hi, and welcome welcome to all the new people! I am so excited, after months of work, the podcast is starting to take off, there is increasing interaction in the survivors group on the Best Life After Cancer MD facebook page, and I feel like I am making a difference in people’s lives. It helps if you guys write reviews of the podcast which makes it show up easier when people search for it. If I get to 100 by Christmas, I will stop bugging for a bit!

The housekeeping – I am a doctor, but not your doctor, so run what I say by your team before adopting any medical advice.

It is feeling like fall here this week! Suddenly, it is chilly at night. The leaves are starting to change. The kids are back in school, 3 in a hybrid model, and one full time in person. We are getting used to the schedule, after a long time without really having one. My littlest is playing soccer on a town rec team. They are doing a great job...