Fight vs. Flight

As I look back over the events that have transpired to date, I have been able to learn at least one lesson so far from this trial.

As my mom, lay in her hospital bed for the last time, before her passing, I asked her what advice she would give to us kids. She told me two things. First, never to be afraid of loving people and second, that if ever there was something that I either wanted to do or knew that I had to do, not to be a coward but just get in and go for it and do it! My mom was a fighter- she stood up for what she believed in and she went after what she wanted in life. When it was her turn to battle lymphoma, the doctors said that her prognosis was not good but mom fought and she won her battle. She gained another 19 years of life and I think that although it may have not been ideal she was grateful for the time she had.

Now it is my time to battle lymphoma and I have found out from talking with my children that some of them, perhaps all of them, were afraid that I might not fight this battle. I must admit that I did not want to have to fight this battle with Chemotherapy. I had hoped beyond hope that there would be a better way to do battle but I knew in my heart that ultimately, because of the advanced stage of the disease, and also because of the problems that it was causing me,that my option would have to be the chemo route. This then, brings me to another point in my life where I received advice from my father.

I was 19 then! I had been out on my own for a little over a year and during that time I had met several different men whom had taken an interest in me. I had met these guys through my sisters and also at work. The problem was that they all wanted to date me and some of them wanted to marry me. I thought that it was crazy as I felt no one should be married before they were twenty- three. Never - the - less a couple of these guys kept calling my parents and asking for my hand in marriage. My parents told them that they could not make that choice for me. After I had met Brian and we had dated for 6 months, I wasn't sure of myself anymore and I got frightened and took off for Minnesota. It was a flight response to circumstances that I was afraid to get into. Well, needless to say, Brian did not give up on me. He wanted me to marry him and he was bound and determined to find out why I had taken off, when he knew how I felt about him. He called home to talk with me each night and each night I had made plans so that I wouldn't have to talk to him. My Dad had had it with my behavior and sat me down and told me that my behavior was unacceptable. He told me that no matter where I went in life there would always be guys and that i couldn't keep running from all of them.He told me that if I had a problem I always needed to square my shoulders and hit the problem head on. He also told me that he didn't understand why I was running but that it had to stop and that it was going to stop right now. He told me that Brian would be calling me on Thursday night and that I had to take that call.
SO Thursday night I took the call. Brian told me that if I didn't come back to talk to him, he was going to take leave and come back and talk to me. So he told me to make up my mind and let him know what I was going to do. Dad told me I couldn't stay, I had to go back and talk to him. So I went back out to California and that was 37 years ago.

So why, am I talking about this now? It's my past history that has indicated to me that my way of dealing with stress is to take flight. Well, that isn't any way to deal with my problems because they don't go away and sometimes, like now, it could have had very serious consequences. So I need to develop a new strategy for dealing with stress and that is what i have learned so far from this trial.