Wanted: A NEW Year

As 2014 has officially closed, all I can say is WANTED: A new year. There was plenty of good that came out of this year, but there were plenty of hardships, too, and a new year often comes with new dreams, new possibilities.

First, the positives:

The year took me to places far and near – from the Bahamas to a cruise in the Caribbean to the UK to California (3 times) to the North Fork to the Catskills to Philadelphia. My freelance travel writing career took a new course, which was really exciting and I plan to beef it up in the next year. I had a piece printed in a custom travel publication and continued as a regular contributor publications including Ciao Bambino, Family Vacation Critic, Go Girlfriend, This Girl Travels and MiniTime. Plus, several of my pieces made it onto Yahoo Travel and the Huffington Post’s Travel section, which meant the world to me.

My favorite piece of the year was about two Holocaust survivors from the Lodz Ghetto and I plan to do more of this kind of writing in the year ahead.

I worked on some very interesting projects, from promoting the Women’s Equality Party (we won!) with We Are Women Online to a massive twitter party for Women’s Prison Association, amongst others. I continue to work as Engagement Strategist at SheSpeaks and work with a variety of my own clients.  I also continued my work in the theater sector, producing my third (and last) round of Listen to Your Mother and I also had the wonderful opportunity to work in a marketing capacity on Almost Home, an off-Broadway production and joined the team at Broad Street Pictures to further the possibility of more women working in film and television.

My work on The Culture Mom slowed down when I tried to rebrand this site but ultimately brought it all back when I realized the importance of a brand I had already spent years building. I hope to make this site bigger and better in the days to come, and to bring some readers I lost in the process back. Blogging continues to provide amazing opportunities, connections and support I feel so lucky to have.

Now, the negatives:

I don’t talk about myself very often on this blog, but if you follow me elsewhere, you’ll know that I spent much of the year enduring a battle with thyroid cancer. It’s not something I’ve been very vocal about but after three operations in the span of six months, you’ll understand why I am just trying to move on. More than ever, I feel that my battle has pushed me to improve myself. I can’t take time on this earth lightly and when something doesn’t work out, I have to move forward. I tried something new this year that didn’t quite live up to my expectations and it was kind of heart-breaking but I’m moving on. I can’t beat myself up over it. Onward and upward, that is my new motto.

When I was diagnosed, I wrote a post about my discovery and pitched it to to a publication I felt it was right for. When it was rejected, I shelved it. But I am posting it here to start my year off and to remind myself that the only way is up. Here’s the post:

It was an ordinary day.

I woke up. Late as usual. My husband dashed off to work. I made the kids breakfast. I made their lunches and organized their backpacks. I prepared myself for work. I made sure the babysitter knew of their after-school plans.

Then I walked them to the corner – they went to the right, I went to the left.

Having recently gone back to work in an office after working from home for several years, I was amazed at how much easier my life was compared to ten years ago after giving birth. I thought about it all the way to the train during my 10-minute walk and also during my short ride to the city, during which time I happily read The New York Times, drank a cup of coffee and relished in commuter bliss.

I’m actually not kidding. After ten years of working in and out of the house, I was thrilled to be back in the city at a desk job, surrounded by interesting people.

The day was going like any other day. I was still adapting to my new role, meeting with colleagues, getting to know the company’s systems and procedures. It was an exciting time for me in my career. It was a new chapter.

When the phone rang around 2pm, it took me by surprise. Not many people had my number yet. Excited to take one of my first work calls, I picked up the phone and felt rather shocked to hear the voice of my endocrinologist at the other end of the line. She said she had my biopsy results.

(This is where it’s important to note that I was sitting in an open office environment in a cubicle surrounded by people who I didn’t know very well at this point in time. I was very much the new girl.)

“Hi, Doctor. How are you?”, I responded, not expecting the call to be serious.

Only this time it was.

She then said, “I’m afraid I have bad news, Holly. Your thyroid is suspicious for cancer.”

My heart stopped. I forgot I was not alone. I also forgot where I was. I responded:

The rest of the conversation is a blur. She explained that the next step was surgery and used a lot of medical terms that I didn’t fully understand. I was livid. We set up an appointment for the next morning at 7:45. I called my husband, burst into tears and headed to the train.

Like an angel from heaven, there he was. He had also gotten right up from his desk at work and headed to Grand Central. Right when I needed a shoulder to cry on, he was there.

There was no question that I would have his support during the entire ordeal.

The next morning, after leaving our kids off with a friend earlier than anyone would have liked, we met with the doctor during which time our fears were calmed. We found out that thyroid cancer is the most treatable form of cancer and that my chance of survival was around 95%. Most people respond really well to treatment when found early and also when the patient is relatively young. Fortunately, I still fall into that category.

She also explained that the thyroid gland makes hormones that regulate the way our bodies use energy. We need it to help our bodies work normally. Like other types of cancer, it’s difficult to say what the cause was. All that was important was getting it out of my body….and soon. The suspicion was 85%, not leaving much room for doubt.

The next few months were spent speaking to various surgeons. To get an appointment with my doctor’s favorite one, the wait was long and intense. There would be visits to cancer units in hospitals, during which time I sat in the waiting room in disbelief that I was there.

At age 43, I’d been in relatively good health all my life. My mother, a lung cancer survivor, added me to her list of cancer survivors and started telling me about support groups. It was all very surreal.

All along, I was terrified and impatient for my surgery’s date. We didn’t have a will. That was something we’d delayed for years and now it was time to get one drawn up. My children both knew that I was waiting to have surgery, but I never used the word “cancer”. I could hardly say it myself.

One operation came. And then another just two weeks later. After removing a small portion of the thyroid where they thought the cancer was contained, the doctor learned that it had spread to my lymph nodes, and he found five other nodules in the thyroid. In the end, I had the whole thing removed and started medication the next day which I will be reliant on for my whole life.

But that doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind taking medication. It’s now the first thing I think of daily as soon as I wake up. Waiting 3-60 minutes to drink afterwards is not as hard as I thought it would be either. I do love my coffee.

What matters most are my children. I don’t want them to be motherless while they are children. My own mother is still one of the most important people in my life, and I want to be that person to them. Each time I went under the knife, I thought of them and vowed to come out of the surgeries better than ever.

I still have a bumpy ride ahead. There is something called iodine radiation treatment where I will need to be quarantined for 3-5 days. There will be blood tests. There will be check-ups. There will be regular visits to the doctor for a certain period of time but they will teeter out in time.

But I’ll be fine, and hopefully this will give me perspective. One day, when my children are older, they will also understand that when they were young, I learned the fragility of life and how precious it is. They may be shocked to hear what their mom was going through while driving them to soccer practice, Hebrew School and to play dates. They will be shocked to find out how much I was juggling.

When my daughter is a working mother, we’ll talk about the doctor appointments I had to slip out of the office to make, about the time I had to take off after surgery, about how hard it was to maintain my level of concentration before and after each surgery, about how my love for my family deepened in ways I will never be able to explain to anyone.

But for now, life goes on just as before, and that is a very good thing.

This sums up my year. Life WILL GO ON. I have wayyyyyyyyy to much to do to be stopped. Here’s to turning the next page.