Posted by Lisa Rosenthal on Tue, Apr 12, 2011 @ 08:00 AM
I'm reading a book called "Here's the Bright Side- of Failure, Fear, Cancer, Divorce and Other Bum Raps". This is most decidly not a best seller. It was written in 2007 by Betty Rollin, who is a writer and a TV journalist. The book was a give away by my library due to overcrowding and under interest in the book.
Sometimes one person's giveaway is another person's treasure.
I have found many treasures in this book. For the record, for the most part, I believe that in the midst of infertility and fertility treatment, you will not enjoy this book. I believe the bright side and silver lining, in the middle of treatment, is too challenging to find. But I think, maybe, you can hear bits and pieces here.
What the author has to say about "the prize" that goes way beyond learning to cope, is what I am savoring. Her discussion about the Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert, who talks about the "psychological immune system that defends the mind against unhappiness." What a concept, that much like the body, the mind also has an immune system that kicks in when needed to protect itself.
She also talks about gratitude. Which of course makes me think of Kristin Magnacca, another of my favorite authors, who recommends a gratitude journal. I love it. When life feels both overwhelming and overbearing, I often will turn to the gratitude journal that I keep.
Betty Rollins talks about how we often feel grateful after a loss or crisis and not as often when life is going along pretty smoothly. That it's those heart wrenching situations that make us sit up and realize what we are made of.
Which brought me to thinking about a conversation that I had with Dr. Joshua Hurwitz the other day. When he announced that he regularly makes patients cry, as matter of fact as could be, I was flabbergasted. He is constantly getting accolades from our patients, as well as patient and peer awards for not only his medical expertise, but his gentle handling of the emotional end of things.
But I got what he meant, he tells patients lots of things that are upsetting, and even as well as he does it, we get upset. There were a few paragraphs in the book that spoke to this point eloquently.
Betty Rollins talks about her surgeon and how much she loves him. She writes about how she loves him, because in retrospect, she realizes that he lied to her. That he became her protector, realizing that she could not hear the truth in that minute. Knowing that she had to assimilate maybe before she could hear, "yes, cancer".
That made him the best doctor for her. Just as Dr. Hurwitz's unfailing gentleness makes it possible for his patients to cry when they need to. After all, what's the alternative? We all know the answer. We cry when we leave. We cry in the elevator, on the stairs, in the car, on the phone with our partner. Instead, Dr. Hurwitz makes it safe to have the human response of crying right then and there.
The bright side of infertility? Gratitude about infertility? Are either of those things possible to see without a positive pregnancy test or baby in arms?
There are many more bits in this book that make me grateful that I rescued it from a possibly early demise. And none of it keep me from understanding that seeing a bright side is not always possible nor does it make it anyone's fault or problem if they can't.
Just being able to put Dr. Hurwitz's comments into perspective made picking up the book worthwhile.
Posted by Lisa Rosenthal on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 @ 07:11 AM
I love sharing what I am reading with you. Books are an integral part of my life, my days, and my evenings. If I have nothing new, (usually because my library has a poster with my picture on it and a wanted slogan underneath) then I reread something. I’ve been known to sit down and read a milk carton, for lack of other things to read. One unexpected joy was reading Robert Heinlein for lack of a single other book to read on a vacation. Never liked science fiction before that and fell in love with the genre after that.
During my struggles with infertility, books were especially important as a place where I could dive in and disappear. They became an alternate universe; a place where I lived outside of myself.I credit books with helping me keep the sanity that I had during fertility treatment.
So I’m reading Anne Lamott, whom I love. A friend commented on how religious based her writing was and was surprised that piece didn’t turn me off. I believe that’s one of the reasons that I love her books because I see them as faith based, or spiritually based, rather than simply religious based. She has her own religion which she shares with the reader, but she does not push it on you. Or at least I feel that she has shared, not pushed.
In her book, Traveling Mercies, Some Thoughts on Faith, a memoir, therefore non-fiction, she talks about growing up, falling down, getting up and so on and so forth. There is a chapter in the book called Hunger, where she speaks about her relationship with food and the eating disorder she struggled with. She doesn’t sugar coat a thing; she allows us to see the battles that she fights without minimizing the size of the battle.
“It is, finally, so wonderful to have learned to eat, to taste and love what slips down my throat, padding me, fill me up, that I’m not uncomfortable calling it a small miracle. A friend who does not believe in God says, “Maybe not a miracle, but a little improvement,” but to that I say Listen! You must not have heard me right; I couldn’t feed myself! So thanks for your input, but I know where I was, and I know where I am now, and you just can’t get here from there. Something happened that I had despaired would ever happen. It was like being a woman who has despaired of ever getting to be a mother but who now cradles a baby. So it was either a miracle- Picasso said, “Everything is a miracle; it’s a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar”- or maybe it was more of a gift, one that required some assembly. But whatever it was, learning to eat was about learning to live- and deciding to live; and it is one of the most radical things I’ve ever done.“
I know that you are working on a miracle. I know that you are counting on science and medicine and even statistics to help get you there. Perhaps learning to feed ourselves, whether it is literally about food, or it’s about enjoying a moment or two in the middle of a two week wait or it’s about feeling like you can move forward when you hear bad news, perhaps that is the miracle too.
I do believe in miracles and I do believe they can seem very small, even when they make the moment blossom and become shiny and vibrant. There is nothing small about the miracle that you are hoping and striving for; just keep those eyes open for the smaller miracles that happen along the way.