possibility

CHRONIC HOPE #4: A Potential Risk of Fighting Cancer

~ Georgia Coats ~ 5 Comments

“How dare you be so irresponsible with your wife’s health?  Don’t you understand the risks you’re putting her through by getting her pregnant in her condition?”

I watched my husband’s face change from shock to anger as the nurse unleashed her stern lecture on him.

Five years into marriage and four years into my cancer diagnosis, I was nearing my 30th birthday.  We had given up on making long-term life goals.  I let go of the dream of living abroad for language and cultural studies, and I quit graduate school.

But the dream of being a mom got stronger.

My super-effective miracle medication for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) extended both my quality and quantity of life.  Aside from 3-month check ups, an annual bone marrow biopsy, and my daily meds, I lived a normal life.  But normal life made me hope for normal things, like a family of my own.

Truth: In this world we all face struggles.

My doctor was STUBBORNLY clear: pregnancy was out of the question.  It was too risky to subject a fetus to the potentially hazardous effects of my miracle meds. And it was too risky for me to go off my miracle meds for any reason.

After multiple heart-wrenching conversations, desperate prayers, and seeking counsel from others who had faced life’s storms and held on to hope, my husband and I felt like it was risky NOT to start a family.

Two significant things happened:

  1. We learned that we must calculate our risk and take the first step into the storm; and expect God’s reassuring presence to show up along the way.
  2. My stubborn doctor left. His replacement was willing to treat me as a whole person, instead of just treating my disease.  We needed someone to champion for the fullness of life.

Hope is a function of struggle. 

“Hope is a function of struggle,” affirms Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent & Lead.

Eighteen months of chemotherapy injections were considered “safe” for growing three wondrous new lives, but they left me feverish and weak.  As I lay limp on the couch, I regularly recalculated our risk.

Giving up a safe miserable life without big dreams, for the opportunity to cultivate new life, changed something in me forever.  Ultimately, wherever beauty and life-giving possibilities exist, they are worth the pursuit.

Brené Brown reminds us that, “the willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.” 

My desire to be a mom dared me to set 9-month goals.  Three times. That led me to reconsider the daunting goal of graduate school to become a Language and Culture Learning Coach—this time as a non-traditional, cancer-fighting, mother of three.

Chronic struggles forged profound hope that pushed me higher and deeper in mind, body, and spiritual potential. And, in setting an example for my miracle children to live courageous lives.

The ongoing challenge is to keep hands open while living courageously—to never close in on the great gifts of life we’ve been given. I’ve been given 20 years to cultivate chronic hope. IMG_4212I find myself in a privileged place to champion others.  My heart is for those who face war, leave home, and migrate across cultural and linguistic barriers in search of the fullness of what life can be.  To these souls I hold out small offerings with open hands.

What are your dreams, forged in struggle?

Who are your champions?

What are the little offerings in your hands?

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This article was published in a series of articles for the Yemeni American News, August, 2019:

Georgia Coats is a Language & Culture Learning Coach, freelance writer, educator, wife, and mother of three who is passionate about healthy mind-body-spirit living.  Chronic Hope is Georgia’s collection of stories, lessons, and life adventures of living alongside chronic leukemia, cancer of the white blood cells, for two decades.  She often shares what’s on her mind at: www.onmymindbygeorgia.wordpress.com

 

Courageously Beautiful Together

~ Georgia Coats ~ Leave a comment

My dear lifelong friend from Nevada came to visit my new home.  We were on our way to enjoy a lovely lunch together, but needed a few things from the store first.

We went in to the grocery store for baby wipes and celery.

We left soaring.

My friend, who also happens to identify an impromptu florist, volunteered my Spanish speaking services in the floral department.  She just happened to overhear the florist’s  request for a translator.  Then, through me as her interpreter, she offered to add a dozen red roses to an already full bouquet because a smitten Spanish-speaking man wanted an abundant bouquet for his bride of 53 years.

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He could’ve fumbled to buy a decent bouquet without my communication skills. But he wanted the best the grocery store florist had to offer.

I’m SO glad my friend overheard a conversation that wasn’t meant for us.
I’m SO glad she volunteered me to do something I wouldn’t have done on my own.
I’m SO glad to have a friend who makes beautiful things. 🌹

We waved the man off with God’s blessing over his life and marriage.  And over lunch we beamed about our newly made memory that we just added to our 30+ years of friendship.

When you have those people in your life…

who believe in you, who want to spend time and go on adventures with you, who inspire you to be the best version of yourself, and who also need you to enhance their possibilities–hold on tight to those people.

Because together we generate a kind of courage and beauty, that by ourselves, neither of us could have done so effortlessly and abundantly.

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The Inspiration Case

~ Georgia Coats ~ 6 Comments

DSC_0186For her 9th birthday, Ella received an incredible Inspiration Case. It has every color in various forms to create unlimited possibilities.  It’s where the tools meet the paper to draw out anything her imagination can fathom. Language is my inspiration case. I get giddy over the possibilities of punctuation or the playing on of words.  It’s the place where form and meaning come together to express profundity.

Should vs. Could: A Tale to two Modals

A few weeks ago, as my husband Steve and I sauntered down the wedding reception buffet line I surveyed the dinner potentials. Should I get the Caesar or Raspberry Spinach salad? Should I try the chicken or beef?  I ultimately chose chicken and spinach and sat down at table 18. As Steve joined me, he commented that I should have tried the beef, and shared a tasty bite with me.  The great thing about being in a buffet line is that nothing had to be either/or. Both/and was also possible. I could have both the beef and the chicken if I wanted to.   I could go back for more salad.

Should and could. Both are auxiliary verbs. Phonetically, they are different by one minimal sound—the /sh/ vs. the /k/. Both are useful tools in just the right context. Everyone needs the color of mud in their Inspiration Case, but indigo is so much more fun to use. Should gets a lot more use in my inner dialogue and feels like a slow drain of phantom energy. Could  on the other hand invites the possibility of joy and adventure. Should is a modal verb of doing the correct thing. Could is a modal expressing possibility or potential. Should and could function similarly in a sentence, but their use in the buffet line takes me down such different paths.

 The Game of Possibility

Last week a job offer that I wasn’t even looking for fell into my lap. I came home in a panic trying to figure out the right thing to do. Should I say yes? Should I turn it down? After my beef vs. chicken experiment, I decided to change my inner line of questioning—the game of possibility. I could take this job. Then again, I could say no. Possibility and potential. I was freeing myself up to be inspired by the prospect of a new path, but not tied down to the obligation of what lay before me.

I love how my longtime, kindred spirit friend Kate sums it up in her blog post, Don’t should on me!: We all know the suffocating weight of living under “should”.  Whether in eating or exercise, friendship or family, “should” robs us of joy and marches us forward with a dutiful sense of obligation…“Could” opens up our imagination and stirs up excitement about things to come.

She goes on to warn us, though, not to let an obligatory should insidiously sneak into our inspiration…it’s important not to “should” ourselves into positive thinking.  Even reading this, we could conclude, “From now on I will say “could” instead of “should”.  That would be nice, but I’m afraid it’s just a set up for another “should”.  Instead, we can gain awareness about how our thoughts are coming to us.  There are obligations in life.  Having a sense of duty is not always bad, but we can still frame it in the excitement of “could” rather than the drudgery of “should”.

Sometimes Ella does use her inspiration case for required homework purposes, but having the right set of tools even for the obligatory stuff makes it more inspiring. Even then, she could choose the color of mud, but she could also choose the color of chocolate, or both/and. The possibilities are endless!