Published!  A story I wrote about my personal experience with cancer was published in a cancer newsletter, What Makes You Stronger.   The full version is below for your eyes only:

I remember it well.  It was the 10^th day of work at my new job at one of the US’ top 10, fast-paced public relations agency.  It was late Friday afternoon.  I was engrossed in developing a new business proposal when the phone rang.  The voice was that of my breast specialist.

“Sharon, I didn’t want to let the weekend come without calling you first,” she said.  “The core biopsy shows that you have cancer.  My advice is for us to remove the tumor as soon as possible.”

That fateful day.  That fateful phone call.  I was 33.  I had breast cancer.

Just a couple of weeks before, I had felt some pain and a lump at the 12 o’clock position of my right breast.  Upon discovery, I found my way to the breast specialist.  She announced confidently that the lump I felt was probably fibrodenoma, a benign breast lump that was no cause for alarm.

“However,” she added, “just to be safe, I’ll do a needle biopsy for you.”  Well, that needle biopsy led to a core biopsy, and very quickly, to my cancer diagnosis.

After hanging up the phone, I walked out of my office, dazed.  I blurted out the news to Mary, my only colleague left in the office that Friday evening.  Mary leapt to her feet, gave me a big, protective hug, and tears began rolling down my eyes uncontrollably.

Soon, word spread to my circle of family, friends, colleagues and the larger community.  “What?!  This can’t be.  You’re too young!” was a typical reaction.  Indeed, life has thrown me a sour, sour lemon.  What confronted me next was the reality of facing my new life as a cancer patient head-on.

I had a lumpectomy within a week of my diagnosis, and because of my relatively young age and the fact that we haven’t had kids, the doctors recommended that I go through Invitro Fertilization prior to starting chemotherapy and radiation.  I injected myself at 10pm sharp every night to spur the proliferation of eggs in the uterus.  Under my husband’s loving watch, most of the injections were done in the safety of our home.  But on a memorable evening, with syringes in toll while on a company retreat, I wandered into public restroom in a crowded Las Vegas Hotel, and proudly carried out my nightly duty.

The IVF procedure was successful, and the doctors fertilized eight embryos.  So now, when anyone asks if I have kids, I tell them, “I have eight frozen ones!”

As soon as IVF was over, I started chemotherapy, one session every three weeks.  As soon as my hair started falling, I found myself on the barber’s chair, chopping them off before I lost them all.  Wigs and hats and scarves became my constant companions.  Throughout the chemo sessions, I continued working a full-time, sometimes-overtime schedule, with just a couple of days off around the chemo sessions.  I don’t know how I did it.  I pray never to have to go through this again, and pray for this dreaded disease not to befall upon any more family members.  After all, I was the third, after my parents, in my immediate family of five with a cancer diagnosis.

Radiation followed chemotherapy, and that lasted for almost two months.  When I thought life would resume to normal after radiation, I was greeted with another lemon – a scare on my MRI report, which then began a series of more doctors’ appointments and tests.

Is that another cancerous growth close to my original surgery site, or not?  We didn’t know for sure and the tests were inconclusive.  My only option now was to wait and go through another MRI in six months.

But in the meantime, I have decided that “when life throws you a lemon, let’s make lemonade!”  So, with the support of some friends and family, I threw a “Kiss Cancer Goodbye” party.  We rented a venue with a magnificent view of the lake.  A couple of girlfriends contributed with delicious, healthy, gourmet foods.  We had an on-site chair masseuse for all who desired relaxation.  Another friend, a belly-dancing teacher, dedicated a “dance of health” to me.  Then came a tear-jerker video presented by my journalist friend.  All present responded with love, and some with happy tears.  That was the best day of my life since my cancer diagnosis!

Now, on to making more lemonade.  After radiation, I was recruited to join the Exercise for Bone Health Clinical Study organized by the Northern California Cancer Center.  This study randomizes post-chemo treatment cancer survivors into an exercise or control group.  I was randomized into the exercise group and have since gained a personal trainer, a free YMCA membership and a three times a week exercise regimen.

Throughout the study, I feel I’m contributing to the welfare of future cancer survivors.  And for the very first time in my life, I am taking exercise seriously and benefiting greatly from it.  Radiation fatigue? No more!  Stronger bones?  Definitely!

Now, is trouble brewing?  Is cancer knocking?  Let’s make more lemonade!

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Biography

Thankfully, that suspicious lump turned out to be benign and Sharon has been cancer-free for three years now.  Sharon is a public relations/management consultant and writer.  She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Dan, and cat, Pandora.  She can be reached at www.shotofinspiration.com.

This is a guest post by Jarie Bolander, Author of Frustration Free Technical Management.

Innovation and creativity are wrought with setbacks, stumbles and failure. All creative endeavors have that one point where all you want to do is stop. Stop working. Stop thinking. Stop worrying about the project. This place comes by many names – the wall, the edge or the brink.

Defining Moments

All artists, innovators and creative folk have defining moments that test their mental strength. These moments are brink moments when, for brief moments, we let the self doubt, insecurities and negativity get the best of us. These are the places we give up on our dreams. These are the places that make us not want to ever try again. How many of you have let these moments defeat you? How many of you just could not muster enough positive energy to push past this point? It’s sometimes hard to channel enough positive energy when trouble strikes. Remember all those negative people who told you that your dream was stupid. Can you visualize them? Shaking their head. Waving their finger. Telling you to go get a safe, secure, corporate job. Telling you that being an artist, poet, musician, writer or inventor is fine for a hobby, but a job, c’mon, that’s just crazy talk.

Teetering on the Edge

The brink is that defining moment where all hope is lost. Whatever you are working on is just not converging. It’s the point of exhaustion where going on seems impossible. This spot is the single most frustrating point in your life where you question everything. It’s a nasty cocktail of melancholy mixed with terror that feels like your whole world is collapsing in on itself. At this point, where all hope, dreams, desires and ego are on the brink of collapse, will be your most creative moment if you let it.

Embracing the Brink

Creative people need to embrace the brink and the defining moments it creates. The clarity that brink moments can bring is truly astonishing. The brink is the culmination of your creative process. It’s that last little push to finish your blog post, the marathon session to release your software or the one defining experiment that proves your invention. When you feel yourself teetering on the brink, wanting to give up, try these techniques to push past it:

1. Take a step back: Too often, we get wrapped up in a problem that we lose our objectivity. Take a step back. Let your mind rest and regroup. Then, attack the problem again.
2. Attack one problem at a time: Inventors sometimes face a myriad of challenges that hit them all at once. The desire is to attack them all at once. This method just distracts from the focus needed to solve difficult problems. The best method: list your problems and work on one at a time.
3. Adjust expectations: Reaching too far can create artificial barriers that should be carefully analyzed. It’s fine to delay a feature or adjust the form factor as long as progress to the end goal is being made.
4. Stop making it perfect: Probably the biggest barrier to all creative folks is the perfection fallacy. This mostly stems from critics that might look at your work and find a flaw. Well, get it over it. Most of them will never see the flaw – they will just be happy that you shared your work and ignore the critics – they are just jealous that you released something.
5. Set a deadline: Real artists release their work. Without releasing your work, you are not an artist, inventor or writer. Sharing your work is how you touch people.
6. Talk it through with a friend: Just talking through your challenges can inspire different approaches and ideas. Take a friend to coffee or drinks. Candidly discuss your setbacks and ask for advice.
7. Collaborate with someone else: Sometimes your art is just missing that one piece to make it whole. In these cases, it can do you a world of good to find another artist that can help complete your work. Even sharing credit for your work is far better than not releasing it at all.
8. Sacrifice something you enjoy till it’s done: Nothing will motivate you more than to sacrifice something you enjoy doing till you solve one problem or release your art.
9. Celebrate the little wins: The little wins will sustain you until you can push past the brink. In reality, the little wins will build into the big wins and that will lead to your success. So, celebrate a bit when all seems lost.

Embrace the Process

An important thing to remember is that some brink events will momentarily break you. Be ready to accept this, learn from it and move on. None of us is perfect. At times, we will fail but that does not mean we are failures. Whatever you create, the process of creation is also art. Embrace the fact that you put yourself out there, created something and let the world see it, even if it’s not perfect or not what you originally intended.

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About The Author

Jarie Bolander is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He is presently working on breakthrough technology that will reduce medical errors. Jarie also blogs about innovation, management and entrepreneurship at The Daily MBA and has recently published his first book, Frustration Free Technical Management.  You can also follow him on Twitter @thedailymba

Image by Rennett Stowe via Flickr

One of the most uplifting, paradigm-shifting quotations I have read is an eloquent reflection on success, failure and courage, by Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never tasted victory or defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

I first read this quotation during my early college years, and still remember my eyes widening and my mind doing an about-turn.

You see, I used to tie success to outcomes.  Did I pass or did I fail?  Was that performance good enough?  Or was it bad?  Did I win?  Or did I lose?

But Roosevelt reminds me that there is a better way to look at success and failure.  Sure, we have aspirations.  A small group of us may even dream of becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a Tour De France champion, or a doctor who finds the cure for cancer, or someone with a glorious marriage.  And an even smaller group may realize some of these dreams and “know the triumph of high achievement.”

But what really matters, according to Roosevelt, is that we stay true to our dreams, get on “the arena” and “strive valiantly” even if “we err and come short.”

Liberating!  This means we don’t have to “win” with every dream and aspiration.  What matters more, is that we find the courage and devotion to give ourselves to a worthy cause.

So success or failure, does it matter?  Maybe not as much as we think, for in one courageous act, lies our victory – victory over fear, victory over self.

Have you had moments in life when you know you must act on something important, but seemed to have lost the courage to act ?  Did you mean to ask that special someone out?  Did you mean to apply for that job?  Did you want to conquer the fear of public speaking?  Did you mean to speak up for someone who was wronged?  Did you want to start your own business?

I have been through some of these “testing” moments.  One of my most vivid memories was that of a younger me in 1999.  I had a rare opportunity to start my own business.  But I was terrified.  I had too many fears and too many questions, like… What if can’t put food on the table?  Will I have clients? What is my niche?  Will I succeed?”

Thankfully, during that important juncture of my life, my spirit was lifted by the following quotes on courage:

• “Always do what you’re afraid to do.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is the making of action in spite of fear.” ~ M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

I learned that I need not wait for all my fears to disappear before acting on something I want to do.  I learned that as long as I can acknowledge my fears and still move forward, I have developed courage, and matured as a person.

So, I finally took the plunge and started my own business, in spite of my fears.  And that has made all the difference.

Has there been a moment, or moments, in your life, when you decided to act, in spite of your fears?  What are these moments?  How did you feel?