Winter arrived early this year. Seven inches of heavy, wet, white fell like a weighted blanket on my November birthday. I typically love the first snowfall of the season, with the transformation from drab brown to feathery white, illuminating the darkness at night. But I wasn’t ready this year. The last big Minnesota snowfall was mid-April, when crocuses and tulips should have been rising out of bed. And I had just started walking again after a [...]

  Well, not all stress makes us sick. Stress can motivate and energize us—it helps us perform better in front of an audience or get psyched for an adventure, like white-water rafting on the Colorado River in chilly November (shout-out to Mike, Eric, and Frederique!) or skydiving from 13,000 feet (“terrifying” and “freeing” says my brave niece, Laura, pictured). Not surprisingly, skydiving triggers a “fight-or-flight” (literally!) stress hormone response. In one study, 39 men and women [...]

“What were his symptoms?” was the most frequently asked question after finding out that my four-year-old had leukemia. At first, I was taken aback by the question. Why did it matter? I thought. We were in treatment now, moving on—at laser speed. I had no time to pause, to process the chaotic events leading up to his diagnosis. And yet, the awareness gnawed through my reality that first night in the hospital. In Standing at Water’s [...]

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”― Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven How do you know if you are resilient? Are you able to get through an extreme setback or life challenge by facing the situation head on and accepting it as a new reality, coping with the immediate challenge, then getting through and bouncing back stronger and more capable than before? Or, do [...]

I’m a nurse. A cancer nurse. “Isn’t it depressing?” ask the innocent, but brave, conversationalists. The patients don’t ask. They know. They see the compassion in our eyes and feel our warm and caring hand on theirs as we expertly assess, treat, teach them new skills, problem solve, and advocate for them. We listen for what’s not said as much as for what is said. We shepherd them through the complex healthcare system that increasingly demands [...]