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Celebrate life and you’ll have a life worth celebrating!
Attend my complementary 90 minute masterclass to see how I can help you.
GET YOUR LIFE ON TRACK WITH ERIN
6-WEEK LIFE ON TRACK COURSE & GROUP COACHING PROGRAM
Are you lacking a Vision for your life &/or business? Are you struggling with decisions necessary to move you forward?
Do you feel like you had it all figured out and then something happened to through it all in the air?
I help my clients become focused, fearless, and excited about life and your future, personally and professionally!
A powerful, influential, empowering & transformational 6-WEEK Group Course and LIVE Coaching Program “LIFE ON TRACK: FINDING YOUR PATH TO CLARITY, CONFIDENCE, and PROSPERITY!” for men and women!
Sharing with you the 6-Landmarks necessary to reach on YOUR path to IGNITE YOUR BEST LIFE focused, fearless, and excited about life personally and professionally!
YOU CAN easily achieve what you previously thought was impossible! Enroll into this wildly transformative 6-Week “LIFE ON TRACK!” Group Course and Live Coaching Program TODAY and receive special BONUSES! We are transforming lives and helping businesses grow around the world!
COACH WITH ERIN
& LEARN:
- SIX significant landmarks necessary to keep your life on track
- How to create a strong VISION for your life, personally and professionally
- How to shift away from attracting what your DON’T want in your life and shift into attracting what you DO want – the right people, places, and things into your life
- How to become COMMITTED to your vision
- How to embrace your successes and your failures as you grow personally and professionally
- How to get past your fear, lack, and scarcity mindset acquire the mindset of ABUNDANCE and PEACE
Have questions about Life On Track?
Email [email protected] to learn more!
LIFE ON TRACK TV features high level interviews with world class experts to help people get their LIFE ON TRACK personally and professionally.
Erin Ley interviews thought leaders and change agents and gets them to share extraordinary insight, powerful ACTIONABLE advice, and proven strategies anyone going through transition can use to achieve more during challenging times. Her guests include best-selling authors, coaches, teachers, financial planners, spiritual mentors, relationship savers, business geniuses, and career strategists.
These are the smart strategies, new perspectives, and tips you need to create fresh success in all parts of your business and personal lives.
You deserve clarity, success, and abundance regarding your health, wealth, and happiness. Watch LIFE ON TRACK TV to see how you can create the change you want in your life and business.
FIND LIFE ON TRACK TV:
WorkLuv
The Number #1 Bestseller
For Jason Gilmore, Halo Corp’s Mars Culture Strategist, that someone was Keara York. The managing barista at the headquarter’s coffee shop was incubating something special inside of her small cafe. It was percolating with compassion, generosity and a heart-centered outlook on life.
Jason was developing an interplanetary community for NASA’s MARS PROJECT to launch in the year 2030. His goal was to translate the core values necessary for a thriving, intergalactic society. Coincidentally, he was also reopening Halo’s own Austin, Texas workplace after a post-pandemic hiatus.
Although unconventional, Jason had a feeling Keara and her coffee shop might guide him to the solutions he was looking for and show him how to build a human community worthy of its destiny.
“I absolutely consider WorkLuv my ‘go to’ book when it comes to building communities that thrive.
We are rebuilding our corporate culture after the pandemic, and WorkLuv points the way to a 21st century work community capable of greatness.
More Praise For WorkLuv
“We have no choice in the matter, if we are to be truly human we must truly love. The power of love elevates our work beyond what we might ever imagine. Bravo, WorkLuv.”
-Denis Waitley, Legendary Author Speaker and World-Renowned Leader, Performance Coach at NASA
“When you work at what you love it won’t seem like work. It can be a joy to your heart and soul. The launch story from Elon Musk about traveling to Mars examples the passion and rigors of being a successful entrepreneur so you can make the trip from Work to luv. Happy reading of Erin’s book.”
-Mark Victor Hansen, Co-Author Chicken Soup for the Soul
“Ley has written one of those books that sneaks up and grabs your heart. Workluv is the first post pandemic book that matters.”
-Loral Langemeier, The Millionaire Maker
Erin Ley’s Workluv drives home the importance of regarding the people we work with and how vital it is to intentionally love them. This is the book we have been missing.”
-Greg Reid, Award Winning, Author, Speaker, Filmmaker
“Workluv offers a wealth of understating and inspiration for anyone who works alongside other people. Every company and every employee should read this book today. The time to start loving is now.”
-Don Green, Executive Director and CEO at The Napoleon Hill Foundation
“Workluv’s simplicity is intentional and absolute genius. It would be easy to overlook Ley’s clever style in telling her story. I read the book in one sitting, and it blew me away. I loved it.”
-David Corbin, Best Selling WSJ and USA Today Author
“WorkLuv just happens to be everything I want in a book: vividly drawn, highly-relatable characters, a plot line that sweeps you along, and a huge, forward-looking concept that makes you almost frantic to read more.”
-Mitzi Perdue (Mrs. Frank Perdue), Author, Businesswoman, and Founder of Win This Fight, Stop Human Trafficking Now!
“WorkLuv is a compelling book, a story of the heart told by a skilled writer with soul.”
-Jim Cathcart, CSP, CPAE, Author of The Power Minute and 19 other book
Other Books By Erin Ley
Life Coaching For Individuals AND
Executive Coaching For Professionals!
GO FROM STUCK, OVERWHELMED, AND DISTRACTED TO
FOCUSED, FEARLESS, AND EXCITED ABOUT LIFE AND YOUR BUSINESS!
PRIVATE 1:1 LIFE COACHING
This private one-to-one Life Coaching program is tailored to fit your personal & professional needs.
This program teaches you how to create a strong vision for your life personally & professionally, build your career, deal with stress, develop positive habits and eliminate overwhelm.
It empowers you with the tools necessary to move onward and upward through and beyond transition into the next chapter of your life both personally and professionally with peace of mind, quality of life, and fulfilling relationships! It is designed to help you harness your inner-power and ignite your BEST self with strength, clarity, and connection!
GROW YOUR BUSINESS!
Executive Coaching To Improve Communication & Accountability, & Productivity
The BEST thing you can do for your business is invest in a professional Executive Coaching Program!
This GROW YOUR BUSINESS (GYB) program is designed to offer your business improved communication skills whereby productivity goes up and the leaky bottom-line disappears. This program includes personal growth and professional leadership training.
This is NOT a command and control type environment looking for who’s doing something wrong. It IS about helping employees embark on empowering changes to achieve remarkable RESULTS! This has wide spread implications for a far healthier and more enjoyable life and workplace for everyone involved! #OnwardAndUpward
Want Erin to coach you?
Get started coaching with Erin by scheduling an interview. During this 30 minute session Erin will learn more about where you are or what you want help overcoming. During this interview Erin will determine if you are an ideal coaching client.
Erin is selective with the people she works with and only works with people who are willing to be coached and put in the time and effort to see their results.
LIFE ON TRACK
FOR KIDS
Erin Ley is available to provide keynote speeches and motivational/inspirational presentations at various events to include conferences, seminars, workshops and more.
Erin Ley is also available to provide author visits at:
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School Assemblies
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Hospitals and Places of Business
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Non-Profit Organizations
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Book Stores
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Various Events
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Book Signings
Erin is also happy to participate with the media and interviews. Rates for each speaking engagement differ depending on the venue.
Praise For Erin
SEE WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
The Will to Live shares the personality factors which can make one a survivor. There are qualities within survivors which help them to exceed expectations and become our teachers and guides when we confront adversity. This book is filled with the hard-earned wisdom of a survivor. Erin Ley writes about cancer introducing itself to her and improving her life. I think it introduced Erin to herself and she liked whom she met and fought for her life. She became what I call a respant, a responsible participant, and not a patient, submissive sufferer. She shares the important lessons that one should never give up hope and always pay attention to the mind, heart and spirit, and to the possibilities which exist. I have learned that when mind, body and spirit work together in your life, they truly help you to heal your life and cure your disease.
The Will to Live is full of valuable information about how to cope with a cancer diagnosis and the treatments that follow, but Erin Ley’s courageous, deeply personal account of her own experience as a cancer survivor is what makes this book unique. She tells her story calmly and with unflinching honesty. Erin’s descriptions of her experiences are heartrending, but her unwavering determination to focus on her inner strength and optimism shine through every page. In The Will to Live, Erin speaks from her heart, and I feel that her story will move and inspire cancer patients, their families, and their friends.
Erin Ley’s Maggie’s in the Driver’s Seat is a must-have for those of us with children. These creative and imaginative characters help parents to deliver great messages to our kids. This character-building book for children is priceless.
Erin Ley’s Maggie’s in the Driver’s Seat invites the reader into an exciting adventure, while allowing them to explore character-building traits which are both invaluable and necessary for our children of today. Being a mother of three, I welcome any chance I get to share with my children stories of love, compassion, respect, and generosity. Thank you, Erin Ley, for forwarding this message through your heroine Maggie.
I will never forget my first conversation with Erin Ley! Every single time we talk she brings to me profound perspectives, immense knowledge, sincere compassion, a feeling of security and great joy! I look forward to our talks every single week – Erin has helped me face some of my deepest fears along this journey and she has been a vital part of my healing. She truly understands and I look forward to many long years of working with her through my current healing and continued growth in the future. Erin Ley is an Amazing woman and I sincerely believe the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, love and compassion has been laid upon her and she is a gift to us!
Thank’s so much Erin! You’ve really helped me a lot more in the span of 40 minutes than all the therapy sessions I have had in the previous 11 years of my life and that really means a lot to me!
Erin Ley’s ever-popular Maggie the Magnificent stars in a brilliant character-building book for children. In Maggie Unmasks Planet Pumpkin, Maggie hosts a Halloween costume party and is surprised to discover that some of her guests refuse to take off their masks because they are afraid to show who they really are. Maggie saves the day and her self-conscious guests by turning the party into a celebration of self-esteem, individuality, and courage. I highly recommend this for children of all ages, and look forward to more Maggie the Magnificent books.
“With remarkable courage and humor Erin Ley gives us a roadmap to healing mind and body; from the dreaded cancer diagnosis, through the harrowing medical maze, to the peace of recovery. This book is a ‘must-read’ for anyone facing such a challenge.”
-Kathleen Atkinson, LSW-R, Psychotherapist, Cancer Survivor
“As a young adult with cancer Erin’s world erupted in unexpected ways that tested her ability to transform loss into gain, deepen her will, and transform her life. Our ability to coexist with cancer and its lasting effects are very much influenced by what we do with the disease more than what the disease does to us. As Erin reflects on the lessons she took from cancer she shares what healing really means with her readers.”
Selma Schimmel, CEO, Vital Options International and host of The Group Room® cancer talk radio show
“Erin Ley’s The Will to Live clearly describes how one’s positive approach to disease and life can guide and help heal both physical illness and emotional conflict. It is an inspiring portrayal of how an individual’s will, attitude, spirit and personal strength oftentimes is the difference between success and failure in the treatment of many illnesses. Bravo Erin!”
Kenneth F. Mattucci, M.D., F.A.C.S.
“Erin Ley has transformed a life threatening struggle and created an inspiring, moving and heartfelt journey of growth and wellness. With eloquence and grace of spirit, she has offered a priceless gift of healing.”
Debra Koppelman, Director of Development, Coalition Against Breast Cancer, Inc.
“The Will to Live: The Perks of Cancer through the Eyes of a Survivor is a well-documented and powerfully introspective insight into the mindset a young adult living with, through and beyond cancer. Erin is clearly someone who got busy living when faced with her diagnosis and who serves as yet another one of myriad growing examples of what it means to survive cancer as a member of this oft-forgotten demographic.”
Matthew Zachary, Founder and Executive Director of Stupid Cancer, Inc., Cancer Survivor
“After reading Erin Ley’s The Will to Live, I would recommend it to any of my patients who are facing serious health problems. Erin takes us through her cancer with such clarity and spirit, that it would be an inspiration to anyone facing a dire illness or any potentially devastating situation. This book can give patients the hope and inspiration that we physicians cannot always provide.”
Romeo C. Solon, M.D., Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY
“The Will to Live shares the personality factors which can make one a survivor. There are qualities within survivors which help them to exceed expectations and become our teachers and guides when we confront adversity. This book is filled with the hard-earned wisdom of a survivor. Erin Ley writes about cancer introducing itself to her and improving her life. I think it introduced Erin to herself and she liked whom she met and fought for her life. She became what I call a respant, a responsible participant, and not a patient, submissive sufferer. She shares the important lessons that one should never give up hope and always pay attention to the mind, heart and spirit, and to the possibilities which exist. I have learned that when mind, body and spirit work together in your life, they truly help you to heal your life and cure your disease.”
Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles, and Help Me To Heal
“The Will to Live is full of valuable information about how to cope with a cancer diagnosis and the treatments that follow, but Erin Ley’s courageous, deeply personal account of her own experience as a cancer survivor is what makes this book unique. She tells her story calmly and with unflinching honesty. Erin’s descriptions of her experiences are heartrending, but her unwavering determination to focus on her inner strength and optimism shine through every page. In The Will to Live, Erin speaks from her heart, and I feel that her story will move and inspire cancer patients, their families, and their friends.”
Whoopi Goldberg, distinguished award winning actress and comedian; Radio talk show host—Wake Up With Whoopi, Television show host, The View; and so much more
“Erin Ley’s The Will to Live is a powerful and inspiring read for cancer patients and for those close to them. Individuals experience their own ‘cancers’—tragedies that become defining moments—in their lives, and hopefully go on to become survivors. Erin focuses on living and thriving, not death and hopelessness. What an enthralling, refreshing read!”
Itzhak Haimovic, M.D., F.A.A.N.
“Erin Ley has taken her early experience with life-threatening disease and turned it into a positive story of empowerment. Her journey from illness to a fulfilling career and family is a rewarding narrative.”
Paul Margulies, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.E., Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, Attending Physician, Department of Medicine, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY
“A Will to Live is a motivational journey that will inspire the reader to readdress their own life’s perspectives.”
Robert Herman, M.D., P.C.
“This wonderfully inspiring book belongs in the hands of every family struggling to overcome cancer.”
Lymphoma Foundation of America
“Erin Ley, author of The Will to Live discusses keys to making a positive out of a negative experience. When diagnosed with cancer at age 25, Mrs. Ley’s youth abruptly ended, throwing her into a world of disease, pain and turmoil. What would typically make one feel as if his or her life was on hold catapulted Mrs. Ley’s life into one that is more fulfilling than she would ever have imagined. ‘The experience has caused me to live more deeply and more intensely. It has helped me to become more immersed in the essentials of my life, including my faith in God, to a higher degree than I would have otherwise been. My mantra is “Celebrate life and you’ll have a life worth celebrating,” Mrs. Ley recently told The NEWS. ‘And the sidebar is that it’s all about mind, body and spirit. When they’re in synch, that’s when you’re in the zone.’ Since surviving her bout with cancer, Mrs. Ley has gone on to become a wife, mother of three and an author. Keeping cool helped conquer cancer.”
The Smithtown News
“What a great night we had with Erin at Book Revue! It was such a joy to listen to her remarkable story of success. Most poignant was seeing so many people stand in line to have her sign copies of The Will to Live to give to their own friends and family struggling with cancer. She is truly an inspiration!”
Julianne Wernersbach, Publicist, Book Revue, Huntington, NY
“Author Erin Ley is looking to help others loosen themselves from cancer’s grasp. Through her memoir/self-help book, The Will to Live: The Perks of Cancer Through the Eyes of a Survivor, this cancer survivor, against all odds, went on to become a wife, mother of three, author, and so much more. Erin is looking to inspire and empower others through her words. Once the book has been read cover to cover, the reader can return to any chapter (Perk) of the book again and again, during any particularly difficult time in his or her life, whenever there is a need for a lift, inspiration, and empowerment.”
Smithtown Messenger
“Author of the children’s series, Maggie the Magnificent, Erin Ley has now launched her first book for adults titled, The Will to Live: The Perks of Cancer Through the Eyes of a Survivor. This book documents Erin Ley’s positive approach to her two and a half year encounter with this disease—from the non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis to survival and success. Ley’s book emphasizes the importance of positive results from negative experiences.”
The Garden City News
“On behalf of the entire school Re-Entry team, I would like to thank you for your participation in this year’s Children with Cancer and Blood Disorders Go Back to School Conference. Your passion and energy for advocacy were evident in your heartfelt account of your experience with cancer. We thank you for your support of our program and the patients and families we serve.”
Nicole Gutman, MS, Coordinator, School Re-Entry Program at Stony Brook University Medical Center, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Stony Brook, NY
“I will never forget my first conversation with Erin Ley! Every single time we talk she brings to me profound perspectives, immense knowledge, sincere compassion, a feeling of security and great joy! I look forward to our talks every single week – Erin has helped me face some of my deepest fears along this journey and she has been a vital part of my healing. She truly understands and I look forward to many long years of working with her through my current healing and continued growth in the future. Erin Ley is an Amazing woman and I sincerely believe the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, love and compassion has been laid upon her and she is a gift to us!”
Susan Carpio, Colorado
ABOUT ERIN
Erin Ley is a World-Class Speaker, #1 Bestselling Author and Empowerment & Success Coach. She is Host of the streaming “Life On Track” summit and TV show, inspiring viewers worldwide about making the most of life’s opportunities. For decades, audiences and clients across the globe have enjoyed her warmth and wisdom, inspired by her transformational power. She is the creator of the popular “Life On Track” coaching program.
They call Erin “The Miracle Maker!” As a cancer thriver at age 25, happily unstuck single Mom of 3 at age 47, successful Entrepreneur at age 50, and serial manifester when it matters most, Erin has shown thousands upon thousands across the globe, how to become victorious by being focused, fearless, and excited about life and your future! Ms. Ley is the author of several books, including the popular #1 bestseller “WORKLUV: A Love Story”. Clients are empowered for life-change through her coaching, audio programs, educational videos, and live seminars.
Erin says, “Celebrate life and you’ll have a life worth celebrating!”
To see more about Erin and the release of her 4th book, #1 Bestseller “WORKLUV: A Love Story”, along with her “Life On Track” Course & Coaching Programs, please visit www.ErinLey.com.
ERIN’S STORY
– Why I started personal coaching in the 1990’s –
When I was 25 years old, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer. I went from living carefree for the weekends to living for the next scary, unexperienced moment of my life. I never thought, not for a moment, that when the protocol ended and all was said and done, I’d be thankful for having lived with cancer. I moved on as a survivor of cancer, thriving thereafter. With the pain came a balance of bliss, struggles and triumphs, and the beginning of my “new and improved” life.
In the beginning, like everyone who receives a cancer diagnosis, I was overwhelmed by panicked feelings of terror and thoughts of the Grim Reaper and death. Doctors acquainted me with thoughts I’d never imagined, such as: Okay, if this round of chemo doesn’t work just as fast as the tumor’s growing, I’ll be dead in a month.
When they first said I had cancer, I said “Nooo!”
It was inconceivable. To start with, it was maybe going to be a month of radiation. What? Then, the prognosis changed to six months, and I was distraught, shaking, blank-headed. “WHAT?” There was no calmness in my body at all when I screamed that at the doctors. I was outraged. I was all but destroyed. The doctors and nurses often ended up crying with me. A twenty-five year old girl, facing death. Nobody wanted to face it, and least of all me. I will never forget sitting in the waiting room filling out page, after page, after page of paperwork. My parents, helpless, stunned, sat silently in the cold, plastic, gray chairs on either side of me.
And then. And then! A few weeks later, when they did a biopsy, they discovered that what had been a shadow of a tumor near my heart had turned into an enormous mass of cancer across my chest. It had grown so huge, so fast, that the cancerous mass crushed my windpipe when I lay down; so I couldn’t even breathe unless I was sitting up. When the results were in, it was conclusive. I was facing a two and a half year protocol to treat non-Hodgkins lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare pediatric disease, with chemotherapy and a month of radiation. It was clear that some of the professionals doubted I’d see the outside of a hospital again. I screamed “Are you kidding me??!!” I thought I’d gotten a grip on the idea of six months. I mean, you work really hard and you finally think you’re getting a grip on what you think it’s going to be and then—two and a half years? And keep your fingers crossed? I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.
I still remember the taste of the medicine in my mouth, bitter chemo medicine, that awful taste that always came through even though it was going through the veins in my arms or, when they collapsed due to the toxins being pumped through them, through the metaport in my chest (with a tube up to the vein in my neck).
In retrospect, now, I grip why there was a need for two and a half years as opposed to six months, or even just one. I couldn’t have done, mentally, spiritually, or personally, in six months, what I did in two and a half years.
In my time with cancer, I learned how not to give credence to other people’s image of who they thought I was. I learned that it didn’t matter if other people thought I was going to die, or if they thought I wasn’t strong enough, or if they thought I wasn’t pretty any more. In that time, I got to know who I was, truly, deeply, inside and out. I found the rock bottom depth and clarity of my courage (mentally, physically, and spiritually) and identity which includes beauty. And I developed a much more clear sense of the world and those around me. What an enlightening experience!
In the beginning of my time with cancer, I read so many drama-focused cancer books that fixated on the struggles and the terror of the disease that I really wanted to focus my book on the triumph that came out of the struggles—triumphs I never would have had without having had cancer.
But I had the terror, the gut-wrenching fear too. An example was when the tumor was crushing my chest and, as a result of not being able to breathe lying down, the doctor told me I would have to remain awake while he put the tube down my throat to prepare for the biopsy. I remember clenching the bed convulsively with my hands. “You’re going to what? You’re going to put a tube down my throat and I’m going to feel every second of it?” Why is this happening? I screamed inside to God; and I was crying, “Why are you going to do that?” The doctor broke down and started crying with me as he explained.
I learned gratitude like I’d never known gratitude before. One night at the hospital with a fever and a blood count of zero, after being given a last resort antibiotic also known as “shake and bake” (because first it chills you, deep down, bone-chilling that makes you shake irrepressibly for hours, shake so that your back hurts unbelievably the next day; and then it makes you sweat, sweat buckets of sweat like I’ve never, ever sweat before), I needed to call for the nurse (and I could barely move at that point). I remember finally grasping the nurse’s button on the side of the bed and being so grateful to be able to feel it. It was just a little rubbery stick on a cord, with a clicker, like a pen clicker, at the end. But I got it! I reached down beside the bed, and I triumphed in making my hand grip that little device, and I called for the nurse. The sense of triumph, relief, and gratitude for being alive that I felt in that moment has burned the sensation of that little rubber lifeline clutched in my hand into my mind, and even my heart, forever. It may sound small, but it was such an enormous moment for my spirit.
I learned many wonderful truths about the glory of life during the times when so many doctors seemed to expect me to die. As a survivor, I take nothing for granted, my life has purpose, my identity is clear, and I am stronger than before. My life changed for the better in ways that I could not have ever imagined.
Someone asked me once if it’s like a club, for those of us who’ve lived with cancer. In a way, I guess it is. Only those who have stared death in the face and have either survived or are still struggling with the disease really get what a fellow patient is going through.
I learned about misery. You don’t have to sustain it; in fact, you must not allow misery to rule you if you want to get through a bad experience intact. I learned that I had a choice in how I handled and perceived what was happening to me. To the extent to which I had a choice, I chose to be positive and optimistic. Sure, there were plenty of times when the medical protocol got the best of me. Nevertheless, I tried my best to work through the emotions without repressing them, and get back on track with being positive and optimistic with regard to the final outcome—my cure.
It was interesting to see how each of my family and friends reacted when they found out that I had cancer. Some were concerned about what now seem like trivial matters such as my hair falling out, others were afraid I would not be able to partake in happy hour with a few cocktails, and still others were desperately saddened by what I had to go through regarding my protocol. But they all went out of their way to make sure I was doing all right. Being surrounded by their love and support was such a gift.
I used to believe my hair, auburn, wavy, and halfway down my back, was a significant part of my personality, that how I styled it was a major statement about who I was and how I was feeling. Before losing my hair, I had a particular look that I favored for years—way too many years!
Just as I had refused to change my 80s hairstyle before cancer in 1991, I was reluctant to change much of anything about my life. Cancer and chemotherapy brought change into my life whether I wanted it or not. The funny thing is that before the chemo, I really did need a serious makeover!
My hair fell out five times due to two and a half years of chemotherapy—about every six months. I would just manage to grow it back into a cute, short hairstyle, and then they would give me the Adriamycin again and it would all fall out.
The first time my hair began to fall out, I was in the shower. As I shampooed, clumps of wet red hair wrapped themselves all over my hands and arms, clinging to my face and blinding me with disgust. It was like being covered in bugs. I screamed, cried, and punched walls. It went on falling out for days. Even though I was told what to expect, it was impossible to be prepared.
However, I learned a lot from that first hair-loss experience. It was always traumatic, but I developed a technique. I put on my favorite music, nice and loud, and I pulled the loose hair out and let it fall directly into a paper bag. There was no mess to clean up, and I was the one removing the hair from my scalp. I was in charge of how the process took place. The process no longer had control over me.
One time, when I was in a public restroom, a woman I had never met before said, “I love your hair. Would you mind giving me the name and number of whoever does it?” “You can’t afford this hairdo,” I said, smiling. “I have cancer and I’m going for chemo treatments. This is a wig. My medical bills are ridiculous!” She laughed with me and told me she loved my attitude.
Eventually, I became daring and creative with my hair, and with my life. Now I enjoy trying new approaches. I know I’ll always be me, full of pride and a complete sense of who I am, no matter what I look like, where I am, or what happens to me. My mind, body, and spirit reunited making me whole fundamentally. What a wonderful feeling!
I’ve heard people say that doctors have the power to decide whether we will live or die. How intense! I decided it was up to me, and God, whether I’d live or not. I developed a fierce determination to defy the charted statistics. Courage was something I always knew I had, but never realized to what degree. Once I drew on it, I reached a better understanding of its depth. My own fortitude carried me through the worst of times.
The doctors told me I’d never have children after the chemotherapy/radiation protocol, and would probably go through early menopause. I knew since the early days when my (ex) husband was just my friend that he had always dreamed of having a son, and after I was well (when we were married) I wanted nothing more than to make that dream come true. I prayed to God day and night, asking Him to bless us with a child. Using visualization techniques, I projected the image in my mind’s eye of us having a child. I refused to believe that I could not get pregnant, just like I refused to believe the doctors who said that I would not be cured of cancer. I never gave up on the idea that, one day, we would have children.
Indeed, we do. Three wonderful children prove that the doctors were wrong. I did not die, and I did not lose my ability to become a mother, even a successful career woman.
I want other cancer patients who are in that funk, that dark place, to understand that I was depressed, anxious, and terrified, too. But cancer helped me to stretch and grow. It helped make me the woman I am today, with no regrets having had the experience. I have included enough of the fear and the medical reality of the story for other cancer patients to be able to relate… and then I share the wisdoms I was given during my cancer journey. Even people who have never had experience with cancer have read my book and told me they gained much from the insights I’ve been able to share.
My book offers readers experience, strength and hope, not pop psychology. This book is not just a graphic description of horror and fear as some other cancer survivor books are. I have read those books. I’ve been down that path. This book is for adults & young adults who have encountered the cancer diagnosis and proves that some of the simple spiritual things I did HELPED and WORKED for me. I focused my book on what made it possible for me to get through my encounter with cancer intact. It was written to help reduce depression, diminish anxiety, decrease physical pain, and to get the reader to truly grasp the notion that they too CAN SURVIVE a cancer diagnosis and THRIVE thereafter, no matter what the odds are, no matter what anyone says, no matter what type of cancer it may be. And not just survive and thrive, live on to be stronger than before. I’m LIVING proof it’s possible.
I was in that cold room, prepping for a procedure or surgery, thankful for the slippers they allowed me to wear on my feet. Or, coming to the outrageous realization that having strangers see me undressed was the norm. Feeling like a human pin cushion was second-nature. Nevertheless, regaining my health was paramount, as I’m sure those reading my book understand, or feel the need to understand, as no one else can. Readers have said it is about hope, inspiration, and empowerment! A mindshift! It shows the action of a true marriage between traditional medicine and the holistic approach: how I found my center and watched the cancer get wiped away. I offer a candid look at chemo and radiation, meditation and visualization, and faith and prayer, and how they worked for me.
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