The Power of Interdependence

My love letter to Starcom (February 21, 2019)

What I posted on February 21, 2019:

One of the mantras I adopted shortly after I started treatment was related to my decision to keep working:

On my good days, I’ll give more than I take.
On my bad days, I’ll take more than I give.

After an uplifting and positive day at MSK on Monday, there have been a few really tough ones. They started weaning me off steroids, and I’ve been coming down hard, with big hits to my appetite and energy—and the haunting realization that maybe it’s the steroids that had me feeling so good these past few weeks and not just...me.

It’s amazing how quickly the reality of the physical body can pull your uplifted psyche right down to the ground. Ouch.

So, I was not in a good headspace heading into my therapy appointment today.

But as I recounted the past few days, a pattern emerged, and I realize now it's why I felt so strongly about staying in my Starcom role even after diagnosis.

This week, when I said, I’m hitting a wall, I can’t do this, someone said, “Don’t worry. I will.” When I said, I’m exhausted, I need to go, people said, “Go! Go!” When I said I couldn’t eat anything except maybe a smoothie, someone was insistent in the face of my noncommittal and went to get it for me. Someone gave me a bracelet with a saying that touched her and brought tears to my eyes as well. And when I told someone I needed to bitch, she listened—and volunteered to leave her family and travel on my behalf—so that I knew something important would be covered if I couldn’t make it there.

Our CEO has been consistent about the leadership team needing to be interdependent. To really and truly feel that in action is powerful confirmation of why I’ve stayed at Starcom for almost 25 years and why I am there now. Recognizing this today helped me to turn an emotional corner. And I ended the day with renewed energy and a few conversations and exchanges that made me feel that I had given some today.

Maybe not quite as much as I had taken—but moving in the right direction. And that’s good enough for today.

Looking back today:

I can feel the tonal shift of this post—I’ve talked about physical challenges in others, but now I’m exploring how they are impacting me emotionally. My “but-on-the-bright-side” trademark ending is starting to grow a little more subdued. I’m finding my way through, but I’m struggling.

Now that I know there is a real potential path to a cure, I feel safe enough to open my eyes to the reality of what’s happening, and I’m finding myself suddenly crushed by its weight.

If commitment to my job had been a testament to my ego, it also served as an avoidance tactic. At the time, I was rolling out of bed directly into emails at 7am and passing out over email near midnight.

Conveniently, that didn’t leave me time to think about much beyond work—and what I needed to do to ensure that I could physically continue.

I drove my therapist crazy talking about work-related drama: the details changed session to session, but at the heart of every story was how much I was doing that wasn’t enough. I felt guilty I couldn’t do more, indignant that anyone expected me to—and that’s what I wanted to discuss.

In the last ten minutes of our session, I might allow our conversation to be steered back to cancer, where I kept it mainly to discussion of side effect management: how much I was eating and losing, the state of my rash, my prescription for opium.

It continued that way, I now realize, until the chance of a medically realistic survival got me thinking about the possibility of death.

At the time of this post, I blamed steroid weaning for my sinking psyche. In retrospect, I understand to what I was reacting: dawning reality. Being closer to a cure made it feel safer to be vulnerable; and I find that the more vulnerable I allow myself to be, the easier it is for those who love me to support me in the way I truly need to be supported.

“Why are you still working?” is the question I have been asked throughout my treatment.

At the beginning, had I answered honestly, I might have said, “Because working is living.” Because who would I be without work? Work kept me alive. Without it, I feared cancer would consume me.

As the reality of treatment unfolds and work demands increase, the question of why I am working grows more complicated to answer. On this particular day, as I explore the question in therapy—finally fully real and raw for the first time—the answer becomes this love letter to Starcom, and to the people there, who let me be vulnerable and made me feel safe.

In the end, it turned out to be the people, not the work, that kept me alive.

⭐️