I HAD TO

My editor warned me to be prepared to answer the question “why did you write this book?” once I published Fast Forward to Hope. I thought this would be an easy essay for me to pen as I clearly know the answer intrinsically. Expressing it in writing proved harder as I started and stopped doing it more than a few times.

3-28-2021

I am not sure if I am doing the right thing. With my book less than a month away from being published, I get that it’s a little late to question my decision to write a memoir. The challenge is that what I wrote is inherently personal, and there is a profound need to protect those who I love the most from fully realizing my pain. The story itself isn’t morbid; it is, in fact, hopeful. It remains, though, that the struggle from fear to courage was hard-fought.

My book Fast Forward to Hope is about my experiences with cancer. I was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer with extensive bone metastasis in April 2007. Yes, April 2007. Thirteen years, eleven months, and a few days ago, the world as I knew it changed completely. Today, I remain in treatment, and will likely be for the foreseeable future. I am amongst the lucky ones who can still keep fighting, and I intend to keep doing that, even when I am weary.

In writing this book, I haven’t spared the truth about my battle with cancer. More than sharing the experience, I have lived it again although with the wisdom of hindsight. Even though I know how the story ends, writing it made it very real. I persevered because the purpose was to tell the truth authentically.

4-21-2021

As I sit on the precipice of the publication, I reflect on the cycles of emotions that have washed over me the last few weeks. From the doubt that comes from a full-blown case of imposter syndrome to the realization that I have bared my truths in ways I have never spoken about to my closest friends, let alone fully verbalized the emotions to myself.

What have I done? I worry about how much I have shared in the name of telling the truth. How does my truth even matter? I know this is not about ego. I get it’s not even about me. It is my vulnerability without filters.

Something in me says - keep going. Don’t get cold feet now. I feel there is a higher purpose in living from truth and the base of human realities.

Publication week starts on Monday. We will likely publish by Tuesday.

I have to let it go. I will be ready …

4-24-2021

I am at peace. I accept why this book needed to be written. I have done with it what I needed to, what I could, and with what I knew as I wrote. I will now hand it over to the universe for the flow to carry it where it needs to go.

5-02-2021

Gratitude. Deep fulfilling thankfulness. I have been given so much, and I am grateful that I have been able to put it out there. It would be simple to say this is about paying it forward. I wish I can do more.

Even in the very early days in the first year with cancer, I would wrestle with how I could make all the crap I was going through somehow useful. I would constantly say to Dr. Theodoulou and Dr. Smith that I want to “do something.” I know now Fast Forward to Hope is one such offering.

I had to write Fast Forward to Hope. It wasn’t a choice. It was a goal.

Telling the Truth without Fear or Shame

Truth be told, the “crap” can get bad many a time, and in ways we don’t even tell ourselves. And right there is where we lose the fight even before we start fighting.

I have learned to be honest with myself. It took forever, but I am here now. I accept that I am only human and vulnerable to the vagaries of life, but I know that I can be mightier than fear. Fear controls what we can overcome. Fast Forward to Hope is not about winning a round with cancer, it is about standing up for myself. It is about choosing to build the power of self.

The only way I could have written this book was by telling it as it was. I had to speak from the crevices of truth. In doing so, I am able to let go more of the shards of pain, and witness the magnitude of what I have been given. I can now intellectually understand and verbalize what I had previously imbibed spiritually. As I re-lived what I had experienced subconsciously, I learned with consciousness.

I believe that it is in this space of naked honesty that we hear each other. And accept each other.

To Tell my Children the Full Truth to Prepare Them for Life as Much as to Fill in the Blanks in Their Lives

My children were five and three when the pains started, and cancer has been a part of their lives since. When I was diagnosed, they were too little to understand why their existence was upended. Even as I tried to protect them, I knew that I had to bring them along as I went through the diagnosis, chemo, and treatment as much as the doctors’ appointments and scans year after year. Every aspect of these experiences created fear and doubt as much as we hopefully relied on science and faith.

There is so much I want my daughter, son, niece, and nephew to know as they go through their lives and try to connect the dots from their past and deal with their own challenges as they start leading more independent lives. I also know this is not a conversation that is easily had nor fully understood in one go. I knew I had to write it all down. A letter, I thought initially. I then slowly realized that it would take many letters to capture what I have learned from my years of fighting to live my life.

A book, I decided. It has to be a book, I thought. Something they can read when they are ready. While I came to this a while back, it has taken years for me to be able to write this book. When I finally started writing in early July in 2020, the words just came to me.

To Share that Crisis is not the End of The Road, and to Bear Witness to the Reality that You have Some Power Even When You Don’t Have Control

A message that came to the surface as I wrote about the fourteen simple lessons in the book that have become a blueprint for me is that - I can. And that - I am enough.

I would say it’s rare to find a challenge-free life. We all carry burdens and have odds we have to overcome. We get weighed down by life. We get used to being jostled by the challenges. As we struggle and strive through the process, we lose our sense of self. We forget to call on our power.

In Fast Forward to Hope, I share how I reclaimed my power even if was one “Khalsa” cell at a time during the darkest days when I had no control over my body; only will and the choices I could make.

Even when we don’t have power, we have some choices that we can leverage even in the smallest increments.

Take on Establishment

I like a good fight. The fight takes on more meaning as I believe deeply in the cause I am fighting for.

In my day job, I advise people and organizations on how to win fights they need to take on – pursue values and ambitions, build equity and parity, manage risks and rewards, create growth and impact. I prefer to fight strategically and respectfully. I am ready for the next fight, and to bring to it what I know as much as my truth.

The question I raise in Fast Forward to Hope is whether I am worth more being sick or cured to the cancer industry. An incredible amount of money is needed to pay for diagnostics, therapies, treatments, and facilities to tend to a single person. The costs are high for the cancer industry to develop the drugs and deliver the care. How much does the cancer industry lose when I don’t need treatment? What can the cancer industry gain when I am well? Where are the incentives in the industry – in developing a cure or treating the sick? Let’s talk about this.

While I am at it, I have to say that I have received incredible and genuine care from my doctors, nurses, and technicians; and have also been treated in callous ways by some others. How we are treated in this industry as we fight for our lives makes a difference. As a patient-consumer buying services from this industry, I raise the need for a respectful and compassionate customer service approach in working with patients. In fact, I demand it.

To Share All that is Left Unsaid in Crisis Including to Give Gratitude

I am a paradox of being an open person and being very private. I choose to share my personal realities in a book that people I love and people I don’t know will read. Certainly, I want my sangat (my fellowship of family and friends) who walked with me through all of it step-by-step to finally know all that I didn’t say when I put them off. I also try to answer those questions they couldn’t ask but should know the answers directly from me. I want my doctors, nurses, and technicians to know how they bolstered me, and for their staff to understand how much I valued their trying to make me comfortable when I walked in to get test results or treatment. I particularly want those who are mired in it now to know I get it, I hear you, you are not alone, and I have faith in you.

Ultimately, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your worries, your presence, your love, your care, and your prayers. Thank you for the unexpected texts, and the visits from across the world. Thank you especially to those closest to me as well as to the random strangers who showed me great kindness. Thank you for all of it.

I had to write Fast Forward to Hope: Choosing to Build the Power of Self. I had to say thank you.