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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

It Only Takes Two Minutes

A woman named Judy called and left me a message. She said she's the nurse practitioner for Dr. Asrari, the radiation oncologist who I met with at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Asrari just wanted to check in and see how I was feeling she said. I have a thing for Judys, so I called her back, of course. We talked for a few minutes about chemo, how I'm feeling pretty great – all things considered – Neulasta and the nasty flu aches. Judy explained that my body thinks it's fighting off an infection when I get the white-blood-cell skyrocketer, hence the flu-like symptoms. She said that's no good and I should try taking Claritin a day or two before the injection. I need to ask about this tomorrow when I go in for my CDC (complete blood count). If I can alleviate the Neulasta nasties, I'll be good to go. Yippee!

Dr. Asrari holds a special place in my healing heart. When I met with the team of doctors at Johns Hopkins, every single one of them made me feel encouraged, inspired, motivated, and like there wasn't a chance in hell that I won't get well. My shortest visit was with Dr. Asrari, not as in short in stature, although we both are, so it was literally a short visit, but we only met for a few minutes. The last thing she said to me was this, "You are brave woman. I see it in your eyes. You fight. You be okay." (She's Iranian, and beautiful – like every other Iranian woman I've met. What's up with that?) Those words have become my mantra, and I think of them everyday, and sometimes more. Fifteen words and two minutes that might have changed my life, saved my life, simply by giving me strength, confidence, hope, faith. I am certain she knows what she's talking about, and I believe that God asked her to say those words to me, knowing that I needed to hear them at just that moment. It's remarkable the impact you can have on someone in under two minutes. Try it. Say something awesome to someone today. It might be just what they need to hear.

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