Entries Tagged 'Personal News' ↓

By: Suzanne Maiden

None of us know when will die.  Most of us don’t know how we will die.  When someone has a catastrophic disease, this awareness is acutely activated.  I am living on borrowed time.  I am a two-time cancer survivor.  For whatever reason, my body grows deadly tumors.  So far, my oncologist has successfully cut them out; he has been able to do this because the tumors were not attached to any significant needed-to-live organs.  Continue reading →

by: Suzanne Maiden

My body is no longer beautiful.  I am disfigured.  Cancer surgery to remove a fist-sized tumor that attached itself to my lower spine, hip, and back of my stomach muscle - left my body rearranged.  What a humbling, deflating reality.  My right hip is significantly bigger than my left because the surgeon stuffed “live” tissue into the gaping hole the tumor left.  Who knew you just can’t take a big tumor out without replacing it with something else?  The doctor took my right stomach muscle and wrapped if over the hip area.  And, because I don’t have that muscle anymore, the right side of my stomach sticks out more than the left.  

When I wear dresses or skirts, the right hem is always higher than the left side.  I look like I’m constantly standing with my left knee bent and right hip jutting out.  I’m cockeyed.  For someone who loves clothes this really stinks.  Of course, I could pay to have everything altered.  It’s a cruel twist to be robbed of something you’ve kept up and taken care of.  But the oxymoron is it must be exactly what I needed.  Continue reading →

I watched him get out of a new pick-up truck.  He wore a black Harley-Davidson t-shirt and blue jeans with scuffed brown leather boots with rounded toes.  His slicked-backed silver hair matched the several ounces of sterling jewelry that adorned his beefy frame.  His face, from what I could see of it, under the gray sunglasses, looked younger than his hair suggested.  He walked towards me, unsmiling.  I was fighting to lift a filled cooler of ice and beer into the back of my Jeep Wrangler.  I purchased cold drinks for my brother and his fiance who were in the middle of do-it-yourself-move into their new home.  The thermometer read 90 and the humidity made my curly hair exponentially expand.  It was a typical Georgia summer day.  Warm sweat trickled down my spine.  Maybe my all white athletic shorts and fitted t-shirt wasn’t the best choice - I felt like a wilted flower.  He walked closer.  

Continue reading →

I’ve been MIA the last two months - I had a cancer recurrence, surgery, then off to a healing retreat in Eagle Nest, NM for a week.  I just returned several days ago and have been catching up with my clients.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I recieved multiple emails and voice mails - which really inspire me to keep going!  I prefer voice mails because it makes the show more interesting, but emails are great too.Listen and leave me a voice mail!

*Talk To Me!  Call me: 678-884-0524, or Listen by cell phone: 1-801-823-1125 

Email me:  Zanny@DearZanny.com.  Do you need relationship advice?  Call Zanny. Let’s talk!  Help make this show more interesting by leaving a voice mail.  

*Disclaimer:  Dear Zanny is for entertainment purposes only.  Any advice suggestions are never intented to substitute proffessional help.  For legal reasons, I will not answer e-mails directly but will use them on a future show so listen and subscribe to have DZ automagically delivered to you.

 

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This recent episode of surgery to remove a possible cancer recurrence makes me examine my life and where my time and energy goes.  I have my own bucket list of things I want to accomplish before I kick it.  Although I had cancer 8 years ago, the enthusiasm for “living every day as if it’s your last” well, doesn’t last - at least for me.  I did well for a while and completed several things.  I finished graduate school, my writings were published several times, and I delved deeper into my spirituality. 

Now it’s time to create a new list.  I want to learn to play classical piano, and maybe even guitar - I have a gift for music, and haven’t taken all that seriously, but I’m ready.  I want to fly again.  I learned how to fly in the high dessert of CA and reached solo status.  I quit when money ran out, and later my brother was killed in a plane crash… but living close to a community airport and seeing and hearing the small planes, either Cessna’s, or a Piper Cub, and especially open cockpit bi-planes with their big radial engines makes my heart race.  I don’t desire to learn aerobatics like before, now I just want to buzz the neighbors… : )

Thanks for sharing this journey with me.  I’d enjoy hearing what’s on your bucket list!  Please email me, or call:  678-884-0524.  Namste~

So many listeners have offered up lovely words of encouragement .  Your messages are routed to my personal email and when I read them, my heart skips a little at your tender expressions of support.  My upcoming surgery and possible cancer recurrence bring paradoxical feelings.  That is, part of me wants to go inward and carry my private thoughts.  Yet this other part of me must write.  The only way I can overcome my tendency for privacy is to imagine that I’m writing to a trusted friend.  Otherwise my vulnerable, critical self will hit the delete button. 

As a Jungian Therapist, I recognize that my need to write validates C.G. Jung’s “witness” theory.  We need another/s to witness our journey…  that’s why therapy is so healing.  Even if it’s just one person, holding the sacred space and bearing witness to our suffering without judgement promotes healing at the very depth of our psyche.  Right now I must write.  It’s as if some enormous internal energy needs a voice.  So fasten your seat-belts because I am about to disclose my most personal and intimate feelings of being a cancer patient… Continue reading →

Muhammad Ali was with me during a challenging time in my life.  He hung out in my hospital room after I had cancer surgery.  Nope, I was not hallucinating from the drugs.  He visited me daily and told me jokes.  My multiple layers of 150 staples and sutchers holding my 13″ incision together made laughing painful.  But, between the morphine and Muhammad I did.  Muhammad’s grace and charisma transcend his Parkinsonian symptoms.   Muhammad and I were the only two patients on the floor.  When I was finally forced to get out of bed and walk down the hall, I prayed my bare bottom was not in full bloom!  He never mentioned it… 

Muhammad’s visits encouraged and inspired me.  His strength gave me strength.  Between his trembling hands and shuffled gate I felt such compassion for his physical state.  But, the oxymoron to his diminishing physical health was his eyes.  Oh, his eyes were dark, intimidating pools of power.  Muhammad’s eyes held such intelligence and strength that I felt very, very vulnerable on many levels.  His eyes seared right into mine without hesitation or apology.  He missed nothing.  This man could quickly size up his opponent and act without fear.  Yet, there he stood, next to my bed telling me jokes.  I wish I could remember them.  His delightful humor made me forget my sense of feeling emotional naked.  We easily laughed with each other.  Continue reading →

I’m engaged in some self-care and taking a mental health break.  Robin and I flew to Aruba this week for some R&R.  We’re staying at the luxurious  Occidental Grand Aruba.  The warm weather is a welcome respite to the cold rain we left behind.  The balmy breeze continuously whispers in my ears while the Caribbean waters beckon me daily.  I love the primal beauty of the tropics - the iguanas, palm trees, and grandfather ocean.  I just checked my emails and noticed some new comments.  I thank you, my listeners, for taking your time and energy to respond.  How great that you feel so impassioned about a topic to reply!  Continue reading →

I will be arriving in Ontario, Ca. on Friday. If you would like to get together, please email me at zanny@dearzanny.com

I am going! I hope to see you there.