Forget-me-not

Been a while since I was here last – the weeks flew by with kids’ activities and not surprisingly, work. I am writing today for a friend, who lost his mother 365 days ago, not a year, not 12 months, but day by day that has taken him to where he is today.

Somewhere inside me, a river seems to flow, inviting a journey into my awareness of how people grief and live again. One of the many stories that beautifully enrich me over the years of working at this regional cancer centre - I remember myself running to the hospital Gift Shop getting her the favourite plant so she would have something with her during her long drive from the hospital back home on the other side of the mountains. I was “with” her for almost three years diligently looking for everything about an experimental drug for her Stage 3 cancer that was deemed for her not to exceed the life expectancy of 4 months. I was “with” her on her plane to England after we found out a team of oncologists would administer the therapy there; I was “with” her when she was informed that her tumours were shrinked significantly because of the new treatment; I was also “with” her when she was told that her cancer was metastasized again, another six months before our last time together. I still keep the card from Sherry, a devastated sister to her, who also worked at the same hospital as a nurse, after she passed away four years ago. Now a project manager for the Provincial Integrated Cancer Survivorship Program, Sherry and I have managed to have our career paths often crossed. Sitting rows apart at a recent survivorship event, we were watching a video by cancer patients and for cancer patients - at a moment of exchanging smiles, both in tears we saw Dawn, her sister.

Forget-me-not

as time goes by

Remember me

not with sadness

or with tears

but with smiles

and laughter

with joy

and anticipation

of the day that

we will meet again

until then...

Forget-me-not

The Limits of Languages

Versatility of cell phones today has in-deliberately extended photography into a daily routine, not a hobby nor an activity when we travel any more. For me, whenever I see a sunrise or sunset, despite colors often rich as a paradise, I would completely lose myself in my picture taking, mostly in white and black, capturing the fleeting moment in a most natural simplicity, merely for fear of losing the future interpretation of self analysis in that instant.

When I am not translating from one language to another, but often enough I do, I find languages turn on all the lights while we welcome the limits and un-limits. Our hearts and minds change from moment to moment, just as the clouds shift in the evening sky as the sun goes down. Who are we to set the languages free, and more importantly, to set our minds free? Conversely I like to play with blending completely different ingredients of "conventional" words and pleasantly, most of them form quite properly in the right context. If I can entertain you with some of them - amazingly stubborn, painfully obvious,  disrespectfully admire, and here is another good one credited to a friend of mine: academic jabber.

Is There a Middle Place?

One of the many books I remember having bought for cancer patients is called the Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. The book cover has the color of my favorite, the crystal blue sky a girl flying free to. This is the memoir of a mother of two, learning to navigate life in the middle place after stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis - the place where you're trying to learn how to be an independent person, but find yourself drawn to where your parents are when problems arise. In the prologue she writes (about her father) "He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime."

The Middle Place, according to Kelly, is the place between childhood and adulthood. My version of the middle place is one between summits and easy hikes when your climb suddenly becomes steeper, or somewhere between being compelling and dull when you try to tell your stories, or anywhere where perceptions of relationships are shifted between "in" and "out", and/or times when your heart is uplifting then life gets another abrupt turn. Then we want to ask ourselves, is there an overlap between the two places, the middle place, where we can comfortably choose not to take a leap, in Kelly's case, she did and chose to grow up. To walk through the tunnel, illusion or not, sometimes is not a choice. We just go.

Is It Wrong to Dream?

We live and breathe words. There are books, or texts or tweets more instantly these days, that make us feel that perhaps we are not completely alone. Reading them through how they were lonely and afraid, but always brave, pushes a window for us to see the world, colors, sounds and textures. We dream what they dreamed.

I received a friend's email this morning. It's from another coast of the country where the ocean meets the sky, where I used to be called Honey by everyone in the town because the sound of my first name didn't rhyme in English. The email goes "If you were closer, I would offer to take the children and you can wander off for a week... There is a book launch  I wish you would come – I’d pay the town crier again -  I would be your chauffeur if you did come", colors of fishing boats, sounds of waves, art and textures in the tapestry that I saw so clearly in those lines of text. "Is it wrong to dream?" a friend asked. "Never. " I texted back.

Technology, Mother, Fails or Succeeds?

Technology failed me, again! The multi-layered, color-coded and sound-enriched alert system I set up sent me something this morning - "I am so sorry you missed Day Out with Thomas Train 16 hours ago!"

Did I tell you, my boy named Victor may as well be addressed "Train" and without a heartbeat he grasps a toy train instead of his mother's attempted hugs.

No, technology didn't fail me, it's parenting that fell into a crack. I would like to think my memory lapse in attentiveness didn't cause my child to hurt, or an emotional need unmet - "He doesn't know it." "I took him there last year when Thomas was in town." Rationalizations and denial then cloak in after self-focused guilt for my humanly limited abilities to care and respond. Before all of them become harder to bear, I sat myself in the sunshine wishing the chanting to plague my mind "Parenting is an ever-evolving work in progress." While I listened to myself empathically, sense of renewal suggested self-understanding of unsystematic parenting coping, and possible growth in more complex alert setting in my Iphone, and Ipad, and my laptop, even willingness to be paper converted.

It's the Mother's Day week. I remember the words of a card I collected long ago.
"How do you learn to be a mom?" asked Pooh.
"You just follow your heart, " answered Kanga.

I guess it won't be that hard for me after all.

Norms and Standards

Almost every child of Chinese immigrants attends a half-day weekend Chinese school and almost every one dislikes it, that's a norm.
My child aged eight has to go and learn the language every Saturday afternoon, that's my standard.

Most health librarians perform systematic searches for systematic reviews, that's a norm.
Undertaking a high quality knowledge synthesis requires a combination of expertise, health librarians being one of them, that's a standard.

Committing to what you promised, whether taking your two-year-old to a weekly gymnastics class, or vowing to be a healer when you graduated from a medical school, a social or legal norm which can produce standards of conduct.

Norm, defined as a standard that is prescriptive rather than a descriptive or explanatory abstraction.

A document that describes requirements to be met, such as to establish an effective quality management system:
French: norme
English: standard

Now, I am confused.

Creative Art Therapies

A 2013 DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects) review concluded that creative art therapies could reduce the symptoms of anxiety, depression and pain for patients with cancer after treatment but less so at follow-up. Not questioning about the review methods or conclusion, but curious about how those randomized controlled trials (RCTs)  compared outcomes of creative art therapies with no treatment, which meant not participating in "art, dance, drama, music, writing, or a combination of these", broadly defined as creative arts. Those 1,576 patients from 27 trials were assessed before, during or after treatment, or both.

Questions then I want to ask:
- What makes an art a therapy?
- What are the significant features of creative art therapies that could possibly make any impact on neurobiological or psychological measures of cancer symptoms?
- How different are these therapies from drug or other types of treatments in improving the symptoms of "anxiety, depression or pain"?

An Art Therapy open house was held just outside the unit I work at yesterday, music and colors making this place less fluid. I see a spring day whenever I am around arts even in the piercing chill Calgary winter, green touches on the glass and flowers in bloom. Everyone says time changes everything, but the butterflies on the ceiling tiles at my front desk here have kept the fragrance of the days when patients painted them, floated away my grey doubts every time I look up. And, how can we measure my psychological outcomes of these?

Start Writing Again

I have been writing for some time. Fascinated by beauties of different languages, I started out when I was in my early twenties translating poetry from my mother tongue to English, a language I am scholarly fluent with, technically competent at and psychologically intimated by. I have always attempted to get my name printed (it just looks prettier to me) since then, mostly in the form of journal articles, blog postings and book reviews. Inspired by a friend who I recently came to know and where I pick up pieces of independence, strength and confidence from, I am starting to write again.

Here is my first one from a work day inside a Cancer Centre. I had the privilege to meet a thirty-five-year-old mother, wife, sister, aunt, fighter and cancer survivor, and her beautiful eight-month-old daughter, sweet and quietly smiling all the time we spoke. Her story of courage, hope and love is interwoven into her wisdom and humor after overcoming her fear and despair. We all in our lives are handed illness at some point, some with miracles and most not, but what can be defined in the end is, whether we searched, we chased, we felt, we dreamed, we fought, and when we fight, we WIN.