Connect
Member Spotlights feature interviews with fellow Connect members. Learn more about members you’ve connected with and some you haven’t met yet. Nominate a member you think should share the spotlight.
TERESA: What brought you to Mayo Clinic Connect?
@naturegirl5: I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 2019 right after I retired. I know so many people who were diagnosed with serious health problems shortly after their retirement and now here I was “joining the club”. It’s not how I figured my retirement would start but “if you argue with reality you lose”. I found the Gynecological Cancers group when I was looking around on the Mayo Clinic web site and that’s where it all began.
TERESA: What about Mayo Clinic Connect makes you feel comfortable to share openly and motivated to take part in the patient community?
@naturegirl5: Mayo Clinic Connect is carefully moderated and is transparent about this. I quickly learned that every post is read by the moderators and so I felt confident that this site would be a safe place for me. I was still physically and emotionally healing from endometrial cancer, and I wanted and needed a support group. But from where? I didn’t know anyone personally with this type of cancer and here was a safe place with others who had been through what I had been through.
TERESA: What groups do you participate in?
@naturegirl5: My main group is Gynecological Cancers. I had a total hip replacement three years ago so I participate in the Joint Replacements group. I receive the Digest email daily with all the new postings and when I see something related to my experiences, I jump into other groups and discussions.
TERESA: Tell us about a meaningful moment on Mayo Clinic Connect.
@naturegirl5: I was in shock and very frightened when I received my cancer diagnosis. So many moments were spent those first few days with that life altering diagnosis on my mind. There have been Mayo Clinic Connect posters who wrote about their fear after receiving a cancer diagnosis. I can certainly relate to that. Some have been unhappy with the limited options they were offered and weren’t sure what to do. I encouraged one woman to seek out a second opinion and suggested Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida as that campus was closer to her. She continued posting about her cancer journey and ultimately felt cared for and had a good outcome at Mayo Clinic. And now this same poster has jumped in and supported other posters in the Gynecological Cancers group.
TERESA: What energizes you, or how do you find balance in your life?
@naturegirl5: My on screen name, or username, is NatureGirl5. I chose that name because whenever I need balance and energy I go outside. I love to amble in the woods during the summer months and put my hands and feet in the soil in my garden. When I meditate the images I find the most calming are in nature. I imagine digging my toes in the warm sand on a Hawaiian beach while watching and listening to the ocean waves.
TERESA: What food can you simply not resist?
@naturegirl5: Chocolate. What else is there?
TERESA: What do you love about where you live or vacation?
@naturegirl5: I live in an area with lots of outdoor opportunities and I seek out the same on vacations. I often say that I’m not a “city person” and the best vacations are the ones I’ve spent on an oceanside cliff smelling the salt air while looking at birds through my binoculars. I’m very afraid of heights and I once laid myself down on my stomach on a cliff and hung over it just to look at Atlantic Puffins.
TERESA: Puppies or kittens?
@naturegirl5: Oh, both! I could not imagine my life without cats or dogs.
Like
Helpful
Hug
Connect
@audriana I had to go back and read the interview thinking, did I really say that out loud (or on paper) about braving my fear of heights to get that good look at Atlantic Puffins. Yes, I did that! Just when I think my courage is fading this week your note arrived here. Thank you, Shirley, for reminding me about Cancer Courage.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
3 ReactionsAloha Keep cultivating your deep connection with the natural world and the precious living creatures who share it with us. We need you as a champion of the magnificence of the treasures that are life.
Hawai’i is my home and I am grateful to attend to cancer here on the most beautiful place on Earth. Cancer is still scary , even in paradise.
May your reverence for nature embrace, heal and delight.
Aloha pumehana
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
5 ReactionsHi. I was struck by your comment that you can't imagine life without cats and dogs. You see, I have 4 cats, oldest is 15 and the youngest is 2. They make my life worthwhile. What I am worried about is how they will survive without me. They are all rescue cats, abandoned by former neighbors in my condo community. Heh! Community is an over-rated term. When I moved into my place in 1982 it was a fairly tight knit community. But then in the early 2000s (between 2006 and 2010) we had the mortgage fraud crisis which evolved into a housing crisis. People who had bought their condos intending to flip them were no longer able to. Many of them simply cut their costs, stopped paying their mortgage, and moved - leaving their pets behind. (What happened next was a group of investors bought up the foreclosed units, and contracted with the State to house drug rehab "graduates" . So instead of a working class largely Italian neighborhood I now have crack heads and dope fiends living close to me. )
I fed 2 cats outdoors for a year, then I heard the weatherman say that coming weekend the temps were going to drop into the single digits. I went out and carried the cats inside. One apparently was a "trap and release" cat, and the other was a golden fleece Maine Coon Cat.
As these cats became comfortable in their new home I allowed them to come and go thru my kitchen window. They must have told other cats that their Dad was running a soup kitchen for hungry felines. Other cats began jumping thru my kitchen window and begged for food. I adopted the 2 most needy, and now I have 4 cats, that all like to sleep on top of me!
So while I love them and am grateful for their company, I am very concerned that if I die in the next 10 years ( I'm 69 and 2/3 years old) life as they know it will cease. I don't trust many people, and none of my siblings share my love for cats. I am living on $1500 a month, and I'm not sure at this point what my options would be. I could try to find a "no kills" shelter that they could go to after I die but how could I be sure that any particular shelter would still be around when they need one?
Some might say that if my cats' welfare is my only problem that I should consider myself fortunate. The cats that I have now, and the ones that have passed away, are the children that I never had. I need to do right by them.
Nature girl thanks for being brave woman
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 ReactionGod will create another opportunity for ur cats
I noticed your picture there. Horses. Apparently well behaved horses in stalls.
My daily walks include being shook down for treats by this wild bunch.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
4 ReactionsCookie monsters all! Mine pat me down each day during greeting, even though they know they will not get them until they are done for the day.😂
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
4 ReactionsYour love for animals is so heartwarming. Those cats were pretty resourceful in finding you. They likely will find another soft place to land. We have to believe that if we have no plan for our fur children. I have 3 parrots in my house that have outlived their families and have found a place in my home. Also those two well behaved horses in my picture were abandoned horses. I have been rescued by many animals over the years. They usually find me when I need them the most.
@naturegirl5 see what your love of animals started here.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
4 Reactions