Attitude of Gratitude - Tzipi Caton

So, my story begins um actually this is like the most perfect perfect timing because it begins actually now 12 years ago. Um and just to start off, just to lead in, I'm going to give you a little bit of a mushul. There was once a pretzel vendor. You know the guy in the city who has this cart on a street corner and in the cold winter days like today, you see the steam coming off his cart and he sells pretzels. So he's been doing this for years. This is his job. This is his livelihood. And one day out of the blue, this man, a stranger, walks over to his cart and asks him, "Excuse me, sir, how much is a pretzel?" And he says, "It's 25 cents." So the man takes out the quarter, plunks it down on the table, and then walks away. And the vendor says, "Wait a second, you forgot your pretzel." And the guy doesn't even turn around. He's like, "Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second, you forgot your pretzel." And the guy doesn't even flinch, doesn't even look back, pretends not even to notice him. So he wants to run like away from his cart to run after the guy, but he can't. He's stuck. He's like, "But you forgot your pretzel." And the man never turns around and he says, "That is the strangest thing." And he comes home and he tells his wife about it. "The strangest thing happened today. This guy paid me and didn't even take his pretzel." And then guess what? The next day it happened again. The same guy comes over to his cart and says, "Hi, how much is a pretzel?" And he says "It's 25 cents." And the man puts down 25 cents and walks away. And he's like, "You forgot your pretzel again." And he's like just doesn't even turn around, doesn't doesn't even acknowledge him. And the thing starts happening every single day. Every day this guy walks out after after a certain amount of time, after a week two, a month, I don't know, he stops asking. He just comes over, takes out the 25 cents, puts it on the table, and walks away. And after a while, the pretzel vendor just accepted this guy is a nut case, you know, I'm not going to run after him, I'm not going to give him the pretzel, whatever, I'm used to it. And he starts just taking it for granted and every morning the guy walks over to him, good morning, gives him the 25 cents, and walks away. This goes on for a couple of years. Let's say 16 years. And after 16 years one day the guy walks over, hands down the 25 cents, and the vendor, after not having said anything for years, says, "Wait, wait, hold on, hold on." And again, we know the man is not even turning around at this point and he just keeps walking and this time the pretzel vendor leaves his cart, chases him down the street, runs after him block after block until finally he grabs onto the back of his coat and he says, "Wait, hold on." And the man finally turns around and he says, "Haven't you gotten the point? I don't need your pretzel. It's fine like like that's like why why are you chasing me now?" He says, "That's not why I'm here. I came to tell you the price went up. It's 35 cents." Okay, and I know this sounds really really funny except it's not cuz this is this this is what happened to me. For 16 years I had the most wonderful life. It was given to me on a silver platter for free. Hashem walked over to me, not walked over, just smiled down upon me every single day and said, "Here, have a blessed day." And I just took it for granted. I just was a regular kid, you know, I I did what all kids do. I had a wonderful regular life. Um and like all kids, I I complained a lot, you know, cuz cuz having a regular wonderful life means you kind of take it for granted, you don't even realize how regular and wonderful it is. And then, you know, things happen, you go to school and you have a hard day and the teacher yells at you or you forgot your homework or you had too much homework or there was politics and some kid says something something horrible to you and you come home and you're like, "Ma, you don't even know what happened today." And you're like this and and so that's the kind of kid I was. Um just normal everyday regular teenager. Think about your daughters, think about your friends, think about who you were as a as a as a high school kid and and that's really who I was. Um and I and I really like I really did take it for granted. I really was the pretzel vendor. I really looking back just just took took a lot, took took whatever was given to me and and forgot that I wasn't really giving anything back, that whatever Hashem was given to giving to me, it wasn't cuz I deserved it, it wasn't cuz I was giving him wasn't even exchange, it was cuz Hashem loved me. He was giving me a gift and I and I just didn't notice that. In fact, so I have this friend, her name is Mary and we had a game um we used to play. She didn't go to my school. She was a really close friend of mine, but we we knew each other from camp, so we we hadn't been we weren't in the same school, but we spoke to each other every single night and we had a game. It was called the kvetch game and this is how we played. There were two rules. Um one, you couldn't repeat a kvetch that you had said before or someone had said. So if she said, "My mother was mean," I couldn't say, "My mother was mean." Um and then the second rule is you have to keep it going and if you if you didn't, you were out. So we used to play the kvetch game every single night telling each other about our days and it would go like this, like, "You know, my brother woke me up at some ungodly hour, great. Well, I had to go to detention today." She's like, "Oh yeah, well I had to go to detention all week." And I'm like, "Well, I missed detention today, so I have to sit it tomorrow." And then, you know, and then she would be like, "Yeah, well well, you know um um I'm I have detention for the next month." And I'll be like, "Yeah, well I got kicked out of detention, so I have like double detentions for the next month." And we were going on and on and on about this and we we we were were were able to play this probably on average every night for about 3 hours. We were really good at the game. Um and and that was really my life. Um but but I didn't even get to tell you that there was a lot of good in my life, too. Um I was in a great school. I really really loved my school. I had friends. I was popular. Um I was the kind of kid who we had like 130 girls in my grade and I knew all their names cuz I just really liked people. I liked being around them. Um I didn't try too hard at school um cuz I didn't want to, but I didn't need to. So I was just lucky that way. I really had one of those all round regular good lives. Until one day two weeks after Sukkot um we were, you know, just getting back into schedule, back on our regular routine. And it really like for for you're in high school or if you're in any type of school, that's when your year starts. I mean anyone, right? In the Jewish world, right? Summer everyone comes home and then you're like that mad rush before school starts and then you have like like a month of Yom Tov and then finally after Sukkot, that's when you have that long stretch and you're like, "Okay, this is winter. This is schedule. This is when the kids go to bed on time." And that's when the year is starting. And I remember it was first period. We had just finished math and yeah, cuz we didn't have like Hebrew or English parts to our day. So it was like you can have math and then parsha and then English and then Yahadus. So we had finished math and I bent down under my desk to get my sitter and my neck hurt. So the first thing you do when something hurts you is you you reach up and touch it. So so I did. It was right here. And I I touched my neck and it was it was odd. It it didn't feel it didn't feel okay. It felt hard like there was something there. Now stop for a second and touch your neck. Really, I'm serious. Touch your neck because I get calls from doctors who say, "You know how many teenage kids walking in because they read your book and they think there's something wrong with them." So seriously, touch your neck right now and if you have any questions, you know, I'll feel your neck and I'll tell you. You know, your neck is supposed to be bumpy. It's okay. There there are lumps there. There are glands there. You know, there's stuff. There's a thyroid, there's your voice box. There's stuff going on there. It's supposed to feel bumpy, but when you when you kind of stick your fingers into your neck, you can feel it give way. Whatever bumps you have going on there, they move and and you can, you know, you can press them. What I felt was right over here. It was like between my neck and my shoulder and it was quite large and it didn't move and it didn't press. Like if I was pressing on it, it felt like I was pressing on a piece of wood. And I said, "That's odd." And it was quite large. Like it was large enough that I thought, "How did I get dressed this morning and not see that in the mirror?" And so I started touching all around my neck and then the strangest thing, I felt one here and I felt two here actually, there were two. And then I felt one more over here and I said, "I must be imagining things. This is so weird. You don't just all of a sudden have bumps in your neck." So I I tapped the girl in front of me, her name was Miriam um and I said, "Miriam your mother's a nurse, right?" And she said, "Yeah." Um I said, "Great. Do you mind touching my neck?" And she says, "No, I'm not touching your neck, ew." I said, "No, but your mother's a nurse and and I need help. I think something's wrong with me. Can you can you please touch my neck and tell me if there's something going on?" And she's like, "Girl, I am not touching your neck." I said, "Please just touch my neck." So she sticks out this finger and she's like and then she pokes my neck and she's like, "Ah, there's something in your neck." And then she's like, "Everyone touch her neck, there's something there." So now we had 30 girls like, "Really? Can I touch it? Can I touch it?" And then we and the teacher WAS LIKE, "GIRLS, QUIET DOWN." AND SO THAT HAPPENED and then everyone starts crying and fine. And then we all finished davening and after class, so Miriam comes over to me and she says, "So are you going to call your mother?" I said, "No, why should I call my mother?" She says, "You have a bump in your neck." I said, "Yeah, we established that, so." So she says, "So my mother's a nurse." I said, "Oh really, now your mother's a nurse, now you're good with it." She's like, "Yeah, my mother's a nurse and if you have a bump in your neck, I think you should call somebody." I said, "Really, my mother's not a nurse. She doesn't know what to do with a bump in the neck. I think it's fine." She's like, "No, I think you should call your mother." So I said, "Okay." So I I go downstairs cuz in those days nobody had cell phones and there was a payphone in my school and I would have gone to the to the prin- to the office, but they wouldn't have allowed me to call my mother cuz they knew me too well. Like I I I was in that office a lot. So um I went down to the payphone and it's funny cuz cuz I've been back in that school actually teaching the school sometimes and the payphone is still there. It doesn't even work. The girls don't even know how to use it. They're like, "What is that thing? How do you use that thing?" And I'm like, "I used that phone. That one." So, um I I dialed my parents, and my parents, this is the way they are. So, they see the school's um number come up on the caller ID, and uh my mother picks up, and she she doesn't even ask who it is. She's like, "You're not going home." And I said, "Hello." And she says, "You're not going home." I said, "You don't even know what I want." She says, "Who is this?" Cuz I had another sister at school. I tell her, "No, it's me. It's Zippy." She's like, "No, Zippy, you're not going home." I said, "Do you want to hear me out? Do you want to hear what you need?" She's like, "Okay, what's going on?" I'm like, "Mommy, I need to go home." And she's like, "Why?" I said, "Cuz I have a bump in my neck." And she says, "No, you don't." I said, "No, no, Mommy, yes, I do. Um 30 girls established that." She's like, "No, you don't have a bump in your neck." I said, "Mommy, I had the same neck for 16 years. I think I would know if there was a bump in it." And she says, "What do you want me to do about it?" I said, "I don't know. Can I go home?" And she says, um "You know what? Dr. Rosenberg is his office is around the corner from your school. If I if I let you go out of school early, you're going to have to go to Dr. Rosenberg." And I was like, "Myself? You know, what if he gives me a shot?" I was really mature. So, uh um So, I um I so So, I I said, "You know what? Okay. I'll I'll do it." And she's like, "Wow, you really were serious." Like, she thought I was calling cuz I had chemistry next, but you know, I really I was calling cuz I did have this bump. So, I left the school, and I come over to the doctor, and he he sees me, and he's like, "Let me guess, you have chemistry." And I'm like, "Yeah." And I was like, "No, but really, I'm here uh because I have a bump in my neck." He's like, "No, no, it's it's a good one, but I'll just write you a note." I'm like, "No, no, seriously, Dr. Rosenberg, I have a bump in my neck." He totally didn't believe me cuz he has seen me so often when I had math, chemistry, homework, you know. So, I was like, "No, no, seriously, I have a bump in my neck." He's like, "If you say so." And so, he starts writing me a note. I'm like, "No, I I have a bump in my neck." And he's like, "What do you want me to do about it?" I'm like, "You're my doctor. Can you look at it?" He's like, "Oh, you're serious." I said, "Yeah, I'm serious." So, he So, he checks me out, and he says, "Oh, yeah, there is a bump in your neck. All right, um go home, and uh I'll call your mother." So, um I'm really happy cuz my day just ended so nicely. I got to go home early. And um I totally forgot about the bumps in my neck cuz they're just a bump in my neck, right? But, when he called It didn't hurt. No, it didn't hurt. It hurt at the time when I like bent down, and there was like a twinge. I felt something. And so, I touched it, but it didn't actually hurt. Um But, my my joy was was a little bit short-lived because Dr. Rosenberg called my mother, and suggested that we go to an ENT. So, we went to an ENT, which was like another joy, another missed day of school. Amazing. So, we went to that ENT, and the ENT checked me out, and then she suggested that we go get some blood tests, which was not such a joy. And then after the blood test, we were suggested to go to a CAT scan, which was also, you know, half day of school. Amazing. And we were kind of being pushed around from one doctor to the other until one doctor we ended up with was a hematologist. Um a hematologist is a doctor that looks into blood disorders, and I missed another day of school to go to him. And he he does all my scans, he looks at my bloods, he he checks everything out, and he says, "All right." So, he comes in with his intern, and they're both like all serious-looking, and this intern probably today is younger than I am, right? Cuz like he was still in college, and he's training to become a doctor, and he's looking like all nervous. And they tell me the doctor tells me, "Okay, so I have some news." And I said, "Okay." And he says, "You have something called Hodgkin's." And I said, "Okay." He says, "Do you know what Hodgkin's is?" I said, "No." He says, "Um Hodgkin's is a type of lymphoma." And I said, "Okay." He says, "Do you know what lymphoma is?" I said, "No, not really." So, he says he's like pacing by now. He's like, "Lymphoma is a type of cancer." And I said, "Okay." And he says, "Do you know what cancer is?" I said, "Yeah, I'm not stupid." And And my mother like burst into tears, you know, she was like And I I was just like, um "Yeah, okay, fine, great. No pro- no problem." So, So, the intern, I remember this very vividly. So, he looks at me, he must have been like really new at this. So, he tells me, "The doctor just told you that you have like a terminal illness, um and you look like school was canceled." I said, "Well, well, it was, right?" And he thought I was nuts. He told the doctor, "You think something's wrong in her neck, you should check out her head." So, you know, of course, I was probably in shock at the time, and um later that night, later that night, it was a very exhausting day, I remember, cuz it was just a day like the minute he gave me a diagnosis, I he I we needed to schedule another surgery, and and immediately like, um you know, just tons and tons of he he gave me um Well, he didn't actually give me a diagnosis. It wasn't he just thought it was that. He didn't know for sure. And he set scheduled me for like another surgery, uh a biopsy to just cut open uh my neck and and take a little piece out of it so they can test it, and um So, from him, we had to run and schedule the surgery. Then like I remember by the time we got home, it was like 9:30, and I was exhausted. And and I remember like just breaking down at one point and crying and saying like, "I I don't know what's going to happen to me." And and like being overwhelmed, but then you know, for the next 2 days, I didn't say anything because it wasn't a an official diagnosis. He says, "This is what I think you have, but it's not like 100% um you know, for sure till we get the the biopsy." So, I went back to school, I remember, didn't say anything, left again one day to have my biopsy, and then we were supposed to get the results on a Monday. Um I had my biopsy on Friday, and I was supposed to get like my preliminary results. The results were supposed to be on Wednesday, but by Monday, they should have known something. So, Monday, I come to school like a regular day. I'll never forget this. This was awesome. So, we had computers, and um I'm in the computer room. Oh, no, so before computers, it was like recess time or lunchtime. I called my mother, and I asked her, "So, did we get the results yet?" And she says, "Yeah, we got the results, and it's um it's confirmed, you know, that's what you have, and we're going to be starting She's like, "It's not even preliminary. It was so they saw it so clearly, you're going to be starting chemotherapy on Wednesday." I was like, "Oh, okay." So, then I went to computers, and um I'm sitting in class, and I'm like typing and doing my thing. And so, Miriam, that Miriam, so she was sitting next to me during computers. So, she she comes over to she like like where she's like, "Whatever happened with that bump in your neck? Um did you ever like do anything about it?" I said, "Yeah, actually, it's so funny that you ask. So, So, I have cancer." And she was like, cuz she was in the middle of class, she couldn't do anything. She was like, like a silent scream. And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, it's okay. Don't worry." And And we just continued typing. So, then after after that lesson, um you know, I come down from the computer room all the way to my classroom, and I hear screams. There's like screaming and crying in the hallway, and people are like sobbing on the floor. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness, what happened?" And this girl is like she's on the floor. She's seriously, she's sitting on the floor. She's like leaning against the wall, and she's like, And I'm like, "What happened?" She says, "This girl in our grade, she has a brain tumor." And I'm like, "That's terrible." Like like I'm I'm going through my thing, but like to me, it's like it's a blood disorder. Like there's a brain tumor, that's terrible. I'm like, "Who?" She's like, And like that was it. I was like, called my mother. I'm like, "Mommy, I am done. I am coming home." So, yeah. So, that So, so yeah, so So, my life kind of like turned over from one minute to the next. And and um and I started chemo. And and I don't really think I need to tell you what chemo is like. It's it's pretty awful. Um You know, unfortunately today, everybody knows somebody who's been through something like this. Chemotherapy is is it doesn't need to be explained. Um but what people don't know is that there's a lot more to being sick than just the nausea and the hair loss. Um the nausea was fairly awful itself, but then people don't even tell you that the times when you're not nauseous, I had no appetite. I remember like walking into the kitchen saying, you know, "I haven't eaten for like 3 days, and I don't feel hungry." And people would just come over and buy me ice cream and milkshakes, and I'd be like, "I don't even want that." It It was like It was such an odd feeling. I did not feel hungry. It was like either I was nauseous or I just didn't even want to eat. Then people tell you about the hair loss. And I I kind of knew that. Like right at the beginning, I knew I was going to lose my hair. Um I think that was I was the most prepared for it, which is funny because as a kid, I used to read the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. They're still around, right? You know them? So, so there used to be stories um that I would read about kids who had alopecia, and they would like lose their hair suddenly. And I remember thinking like, "That is my nightmare. That is my nightmare. Imagine having to go having to go to school without hair." And then like all of a sudden, I hear I have cancer. I'm like, "Well, that just That's like a dream come true." So, like that was the one of the first things that I dealt with knowing that I'm going to lose my hair. So, I went out, and I got a sheitel, and I and I and I did all my preparations, and you know, it's one thing to get a sheitel when you're when you're married, and you're or or you're engaged, and you're like, "I'm so excited." And I'm like, "It's so pretty, and it matches my hair color, and I love the texture, and the cut, and the whatever." It's another thing when I I'm not getting married. I have my hair. I have beautiful hair. And you put on a wig, and you look like you're wearing a wig. I mean, we have beautiful, beautiful wigs. I you know, you've seen women with these like $3,000 wigs, and they look amazing. But, it's still a wig. And I was 16, and I didn't want to wear a wig. And I remember being there at the sheitelmacher, and just looking at myself in the mirror, and really not looking like myself. And And then when my hair started falling out, you know, for for for a girl, especially a teenage girl, hair is everything. You know, I remember coming home from school and jumping into the shower like at 5:00 p.m. so that my hair would be dry enough at 6:00 p.m. so that I can start blowing it or ironing it or styling it. And heaven forbid that I woke up in the morning and it was raining because like I I'm not going to school if it's raining. Cuz if it's raining, and I come to school, and my hair is frizzy, then like 2 hours of work just went down the drain. There's so much time devoted to our hair when we're, you know, teenagers, you know, grown-ups. We spend time on it. It's our beauty. It's what It's We take pride in it. And losing it was heart- like heartbreaking. Um and, you know, I I just kind of knew, okay, fine, I'm going to have hair and then I'm going to be bald. No one prepared me for what it would be like to actually lose it. And it didn't just happen overnight. So, I was in the hospital um after my first round of chemo and I was feeling really bad. Um mostly because I needed a blood transfusion, which no one prepared me for, either. Like just watching someone else's blood just go into me, it's like ew. I remember crying about it the first time. I was like, I don't want someone else's blood. That's horrible. And I just felt so bad and I was just crying and crying and crying. And then they gave me the blood. They kind of forced, you know, I didn't have a choice. They They forced me to have the blood. And then I felt amazing after I had the blood. It was like, wow, I felt like a new person. So, from then on I started asking for blood. Like every time I felt sick, I was like, CAN I HAVE BLOOD SO, I BECAME like a little vampire. I used to come in and BE LIKE, BLOOD, YES. YOU KNOW, BUT I REMEMBER THAT TIME BEFORE I HAD my first ever transfusion. I was feeling miserable cuz my hemoglobin levels were so low and I was just so sad. And I And they told me that I had to stay in the um hospital over Shabbos, which was, to me, it was like devastating cuz I had been there all week and I just wanted to go home. And um I remember the doctor I It wasn't my doctor. It was just the doctor on call and she told me And I was like moping. I was like curled up in a chair or something and I was crying and she told me, "You don't have to cry. You don't have to be upset. Um you know, cuz cuz there there are perks to having cancer." I was like, "Really? Name them." So, she's like, you know, Make-A-Wish Foundation. So, they're going to come and they're going to ask you what you want. Like, do you want a trip to Disney World or something? Like, they're going to give you something amazing. Whatever you ask for, they're going to make your dream come true. I'm like, "I want an Uzi." And she's like, "A what?" I said, "A rifle." So, she says, "Um why?" So, she says I said, "Well, cuz if I had an Uzi, you wouldn't make me stay here over Shabbos." So, she tells me, "Yeah, I don't think that they're going to give a 16-year-old with your attitude an Uzi." I said, "You know what? It's fine. If I were in charge, I wouldn't have given someone with your bedside manner a license to practice medicine. And we were like even, you know. So, but yes, I got this though. I had to stay. So, I remember like taking a shower and coming out of the shower and trying to pull my hair back into a ponytail and it wouldn't go. You know, when you pull your hair back and it kind of like there's a resistance, it lays flat cuz you're pulling on something? It didn't. It was like not laying flat and and strands were just coming coming away in my hand. And every time I brushed, it was like big clumps. They were still here on my head. It wasn't like all of a sudden I woke up bald, but it was like if I if I pulled this, it just came out. Um and I remember like just experimenting with it. First I cried. I cried my heart out. I was like, that's horrible. And I don't want to lose my hair. I think that was like probably the first time I just really broke down crying. Um you know, cuz in the beginning it's it was very disorienting going through that process. Like things happen so fast, things move so fast. And you don't even know what you're doing. You're being pushed from doctor to doctor and scan to scan to therapy and chemo and you're like you don't even know what's happening. And like that's when it hit me, when my hair started coming out. And I remember um coming home around like after Shabbos, maybe Sunday. Um and I I have a 3-year-old I had a 3-year-old sister at the time. She's She's old enough to be babysitting for me right now, but at the time she was three. And I I went over to her like this and I said, "Um here, hold this for a second." So, she held onto it and then I walked away. And she was like, "Can you do it again?" So, we did it like, you know, 10 times and and we had fun with that for a day. And after a day, it was pretty disgusting. Like, you know, the hair was just coming out and I said, "You know what? Let's have fun." So, my mother went out. I think she went to the grocery and while she was gone, I took a shaver and I gave it to my brothers and I said, "You know how you always hated when like we cut your hair cuz you had an upsherin and we made you pay us and I was always like the big sister going I was like, "Why don't you do it to me?" And they were like, "Yes!" So, we had an upsherin and my mother came home and I think she had this like moment of shock. And then she was like, "Okay, let's make like cupcakes and challah cuz like we're having an upsherin." So, my family was like amazing during this time. We just decided that we're totally going to own this. And I really did. Cuz right from the beginning when I got sick and people had this reaction towards me, if you remember, they were screaming in the hallways. And I I felt like, "Wait. Wait. Like, I'm still myself. I'm going through something and it's very difficult, but I'm still the girl that sat next to you in class. I'm still the person that went on the Shabbos home with you and I'm still the person who tutored you in uh science last week." And all of a sudden I was like um getting people going over to me like, "HI, HOW ARE YOU?" AND I'M LIKE, "I have cancer. I'm not deaf, you know." Or like, you know, they were treating me very very differently. Um Just to give you an example, in the 2 weeks from when I found my bumps to when I was finally diagnosed. It took 2 weeks of tests and scans cuz nobody wants to say cancer first. First they they they test you for everything else. Cancer's like the last thing they take you to. So, it took 2 weeks to get that that um diagnosis. In the 2 weeks that I had been in and out of school, like missing half days here, early leading early there, um nobody called. 30 girls in the class and nobody called me to ask me what was going on, what was happening in my life. Um it was fine, you know. They're busy and and I was busy and I didn't really need to share all that with everybody. But the day that my diagnosis happened, I got 40 calls in one night. It was like the point where we just took the phone off the hook cuz we just couldn't deal with it. And I remember thinking like, what What changed? What changed? Yesterday you didn't call me, but now that I have a diagnosis, like everyone was treating me differently. Now they wanted to talk to me. Now they wanted to call me. Girls I didn't even know. Girls I like I never spoke to two words before. Now they wanted to be my best friends. And I was like, no, no. I am going to own this. No one is going to tell me how to be sick and no one's going to get away with treating me differently. I am still myself and I'm just going to show everybody. So, I decided to um really like take charge of my situation and that's what I did. Like when my hair started falling out, I'm like, okay, my hair has to fall out, so be it. I'm going to take charge of this and we're going to do it my way. And we took a shaver and we shaved off my head. I took pictures of everything. Um because when I was first diagnosed, there was no one to talk to. 12 years ago, no one said the word cancer and I I didn't have any information. Nobody was there to tell me what I was about to go through. So, um I did have one friend. Um she actually davened in my shul and she had the exact same cancer as me, but a year earlier. So, I I asked her, um do you have Her parents She and her parents came to visit us to like give us chizuk and tell us like, you know, it's going to be okay. She They showed her like she was healthy and she was fine and she was beautiful just to give us like a little bit of an idea that it's going to be fine. And I remember asking her, "Do you have any pictures of that time so that I can see like what it would look like, what I'm going to look like?" And her father and her mother look at each other and they say, "So, those are 6 months that we erased from her life. We didn't take any pictures of her in those 6 months." And I was like, "Wait. Like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not invisible. I'm not going to pretend this didn't happen to me." So, like we made a decision. My mother likes to scrapbook. So, she was like everywhere with her camera. Like, I fainted, snap. You know, she knew like the nurses are going to do something she can do. The nurses are going to take care of me. So, she was snapping pictures. Every single pill bottle I had, she like lined them up all on the counter and she took pictures. Um we took pictures of of like everything. The needles that she had to give me, all the presents I got, um my hospital mask. I'm going through my album like like page by page. All my doctors, every single nurse, every single doctor. She took pictures of everything. And I kept a journal. Because when I asked this girl to tell me details, she's like, "I don't I don't know. Like Like I'm back in school and I I don't remember exactly which medications I took or like how I felt." Like, it was a while back for her. And I said, "How do you not know? This is major. This is like life-changing." And she says, "Because life goes on and and you forget." And I'm like, "No." She says, "Yeah." So, I said, "No." So, I took a diary and I started writing in there every single night. Even when I was really really not feeling well, even when I was really sick, I would just make it like an effort to write two or three lines every night just to say, "I'm going to remember. I'm going to keep track of this." Cuz I said, "If Hashem sends this to me, there must be a reason for it." And it would be pretty like pretty awful if Hashem sent me this like 6 months of my life to do something major with and I was kind of like, "Oh. Oh, is that what I was supposed to do?" I totally did not notice that and I just missed it cuz I didn't want to remember it. So, so I, you know, we we totally, me and my family, we took charge of the situation. We decided to own it, but it was still pretty pretty horrible. So, aside from the like nausea and the hair loss, which kind of people know, there were so many other things going on. I mean, no one told me that my fingertips and my toes were going to kind of going to become completely numb. I don't know why. I can't remember which medication it was that did it. See, I'm already forgetting. I can't remember which medication it was that did it to me, but I lost all sensation in my fingertips. It felt like my fingertips were coated in glue. So, if I touched things, I was always walking around and kind of like like touching things over and over cuz I didn't have any sensation. So, I would go to like something like this, like a desk, and I'd like like bang my fingers cuz I was trying to feel something. I'm like, wow, this doesn't even hurt. And like everyone was like, "Ow, can you stop doing that?" And I'm like, "No, it's it's like fine. Like, it doesn't hurt." And it was really just Um I learned how to play guitar then cuz you know how everyone complains about the calluses, you know, the first couple of months. And I'm like, "Yay! I can callus all I want. I don't feel anything." So, I did that. So, that was a nice part. But you know what people don't tell you? So, when your feet when your toes are numb, you know, when you go up and down stairs, you don't have to look where you place your foot because it's kind of like your body can sense where the next step is. You know, after step one and step two, your feet automatically just just kind of go. And you can have a phone conversation while you're running upstairs. You can be singing a song. No one's looking at their feet when they're going upstairs. And I, because my toes were numb, I totally lost that sensation of where the next step is. And I was like an old lady. I had to hold onto the banister and really just like look where I was placing my feet. It was a crazy It was like a crazy experience for me. No one told me that my skin was going to turn green. Um I looked awful. I looked I had these like two black eyes all the time cuz of whatever changes this chemotherapy was doing to my body. Um I did not expect to lose as much weight as I did. I started already pretty thin. I started at like 105 lb. After a month I was at 87 lb. I was just like emaciated and and and no one tells you what it's like to lose your friends. Um not because they weren't my friends, not because my friends didn't stay my friends, but no one explained to me. Like yes, I knew I was going to be nauseous. I knew I was going to lose my hair. I didn't really realize what it would mean to just not go to school every day. To not kvetch to Miriam on the phone every day about detention and teachers and homework. You know I took it for granted cuz most of us do that work is work, school is school, life is life. And all of a sudden the world went on without me. It was like everyone told me, you have to stop and they took me out of this world and put me somewhere else in a hospital, but all my friends were still going to school every day, taking tests, talking, participating in the play, having fun. And life was moving without me. And that was really hard. No one told me those parts of cancer. No one told me that these things were were what I was going to deal with. Um But I decided that like I said I can make myself happy. I I'm still the same person inside. I like to laugh a lot. We're very humorous uh people, my family. We're just maybe a little on the nutty side. Like, you know, the shaving the hair kind of thing. Um and I decided I'm I'm still the same person inside. I like to laugh. Um I like to have fun. So there's no reason I can't do that in the hospital. So I did. Um I I would like I mean, you can tell the way I spoke to the doctor. I was like sarcastic and like on the ball. I named all my um accessories. So like my headache, who was with me constantly, his name was David. My stomachache was Louie. And my my um IV pole that was always with me, his name was Steve cuz I know someone Steve who's a real drip. And um you know no offense Steve, but you know, I know a few Steves. But you know, and so we we tried like laughing at everything and and and poking fun at everything. Like when my head was bald, so um I wore yarmulke because why not? Um cuz I'm cuz I may as well. And and um actually I remember opening the door to someone I that I know very very well right now, my husband actually. He thought I was a boy. Um I met my husband when I was not well. Story I'll get into a little later. Um but the first time he met me he thought I was a boy cuz I opened the door in a yarmulke. But yeah, so we did all these like funny, weird, spunky stuff. I'm trying to remember um what else? Oh yeah, so in my bald head, so um I I used to let my friends autograph my head. So they did cuz it was like so nice and and shiny and and pretty. And I'd be like, no, you can sign here. And I'd be like, yeah, well soon. And then you know, I like I would have to shower, so I showered and then we did it all again. It was very fun. Um yeah, and and you know, we just we just really like I remember um at one point going back to school. It was like in the middle of one of my cycles and cuz chemo was working chemo works in cycles. It's like like 3 weeks on, a week off, that type of thing. So I remember having like a a downtime where my immune system was good enough to go to school. So I went to school for a day and they were doing um speeches, public speaking. And I'm like, oh, I would love to do public speaking. So the teacher says, so it was a how-to speech. You have to teach the class how to do something. I'm like, got it. So I brought in a needle and uh a plum or something and I taught the class how to give an injection. It went over really well. Uh you know, so we really just kind of like went with it, but then um and I made this decision mostly to be happy cuz when I got sick, first of all I did it for myself. Like don't tell me like I can I can kind of like do this. Um but but really I knew how hard it was going to be for my parents and my siblings. I'm um I'm the oldest and I was 16, so I wasn't a baby. And I had I'm the oldest of nine, so there were a lot of little ones under me. And I I just knew that it's really going to be up to me. The way my family sees it, the way my family deals with it, it's really going to be up to me. So I mean, I've I've seen people. I still see people who are deathly afraid of the word cancer. It's a scary word. In our family it was just a word we said. It was like my 3-year-old like you my 3-year-old sister used to say, yeah, so she has cancer. It's fine. Like it wasn't a scary word. It wasn't a scary anything. They if I got presents it was like everyone can share. I did it for them so that there was nothing to be afraid of. Even though there were scary parts, but we took them in stride. This is a scary part, but it doesn't mean we can't laugh. But there was I realized at one point that there's a difference between being funny and being happy. And so while we were expending so much effort being funny I used to go to bed at really sad sometimes. You know, not just because I was hurting, just because life had changed so quickly and so unexpectedly and I didn't I didn't even see my way out of it, you know? Like I remember thinking at at one point, so even when they tell me that I'm in remission and I'm okay I I don't even see myself going back to school, right? School didn't wait for me. They had continued on without me. So it was like going back to school and being like the new kid. I just I I felt like overwhelmed and and not really sure where I where I stood. And I really didn't know how to be happy. And I remember feeling to myself like yes, I can laugh and I can laugh and laugh and laugh cuz life is funny, but funny isn't happy. And I remember feeling to myself, you know I had an amazing life once. I really did. I went to school every day. I had friends. I had homework. I had tests. I passed tests. I failed tests. I don't know. It was just life and it was busy and it was hectic and there was drama and it was good and I didn't know it. I didn't know it was good, right? I played a cassette game. Until one day um halfway through right in the middle of I had actually four cycles of chemo, which in it of itself was a miracle because the type of cancer that I had actually requires between six to eight set cycles of chemo. Um till today, this is what they do. But when I became sick, my doctor, not every doctor, my doctor was part of a team of doctors doing a study on patients with my type of cancer that they wanted to see if they can get away with giving higher doses of chemo but in a shorter amount of time. And overall, if you add it all together, it would be less chemo overall. He says what they used to do is when someone got sick, they just bombed them with chemo. A year, two years, no problem, just bomb them with chemo. And after a while they realized that not everybody needs so much chemo and they they developed better testing systems to see how far advanced the cancer got and if it was reacting to the chemotherapy. So they said every few years they tried seeing if they can cut down the chemo even more and making it more fine-tuned and more precise cuz why have more poison in your system than you really need to cuz chemo is a poison, let me tell you. So I I agreed to be on the study and so it was amazing. I only needed four cycles of chemotherapy instead of eight. So I remember at that at that point I was halfway through. I had done my second cycle and it was a disaster. Um chemo chemo totally dehydrated me. And I know when you think of dehydration, you think of, you know, the summer and not drinking enough water, fainting, heatstroke. That's not what it did for me. Our bodies need water for for everything. I mean, right? They tell you drink your eight glasses a day and you're going to have beautiful skin and you're going to be healthy. Well, I didn't have enough water in my system and so my body wasn't digesting food. And everything I ate even though I didn't really eat very much, everything I ate kind of got stuck there because there wasn't enough water in my system to just break down the food. So what happened to everything that I ate, it stayed there and it solidified. It became hard. So hard that if I pressed down on my abdomen it was hard. It really hurt. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I was in I was so uncomfortable. Um and it built up to a point where after a couple of days I remember being in so much pain, I walked into the bathroom and I passed out. I fainted on the floor of the bathroom. And of course this is like the most mortifying thing of the whole of the whole thing. Of course they had to like break down the door. My parents heard me fall and they broke down the door and had to tell I had to come and they like flew me into the hospital and they were going to do surgery on me. And um actually, you know relieve me of of what was stuck inside there. And at the end, baruch Hashem we they had some like really strong medication and I a couple hours passed, painful hours, but I didn't need surgery in the end. And I remember like a week later coming home from the hospital. From then on they sent me home with a a a bag of fluid so that I shouldn't get dehydrated. I think that was like also it's like such a nightmare. That bag was also called something. I forgot. Yeah, so I had it with me everywhere and it was like this big black briefcase and then were like wires coming out. And then it was battery operated, so that battery would die like every 3 hours and it would like beep and then people would think I would have a bomb. Seriously, I was like in the store and I was like waiting online and this thing started beeping and you see this kid taking off a big backpack with wires AND YOU'RE LIKE, AH, THERE'S A WIRE! And it's beeping and I'm like, no, IT'S NOT A BOMB. And you open it up and people see like big machines and like bags and IT'S LIKE, IT'S OKAY, YOU KNOW. So that was like my life and then every 3 hours you have to wake up to change the batteries and a lot of fun, but anyway, I remember like a week later coming out of the bathroom. And in my parents' house, right outside of the bathroom, they had this sign. You know that Asher Yatzar sign, the blue one? Right? And it has all those nice pictures on the side, right? So I'm saying the bracha, which is a bracha that we say what? Like five times a day, eight times a day, since what? We're five or six years old. So I I've been saying this bracha, I don't know, do the math. A lot of times over the years and I'm saying it now standing outside of the bathroom and looking at this chart and I'm looking at the pictures cuz I would rather look at pictures if I, you know, between reading and looking at pictures, it's the pictures, always. So, um I'm saying there, you know, nekavim nekavim you know, cavities and openings and or no, I had it opposite. Yeah, openings and cavities, whatever. And you and you're like, you know, and you know, if oh, you sossim echad mehem, if one of them were to get blocked, eef shar leskayem, how would I continue to exist? You know, and lifnei Hashem stand in front of you afilu sha'a achas, even for 1 hour. If one of my cavities were to become blocked, I wouldn't be able to stand in front of you, Hashem, for even 1 hour. And I'm looking at the picture and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, that's so true. That's me. That's exactly what happened to me. I had a big cavity inside me, my stomach, my esophagus, whatever, and it got clogged. It was it was blocked. And I couldn't stand. I literally fainted. I ended up on the floor. I said, I can't believe I have been saying this bracha my whole life, how many times a day, and I never realized how grateful I have to be stepping out of the bathroom that everything functioned properly and beautifully, is so properly and so beautifully that like the pretzel vendor, I took it for granted. I just accepted those 25 cents and went on with my day. And it was only when the price went up, when I had cancer and things started happening and things didn't function so perfectly that I realized what I lost, what I once had and I didn't have it anymore. And it was like it sat with me. You know, it really just kept going around my head that whole day, I remember. And so, I decided pretty much then that I I was going to make myself happy. Cuz I said, how could it be? Like I had so much to be happy for. I used to go to the bathroom just fine my whole life, all the time, and I never knew how happy I had to be that that was okay and working for me. And I said, and now that I don't have it, like I should have been happy all along and I didn't even know that I should be. So, I said I I made like a like a like a commitment, like almost like a kabbalah. And I said, I'm going to try and find three things every single day to say thank you for, to be happy for. Because Hashem does so much for me every single day. So, so let me notice them. Let me see what he's doing for me before they get taken away and I realize what I had, but I didn't realize what I had till it got taken away. And so, I started saying thank you. And and not for the big things cuz the big things are easy to say thank you for. You know, when someone gives you a big gift or an expensive piece of jewelry, of course you can say, "Oh, thank you so much. That's so nice of you. You didn't have to." But it's like the small things that you take for granted. Like when my mother put supper on the table. I never told my mother thank you for supper. What do you mean? You come home from school and you get supper. It's on the table. All of a sudden, I realized, "No, you know, something, there's effort that gets put into that supper. I should see something. I should say thank you." Or I'll drive and the light turns green and I don't have to wait there and I'm like, "Thank you, Hashem. The light turned green. I'm in a rush." You know, 45 seconds less that I have to wait. Uh just little things. I started looking for little things. I had a nice nurse. She was nice to me. She wasn't one of those like angry like, "Be quiet and just like do your thing." No, it was like, "Well, how you feeling today?" And anything I can get you or give me a little stuffed teddy bear. Thank you. Thank you for everything. And I realized that when I started looking for things to say thank you for, there were so many. I couldn't stop at only three. There were just so many. Every single second there was just something else to be grateful for. And it was amazing. It was amazing it was it was life-changing. It was beautiful. Um and I think that was for me the difference between being funny and being humorous and being happy. And people um read my book and they they tell me I get a lot of teenagers all the time cuz they read my book and then they think they're going to get a lot of points for doing like school reports on it. So, I get a lot of teenagers who do that. And they call me up and they think they're going to interview me and get like some amazing answers. And they tell me, "How did you stay so like funny during your your your whole ordeal?" Cuz if I don't know if you read the book, but the book is pretty funny. I think people feel guilty when they read the book cuz it's like about cancer and then you end up laughing a lot and you're like, "I shouldn't laugh cuz the girl had cancer." And I'm like, "No, it's okay. You're supposed to laugh." Um also, just a warning, if you haven't read the book and you're planning to read the book, don't read it at bed time because because it'll keep you up. Um not because it's scary, just because the chapters are really short um and then you're going to say, "Okay, one more." No, no, just one more. Cuz each chapter is like literally a page cuz it's my diary. It's just a page. It's like a day and what happened that day and you're like, "Just one more. Just one more. Just one more." And then they call me up complaining, "I was up till 3:00 in the morning." And I'm like, I should put a disclaimer. So, here's my disclaimer, you know, don't read it at night. But uh unless you're okay with staying up till 3:00 in the morning. Um the people ask me, "How did you stay so funny?" And I tell them, "Funny? Funny's not hard. Knock knock, who's there?" You know, I can tell you a joke anytime. There's always stuff to joke about. Being happy, that's the difference. That's the secret. Some people are just funny people by nature. You don't get you don't take that away from a person. But you can be funny and really be sad inside, which I was. You know, I would make everybody else laugh. I would go to school and tell everybody, "It's okay. Would you like to sign my head?" And then I would come home and cry about being bald. Funny and happy are not the same thing. It's like one is just like, I don't know, a talent that's just given to you. It's like from Hashem, right? He gave me the talent to be funny. And one is a skill, something I had to actually work on. And happiness was a skill. It was something I had to learn. So, since then, I made it a commitment that I'm going to find things to be thankful for. And when you're so busy saying thankful saying thank you all day, there's no such thing I discovered as having a bad day. You can have bad moments. You can have bad times. But there's no such a thing as going to sleep with a bad day. I I I'm think trying to think back now saying it. It's baruch Hashem, it's 12 years. I don't think I've ever gone to sleep thinking that today was a bad day. Because I do this throughout the day. I try to say thank you as many times as I can throughout the day to to Hashem and to everybody. I mean, obviously, if if Hashem doesn't need my thank you. I do it for me. I tell him thank you for me cuz it makes me it changes my life. But people need your thank you. So, I make an effort, of course, to compliment people and say thank you to people and notice them and notice like all the things around me. You know, like like compliments are also a way of saying thank you. It's like when you go to a wedding and someone's wearing something beautiful, they put effort into that. So, you say, "Wow, you look beautiful. I love your pin." They chose that pin. They didn't just pick any random dress out of the closet. They chose to put on that pin. So, it's like an acknowledgement. That's what a thank you is. It's an acknowledgement. I acknowledge that you took the time to get dressed and pretty today. I acknowledge that Hashem, I woke up today and I can breathe, right? You know how many people have allergies and you wait for that moment like sometime like in April and you can't breathe, your nose is stuffed. And you're like, "Where's my Claritin?" And then you're like, "Oh my gosh, Hashem, please, why today I have to give a report and my nose is stuffed." But like yesterday when your nose was fine, did you say "Thank you." No, we don't do that. So, it's an acknowledgement. When I can do that, when I say, "Wow, thank you, Hashem, for that nice deep breath." It's an acknowledgement. There was something done for me. And there's no way to go to sleep unhappy. So, at night, I do this during the day, but at night, right before I go to bed, I just try and the last thing I do before I go to bed, I just say thank you, Hashem, for three things. And and my rule is, I'm not so good about keeping this rule, but my rule is that they can't be big things. So, I have three kids, ken ayin hara, and it's very easy to say thank you, Hashem, for kid one, kid two, and kid three. Um but that's not, you know, that doesn't count cuz that's the easy thing. So, sometimes I do it when I'm really really tired and I'm like on the verge of falling asleep. I'm like, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." But really, it's just like "Thank you for that I don't know, nice lady who was behind me in the store and had the extra 2 cents to give me that I was missing, you know, when I was coming to pay or or a thank you that um I don't know, the library had the book I wanted. Thank you that my kids liked my supper today. Thank you that supper didn't burn today." Just simple simple things. And it's really the simplest things. We have so many of them. And they're the simplest things that make us the happiest. Um and this really became a way of life for me. Because I told myself life isn't perfect. Life is not a bed of roses, right? It's there's there's going to be things in my life. But I never want to find to come to a place in my life where I forgot what I learned here. I never want to come to a place in my life where I've taken things for granted. So, I made it an effort. And I say thank you all the time. And we've done it to the point where we do this with our kids. Um so, I actually brought this here today. This is my daughter's. And um each of my kids have them. I have two two boys and a girl. And every night right before bed see here's already taped cuz it's 2 years old. We started this February 19, 2014. So, it's almost 2 years. And every single night um we write the date and we write three things that they want to thank Hashem for every single day. Uh it's it's amazing. It's like she she'll write um "Thank you, Hashem, cuz I went to the dentist and now my teeth are sparkly and clean." I'm like, "You thank Hashem for going to the dentist?" Or "Thank you, Hashem, cuz my teacher did math today and I love math." I'm like, "Are you my daughter?" You know, so one day last week, was it last week? I got to find this cuz it's amazing. Oh, yeah. This is last week. She writes, she's seven. She writes, "I cannot believe how good my mother and father are to me. They are like precious stones in the world." Way to get so much better. And when I bury them, I will make sure I will make sure that mommy's stone will be purple and tatty's will be blue cuz gray is so boring. And this is my this is my 7-year-old. And this is the stuff they write every single day. Or thank you Hashem for my lovely family. I don't know, have I ever in my life thanked Hashem for my lovely family? This is what they write. They just They love it. They And if And if a night like tonight and I had to leave early and they're not doing happy books, they cry. It's like, "We didn't do happy books." And And then if If we miss the night or we don't end up doing it like Shabbos. So on Sunday they feel like then they get to write six cuz they didn't do it. They They love it. And they live this life of gratitude and it's beautiful cuz they don't just do it with their books. They do it like I'll make a supper and my kids will say, "Thank you, Mommy, for making my favorite supper." Or my son told me the other day, "Thank you for making supper even though I don't like it. Next time can you make something else, but thank you for making supper?" Or the most amazing, I'll be driving and I'll park and my kid will be like, "Thank you, Hashem, for giving us a parking spot." I'm like, "No, that's what I'm saying." But no, they're saying it. They It became a lifestyle and it's the most beautiful thing in the world and I can't wait for my daughter when she's 15 or 20 to take this book and read it and see the things that she was thankful for in kindergarten and in pre-1A and in first grade. Um one of the early ones in the book she wrote She was in probably in kindergarten at that time and she wrote, "Thank you, Hashem. I love the way you made me cuz every time I look in the mirror, I am so beautiful." And I'm like, "Wait till the pimples come." I will show you you are beautiful. You are amazing. You know what You know what that does to a person when they live a life knowing And And um at one point so in in my work um I I'm a hypnotherapist. So I see clients and my kids like to ask me about my about my work. And um obviously there's client confidentiality and stuff, but you know, they they hear little details and stories here and there. So I remember once talking and I wasn't even talking to them. I was talking to my husband and I was saying at that I had just seen um a young a young woman and she had a lot going on in her life and she was really struggling in her emunah and it was sad. And she was a very very brave person and going through so much and I really admired her and respected her, but who can fault her? She was going through so much and she was having problems with her emunah. And my daughter overheard me and she says, "What? How could you be angry at Hashem? Does she know what Hashem does for her every day?" And I'm like, "What does Hashem do for her every day?" Like, "What are you What are you saying?" "He makes the sun shine. He makes colors. Imagine if our grass was blue. He made it green cuz it's so pretty." I'm like, "Who told you all this stuff?" She's like, "I just think about it." And she And she's very emotional, my kid. And she's like there's like tears running down her face and she's like, "I think about it and I know how much Hashem loves me because today purple is my favorite COLOR AND MY MORA wore something purple and the whole day I looked in my mora and I was so happy and I said, 'Thank you, Hashem, that my mora was wearing purple.'" And she says this in such seriousness. And I just look at her and say, "That's amazing. That's amazing. Hashem should bless you that you should do this until 120." And actually so this whole idea of of like thankfulness is like really like a theme in our life. Um so when I started and I told you that being here today is is like really like the day. So today is Tes Shvat and Vav Shvat, which was Shabbos, Vav Shvat was the day that they called me up and told me that I was in remission. That the chemo I finished my fourth round of chemo and then I had to go through all these testing rounds and stuff and the testing was also once if I had passed all my tests, they were going to see if I was um because I was on a clinical trial, I was in a study, they were going to put me into like like a randomization into a computer and the computer was going to decide if I should get radiation, which is the standard procedure, or if I should not get radiation, which was like something radical and new that they were only going to try with someone who had a full recovery off chemo. And so I had finished my fourth round, I had left the hospital and they they um you know, and that was the day that Vav Shvat was the day I left the hospital for the last time. Two weeks later I found out that I would not need radiation and my whole parsha was over, but Vav Shvat was the last day I was in the hospital. It was the day I came out. So this was this Shabbos. So that makes being here today like beautiful. Like like coming full circle except that there's still more. So Tes Shvat, which is today, is the day my daughter was born. And today is her birthday. Today she turns seven. And when she was born, it's the parsha of the week is Parshas Beshalach. And it's a parsha about giving shira, saying thank you. And so we named her Bracha because I just saying thank you, the whole point of saying thank you is that life is a blessing and you you just by saying thank you, you just never forget that. So she has another name, she's Hadassah, Hadassah Bracha. And And And she's so proud of it. She tells people all the time when their teachers are telling you know like, "Who are you named after? Which grandmother?" She's like, "I'm not named after a grandmother. I'm named after a day, like a time." Because when she was born, Tes Shvat, it was not only a a calendar date, you know, that this was the week that things worked out for me, it was also exactly five years after I had finished. So for those of you who don't know, in the cancer world, five years, reaching that five-year milestone, is the day they actually consider you in remission. That was the day that if I was going to make a seudas hoda'ah, that was going to be my seudas hoda'ah. Because anything that happens within the first five years, you're kind of still on the like, you know, the danger zone. They watch you more carefully just in case anything happens. If chas v'shalom anything happens within the first five years, it's not even called a relapse. It's just like part of the same, you know, it's it's like the cancer never They consider it as if the cancer never really went away. And um I'm sorry, it is called a relapse, but after five years, if nothing happened for five years, it's considered as if it's a brand new cancer totally unrelated to the old one. So it was like amazing. It was my five-year date. It was that day that I was celebrating being healthy and and a brand new person. And then we had this beautiful girl, Parshas Beshalach. Like you couldn't get any better than that. And then to be called here today and you know, we set this date already a month ago and all of a sudden I'm looking at my calendar and I'm realizing, "Hey, wait. This is the day." is like amazing. I'm like, "Thank you, Hashem, that I can stand here in front of an audience on a day like today and give this over to you." So you know, lots of people unfortunately have been through what I've been through. It's not It's not a It's not uncommon these days. It's not new. But honestly, when I look back at what I went through, I don't I don't see it as a bad time in my life. Nobody would want to choose to go through anything like that. I mean, of course not. But looking back at it, I don't I don't I don't see it as as a bad thing. So many So much good came out of it. It's like I know it sounds crazy to say, but I'm thankful for it. I say, "Thank you, Hashem, that I had to go through this, but at least that now that I went through it, look what I got out of it. I got something beautiful. I got a life. I have happiness. I have true happiness. Before I had just humor. Now I have real true happiness and not only that, I have gifts. You know what I have? I have sunshine. I have grass that's green. I have a sky that's blue. I have lungs that breathe. I can go to the bathroom. I have friends. I have such amazing things. So that's really when people ask me to speak and they ask me to share my experiences, you know, there's always this quality of like wanting to know, being curious, hearing someone else's um experience, to me it's not about a life story. It's not about my story. It's about what I learned. And this is what I learned. Gratitude. It's It's the answer to everything. So that's that's really the only message if this This happy book, we call them happy books. They're like I give this to everybody. I just tell everybody this is my This is my answer to everybody. Take one of these. I do it in my head. My kids do it in the book. Really, I wish I did it in a book because at this point if I had done it in the book, I would have 12 years worth of these to look through and say, "Wow, you know, thank you, Hashem, for for everything." It's like how can you not? How can you not love life? How can you not love Hashem? How can you not feel Hashem? How can you not know that he's there when you're so busy thanking him all day? So if there's any one message, this is it. It's It's just so beautiful how you got I got to see my book. I wrote it It's my diary. So It literally every single chapter you see the date, you know, Motzei Shabbos, October whatever, and it tells you what happened on that day. My book starts and ends on the same day. They start and end on October 25th. October 25th was like the first entry in my diary when I found those bumps and things started happening. And October 25th one year later was the day of my wedding. So just to see that, it's like you know, I was privileged enough to have to have this in a book to say, "Look, Hashem, thank you. Look what Look what Hashem gave me." But I think that if everyone took the time to just jot down like I said, it was just two lines a day. I didn't write down so much every single day. Just two lines a day and to have a book like this and say, "This is what Hashem does for me. This is just a small sample. These are only three of the things Hashem does for me every single day." It's like everyone can have a miracle ride, you know. So my book is called Miracle Ride. And when we had to name it, um we were like me and the publisher we were going back and forth on the name. We couldn't decide what we wanted to name it. And um at one point I I had a totally different idea. My My name was called Riding Backwards cuz if you'll read the book, there's a poem in the beginning about a train and riding backwards on a train. So I wanted the book to be called Riding Backwards and the publisher didn't like it. So they wanted to call it Riding to a Miracle. And the name so didn't sit with me for a few reasons. First of all, I just don't like titles that are long like Riding to a Miracle. It just took forever. But I just It didn't feel right. I was like, "What miracle? Did you see a miracle in my book? Did you see that one big amazing miracle?" I said, that's not what it is and I said let's call it miracle right cuz the whole thing, the whole book, every single day there was something to laugh at. Every single day there was something to learn from. And look, look what it is. It's just a one big journey of miracles. So, this is my daughter's but it's also a miracle right. My sons have their own miracle rights. Every single person in this room, every single person in the world has their own miracle right. It's just a matter of wanting to see it. Anyone else? Any other questions? Yeah. How did you decide to make your personal diary into like a published book? Oh, so that's interesting. So, I kept my diary really for my own my own benefit. And like I said, 12 years ago no one said the word cancer. There was no there were no resources. There was no one to talk to and I remember being so overwhelmed when I was first diagnosed. I didn't know what was coming and I think you know, a lot of what we do always there's research, right? We want to know. If I know then it's not going to be so bad. We want to prep ourselves and nobody was there to tell me what was going to happen. So, also 12 years ago at least in my community when people got sick they didn't talk about it. It was a secret. People didn't talk. And Where did you grow up? In Borough Park. Yes. I grew up in Borough Park and people didn't talk about it. So, it was very difficult and and I said and I I I remember thinking when I first was diagnosed my parents gave me the option, if you want we can keep it a secret cuz based on the kind of protocol that I was going to go through I was only going to have four rounds which is a relatively short time if you think about it. I started two weeks after Sukkot and by Shvat I was done. So, it's very short period of time and they told me you can keep it a secret and nobody has to know. And I remember telling my parents, are you kidding me? My hair is going to fall out. I'm going to lose a ton of weight. I'm going to I'm going to be sick. I'm going to miss a lot of school. You think nobody's going to know? So, I made a decision that I'm not keeping this a secret. I'm going to be very natural about it. I said I'm not being punished here. Hashem sent this to me. Like you know, I didn't it's not like I I picked this off a shelf and I did something horrible. I have nothing to hide. This is coming from Hashem. And the same way that a bracha comes from Hashem, the same way a good thing comes from Hashem, a bad thing also comes from Hashem. So, let's not pretend that it's something that needs to be hidden. So, I was very open about it and I think people appreciated that cuz people, especially my friends and and even strangers, you know, they didn't know how to react to me. But I told them. I said it's okay. You can ask me anything. I love to share with you and let you know what it's like and what I what you can do and how you should react. Um so, when I was better toward the end when I when I when I was in remission already um they strangers used to call me. They heard they heard that I know your cousin's friend's sister's neighbor and I heard that you had gone through something and my somebody was just diagnosed. Would you mind talking to them? And I said, yeah, sure. It would be my pleasure. I would love to help somebody out and give them information. Whatever I can do, let me answer your questions. So, I saw that there was a tremendous need for people to to hear. And it was my personal diary. I didn't want to give it out but people used to ask me, can I read your diary? And I was like, no, it's mine. And it's my only copy so I don't want to give that out. So, I decided at the time blogs were new and and getting very popular. So, I decided that I was going to write it my whole diary onto a blog. And when I did that it was amazing because um it was a few years after cuz I had I remember I started my blog right when I had my first child which was nine years ago. So, I had been sick 12 years ago. So, it was about three years after I was finished I started my blog. And I had the opportunity to go through each of my diary entries and realized that I wrote only two lines but now I finally had the opportunity to really expand on that and to write more. And then I spoke to my mother. She had memories that I forgot because you do forget. So, she had things to add and when I wrote my blog I was able to expand on my diary and write more and obviously take out the private parts or or change details, protect some people's. So, there are you know, I had the time when I wrote my blog to change all those details. And then the blog got about 20,000 hits in one month which was amazing. It really like took off. I mean obviously I didn't write all of it at once. It was updated. People kept checking back. And then at one point a publisher contacted me and they wanted to know if I would be interested in turning it into a book. And I said, yes, that would be amazing. That would be beautiful. So, actually once a publisher contacted me and I realized that I had something good on my hands. I shopped around for publishers and yeah, I realized that hey, I have a commodity here and ArtScroll accepted my book and it it went so fast from the time that they accepted it till the time that it was printed was only three months. It was like an immediate thing. So, by Shavuot time they they had it on shelves and I think right now it's like it's fifth printing or something. It went it sold out of three printings within the first year which was amazing to me just to see that my book, my story, my my experiences were able to help so many people and I think that was also when I when I started writing this stuff down I did it with that intention that I don't know why Hashem is giving this to me but I know that it's not good for me to forget. It's important to remember what we went through. So, I'm happy that I did make that effort to remember and the baruch Hashem it's been able to help people. So, that's what made me decide to turn it into a book. Any Anyone else? Any other questions? I know you have my whole life story. You have it all. Well, thank you so so much. It's an absolute pleasure to be here today. Thanks.