Your God is Too Small

Years ago I read a wonderful book called, “Your God is Too Small” by J.B. Phillips. In that book he wrote about how most of us struggle with God or faith because we keep making God too small. We have a tendency to imagine God being like us or maybe like a human being with super powers. But even with the powers of the entire Justice League of America, that is still a human construct and hence, according to Phillips, too small.

I thought about that this week when I was meeting with some students and we were discussing new ideas in Christian theology and how there continue to be new ideas about God, and evolution, and how God may intersect physics, and about how God and Love may be a primary construct of evolutionary direction. Yeah, heady talk like that.

At one point I said, “But what about a personal God?” and I got the look, and someone said, “Well, I used to believe in a personal God but then I studied…” The message was basically that believing in a personal God was kind of juvenile or “early” in terms of spiritual formation. 

I have picked up that slight judgment in other places as well. That look or comment that suggests that those who (still) believe in a personal God have not matured in their spiritual development. There’s a kind of spiritual condescension, “Oh, I’m past the personal God

thing.” “My God is now a cosmic force or a New Physics God”…blah, blah.

 So me, doing my daily—very personal—prayer starts to feel small—or worse—I feel unsophisticated in my faith.

But then, after confessing to my very personal God that I feel small cause I’m not making Him/Her big enough, I start to think, “Whoa, isn’t making (perceiving) God as a distant, cosmic, force of the universe just another way to make God too small?” (Yes, irony: in making God so big and fancy we make him small again.)

Can’t God be galaxies-wide, loving, an impersonal cosmic force and a personal shepherd at the same time? Why can’t God (we are talking GOD after all) be BIG and small at once?

I thought that Hillary Clinton could be the president of the United States and Chelsea’s mother at the same time. So why can’t God be both (and more) simultaneously?

Think about this: If we really grasp the Trinity, and if we swear that we believe in this three-in-one business, then why not a God who is all: all forms, all types, all sizes, all styles, all dimensions simultaneously?

And by the way—isn’t disdaining a personal God rather mean spirited? That can’t possibly be very Christian.

How Can I Free Myself?

I was arguing with John recently. It was one of those arguments with a repeating theme. The old argument was just updated, and with different details. And yes, there was me saying, “Why don’t you…?” and “You always…”

As much as I really wanted to enjoy my righteous rightness (and surely I was 82% right), I also felt the undeniable familiarity of this fight. That is one of the downsides of longer recovery—you can’t hide from yourself so well anymore—and knowing that your own part of it takes the satisfaction out of fighting in a flash.

So what was I going to do? Could I walk through a conflict that was challenging me, and where I really did have hurt feelings?

I used my recovery tools. I sent email to my sponsor; I called another sober woman, and I went to my bookshelf. I always go to books. I came to recovery by the grace of Robin Norwood’s books, and so for me bibliotherapy is a valued tool.

I started with our Big Book. I read Step three and about surrender. Oh. Yuck --but also yep! But just how could I move past my hurt feelings? How could I shift the energy from insisting on my rightness to somehow using this situation for growth?

I landed on the book called How Can I Forgive You? By Janis Abraham Spring, and there I

got relief. Dr. Spring writes about forgiving really hard stuff like infidelity and parental betrayal so I knew I could lean into her wisdom for this fuss I was in with John. Here’s what I read in Spring’s book:

“Your freedom lies not in protesting the unfairness of the violation or in getting the offender to care. Your freedom –perhaps your only freedom—is in deciding how to survive and transcend the injury. Don’t underestimate this freedom: it’s enormous. With it comes the power to decide how you’re going to live the rest of your life. As you take the task of healing into your own hands, you empower yourself and have peace.”

Bingo! It was peace that I wanted…not to let John off the hook necessarily, but I wanted to get me off my own hook and out of my spinning head. It felt just like that wonderful paradox of AA and Alanon—being selfish enough to take the focus off of being right so I can give me back my own good life.

Ordinary Time in CancerLand

In the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar there is an acknowledgment of “Ordinary Time”. This is the time that falls between holidays; it is the times that is not Christmas or Easter or Good Friday or Advent.

It feels like that here in the land of love and cancer too. It’s not chemo or blood tests or attorney time. It’s not exhilaration or tragedy time.

This month is filled with grocery shopping, yoga classes, buying running shoes, parent meetings and girl friends. I am picking up library books, allergy medicine, dry cleaning and avocados.

Having been in CancerLand so long I have to stop and remind myself that this ordinary time is actually a kind of holiday. This time is the true luxury, the blessing and the most wanted gift.

In the Dark Street Shineth

Off we go trailing shopping lists and credit card receipts. Christmas is in one week. We may complain about our errands, and even about some of the folks on our list, but we do enjoy the festivity the holidays bring to our gray December days. It's no coincidence.

The holidays that celebrate light, Hanukah and Christmas, are aligned with the seasonal transit of the sun. It’s a leftover from earlier times when the religions of nature led all of the others. There was good reason, then as now, to run from the darkness. 

We know that ancient man feared that the sun had died.  It was his terror that the heat and light were gone. To coax the sun god back our ancient relatives created rituals.  The Druids lit bonfires. Now we celebrate with candles and lights in our windows. 

Spirituality is a way out of darkness and into hope and joy. The vehicle is mystery and a miracle, whether it’s oil that lasts eight days or the birth of a baby in a barn.

In the Northern Hemisphere this is a time when we face our vulnerability. Weather is the least of it. We all have moments of darkness: our grief, fears and regrets. The darkness we fear most, of course, is the grave. We still think we can outrun it. So some of us go to the Caribbean and some to sunlamps or light boxes; many pursue spirits, religious or distilled. Like our ancestors we too want the sun to come back and give us life again. So we go to the stores and burn up our credit cards; we sacrifice our savings as we gather at the mall where we may find what passes for community. 

But we still fear the dark. Much of what we do this time of year is about distraction. Not unlike whistling when we pass a graveyard, now we sing and shop and light candles and eat too much. And we complain. A lot. But maybe our railing against our holiday chores is itself a part of the solstice. Now when we are oppressed by darkness –when our primitive fears can be felt even through layers of advertising and anti-depressants-- we are drawn to the lights and to other people as our defense against the dark, just as our ancient relatives were drawn to stars and fires.

We talk of holiday depression as if it’s somehow wrong or an aberration. But these holidays we’re celebrating, Hanukah and Christmas, are also about darkness. Sometimes we forget that. But it’s true: the flip side of each story is about the darkness at the edge of the light. 

The words of this Christmas carol could just as well be a Solstice song: Yet in the dark street shineth, the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

We’re fighting something ancient, natural and necessary. Occasionally we need to feel the darkness—even symbolically--like we sometimes need a dark night or a wild storm.

So maybe there is another way to experience this day. On this, the darkest night, what if we allowed the darkness and went toward it, daring ourselves to sit still before we light the candles or the tree. What if we sat a moment seeing the tree in darkness--and breathed. That’s what solstice is about. We can enter the darkness and emerge transformed. We can stand it.

Tomorrow the sun will be at the most southern point of its transit. And what is coming is the longest night of the year. Starting Wednesday our days will grow longer again. The cycle is astronomical and holy. On this night we are as ancient as ever.

Christmas in CancerLand

Years ago it was cancer at Christmas. The first surgery. The news about chemo. Having hope at the holidays. I found that old blog post “Christmas Past” this week. I am surprised that we were able to be so be happy then while we were in the thick of it. And surprising to remember that we found serenity and sensuality even in those first few forays into

CancerLand.

Here is the old post from our first year in Cancerland:

“It’s all here. Love and carols, candlelight service at the United Methodist Church last night, sleeping late and making love through the morning, a sponge bath then washing his hair over the side of the tub—he cannot get the stitches wet for three more days—a walk in the neighborhood, opening gifts—books and music, and tickets and clothes for both of us. These are the things we have shared and talked about from the first day we met. Cashmere and satin and a collection of erotic poetry keep the love alive. We cook dinner together: Cornish game hens with smooth small breasts, artichokes to slide through our teeth, potatoes soaked with butter and garlic and chocolate mousse. Christmas together. We never thought we’d see this. But here it is. We have both cancer and Christmas and it is enough.”

This year’s Christmas is different: Adopt-a-Family gifts, cooking, wrapping, shopping Amazon last minute, the annual trip to buy my mother-in-law’s gift, texting the kids, realizing that the new family we made in that isolated first year has become the real family, and that we continue to love and be loved. For all of this we are so grateful.

A Man, A Can, A Plan

I am NOT a good cook. Let’s get that straight. But I like to play with food and I LOVE cookbooks! I have tons of cookbooks, which always makes guests laugh when they see the shelf in our kitchen. But, for me it’s all about culture, language, history, and social psychology.

Tonight I made a meal from one of my favorite “weird” cookbooks. I have a whole category of weird cookbooks: The Beet Cookbook, The White Trash Cookbook, and today’s pick, a cookbook called: “A Man. A Can. A Plan.” 

This is a cookbook for men who can’t cook—bachelors of a certain era, divorced guys, etc. It’s written in very guy language—explains what utensils are—“grab one of those big spoons with holes in it”. And it’s made of that very thick, shiny cardboard, the kind of pages you

see in books for babies. But the cool part is that all of the the recipes are based on food that comes in cans. Yes, my dear friends who only eat organic or local or vegan will just die thinking about this book. So die. There is good food in this book—
Think Grandma. Think church supper.

Tonight’s yummy casserole was “Spaghetti Western”:

Two cans of Spaghetti O’s. One can black beans. Half pound ground round, two chopped scallions, 2T grated cheddar, 2T chili powder. Cook all in one pan. Six minutes tops.

Add nice salad: Baby spinach, Bibb leaves, a tomato, (sure, organic) salt & pepper, juice of half lemon and olive oil.

Dinner was ready in under ten minutes and it was delicious. And there are leftovers.One serving: 450 calories and 14 grams of protein. Which means I can have biscotti and ice-cream while we watch another episode of “To Serve Them All Our Days.”

Conversations at Thanksgiving

This week we are preparing for Thanksgiving. There is a lot of shopping and cooking in the next few days --but there are also emotional preparations to be undertaken this week. Like many, you may be torn between the happy anticipation of a good meal and seeing family, but also the dread of family feuds that leave you wishing to hide in a corner of the living room. 

Along with the usual  “issues” that each family faces around the turkey table—the in-laws, sibling rivalries, and adolescents with attitude—we can stir in some raw feelings about national politics this year. It’s Thanksgiving in the REAL America and nobody’s very happy.

So many of us so want it to be the other Thanksgiving, the one we imagine that other

families have, but which really only happens in made-for-TV movies.  We think that our Thanksgiving is just not what it used to be-- But then again, it never was.

It seems that we can’t shake our romantic idea about that first one with the grateful Pilgrims and the wise Indians, but it’s safe to say that most of us wouldn’t have been comfortable at that dinner either. The truth is that the Pilgrims, with their cute buckled shoes, weren’t innocent refugees from persecution. Rather they were religious zealots and not exactly tolerant.

Here’s the history: After the Protestant Reformation and the split from Catholicism—creating the Church of England--there were many who felt the church still needed to be “purified” of Rome’s influence. Those were the Puritans. Among the Puritans were some folks who were even more extreme and who wanted complete separation. These were the Separatists--we know them as the Pilgrims. These were not folks who believed in freedom of religion. What the Pilgrims believed was that the Church of England was corrupt; that Catholics were the Devil’s spawn and that they were superior in knowing God’s truth. 

We still have some emotional resonance of those ancestors and their vibe is with us at Thanksgiving. So be prepared. 

Part of the problem is that religion permeates this day directly or indirectly; someone or something is being thanked for the good in our lives, but there are political tripwires from the stuffing all the way through to dessert. Most of us will be sharing a meal with folks who not only mix their potatoes with their peas but who mix politics with their religion:  Every current event, everything in the headlines—the election, terrorism, the Middle East—touches religion in some way. And that intersection of religion and current affairs will cut right through the dining room table on Thursday.

Even saying grace is tricky. When the blessing includes a prayer for peace someone at the table will be listening for what kind of peace? And for whom?

On Thursday we may be humming, “We gather together…” but in our heart of hearts we want to insist that OUR team should win, that OUR recipe for stuffing is the best, and that OUR candidate was right.

So if you find yourself dreading the doorbell, or if Uncle Harvey mentions the President when he says grace, you may want to retreat to the kid’s table or sit in the den to watch the game. But instead, give thanks that this holiday comes only once a year, and remember--- it’s all in the spirit of the day.  

A Racial Gap in Breast Cancer Care and Survival

In today's Albany Times Union newspaper, Claire Hughes writes about the racial gap in both cancer

Claire Hughes, Times Union

care and out comes.

"Zipcode predicts your health better than genetic code."

All of us in CancerLand can pay attention to this and be supporters and advocates.



Here's the link to the Times Union story:

ww.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Racial-disparities-persist-in-breast-cancer-10609663.php

Cancer and Financial Toxicity

We typically connect the word "toxicity" to cancer via concerns with radiation and chemotherapy---but here is research showing the serious concern--and health impact--of the real life worry about money for cancer patients and their families.

The additional stress of worrying about money is a factor in cancer care and recovery.

Take a look at the link below to read more:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2016/10/10/new-cancer-stress-cost-of-care/110956.html

What You Can Ask For--And What You Can't

I heard a great piece of relationship advice recently. This bit of wisdom really got my attention and gave me a way to assess whether I am being reasonable

or unreasonable when I get into that “wanting him to change” mood.

It goes like this: "You can ask a partner for a behavior change but not a personality change."  You can ask for behaviors you want from your partner but You can’t ask them to be different on the inside or to develop the characteristics that will cause them to think like you do.

For example, you can ask your partner take a turn doing the laundry or ask him to clean the bathroom on Saturdays—those are behaviors—but you can’t ask him to notice when the bathroom is dirty or when the kids need clean socks—those are aspects of personality. You can ask him to buy and mail his sisters birthday gift (But please, don’t judge what he chooses--don’t sabotage yourself.) But you can’t ask him, “Why don’t you remember your family’s birthdays?” That is personality.

Similarly, you can say, “I’d like you to give me one compliment each day.” –that’s a behavior. But it’s not fair to say, “Why don’t you appreciate me?”—That’s personality. And probably the start of a fightJ.

That’s pretty much like saying, “Why don’t you become me?” And really, would I ever want to be married to me? I don’t think so.

There is Only the Dance

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

(from TS Eliot, Burnt Norton II)

Reading & Writing Cancer

You would expect Susan Gubar to be a good writer. She is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of English at Indiana University. So yes, an English teacher should know how to compose a compelling lead, and how to structure sentences, and support and illustrate an argument.

But Gubar’s gift to us in CancerLand is that she brings her writer’s gift to some of the most unspeakable parts of cancer. 

Gubar was the author of seventeen academic books, but her first book about cancer was: Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer.

In that book she made us care enough about her—and other women--to stay page after page through descriptions of surgery, depression, medical negotiation and treatment mishaps. We cared about her and we learned exactly what treatment for ovarian cancer looks like.

We also got to read her New York Times “Living With Cancer” column—where she brought practical info, education and the unanswerable questions too. Those columns helped patients, caregivers and medical specialists. Always of service, and always good writing.

And now, a lasting and last gift, in her last book: Reading & Writing Cancer-she teaches us to fish (and write) by showing how literature about illness and cancer can give us perspective and language, and also, crucially, she invites both the experienced writer and the “Oh, never me” writer to begin writing about our own cancer experiences as a way to heal.

The healing may be of the physical cancer, or of the acceptance of a terrible diagnosis, or of the grief, or over the existential reality of a body’s limitations. 

This story book and writing manual and teachers tool is a final gift, and our challenge to take up the pen that Gubar has laid down, as she encourages us to keep reading and writing about cancer.

Changing Normal: One Couple. Two Cancers.

In her new book, “Changing Normal” Marilu Henner—(actress, author, wellness expert and radio host) tells the story of a mid-life romance and how love and an alternative diet and treatment has helped her to help her husband beat cancer.

It’s a story about alternative treatments for bladder and lung cancer, and a story primarily

about how to advocate for truly integrated medicine. Henner is known to many of us from the TV show “Taxi”. And in the book she is just as loveable and a lot fiercer about taking on the medical establishment.

When, early in their relationship, Michael is diagnosed and surgery is prescribed, Henner’s experience as a wellness advocate comes to play and pays off.

While interesting as a book about alternative care for cancer, the best of this book is about patient/caregiver partnership, and how a couple ideally teams up to fight for both wellness and their relationship. It is a book about how couples can create a powerful caregiving team, and present that strength to the medical establishment—to push for more—sometimes better-options. 

Money and Cancer -- Double Taboo

Yes—Money and Cancer: two great taboos that we encounter in CancerLand.

Many of us know the feeling when we experience people turning away from us or being insensitive because they don’t know how to talk about or ask about our cancer or our loved one’s cancer.

But money is the place where most of us turn away. It’s a different kind of uncomfortable. We are reluctant to ask about prices, costs, expenses and who is willing to ask, “Can we afford this?” when the conversation is about the

cancer care of a loved one?

Our culture sets certain taboos on talking about money in general, and then mix in a crisis, a hint of death, some judgments about family issues, illiteracy around savings, spending…and you have a great big silence.

One frequent blind spot is assuming that if you have health insurance you are all set. But, and you know this if you have cancer: seeing a doctor several times a month can mean a great big bill of co-pays. You can be in debt even before chemo begins. And, what people with cancer know that those who haven’t been there is that chemo is expensive stuff. Even with so-called, “good” health insurance that’s a lot more and bigger copays every week. It adds up fast.

That silence around money and the cost of cancer care can hurt everyone: the patient, the caregivers, the kids and extended family and friends as well. Money talk is just plain fraught. But it’s crucial. And there is help –both financial help and help in how to talk about it.

CURE Magazine has published a special report called “Paying for Cancer Care.” It’s a tremendous resource and it’s free as are most of the resources they provide in the print and online publication.

Here are some of the articles in the publication:

Financial Fix: A cancer diagnosis could break the bank, but it doesn’t have to.

Risky Business: Concerns about insurance should be addressed early.

Debt Crisis: Coping with cancer’s financial aftermath calls for creative solutions.

Money Madness: Worry about the cost of care takes an emotional toll.

That’s just a start to what is available in the special report, “Paying for Cancer Care.”

You can see the publication and all the links online at www.curetoday.com

You should also not be shy or reluctant to talk to the financial folks at your cancer center. They have some euphemistic titles like “Financial Resource Staff” or “Financial Planner” but just come right out and ask, “Who do I talk to about how much all of this costs and how I make a plan to handle the financial side of things?”

Don’t let money worries or thinking that that help is for other people stop you. The financial hit is one more bad side effect of cancer. But not getting the guidance will just make it a scarier family issue and it might even make you feel distant from friends.

Why Write About Cancer?

I have been asked many times why I write about cancer, and I have told the story of this blog—about how frustrated I was when no one would talk to me or my husband about sex while facing cancer.

And I write a lot: I write the blog, “Women in Recovery”, and the books: “Looking for Signs” (A collection of essays) and “Out of the Woods” (about women in Twelve-step recovery), and

recently, “Never Leave Your Dead” (about military trauma and family trauma and redemption).
And I write newspaper columns for the Albany Times Union and many other papers...

But why write at all? Maybe this quote from James Baldwin says just enough about why:

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world…The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter it, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”   (James Baldwin)

Beach Surrender

We went to Cape Cod this weekend. In the morning I go to the beach alone to pray. My favorite beach prayer involves writing the names of each person I’m thinking about on the edge of the shore and watching as the tide comes in and gradually takes those prayers out to sea.

This weekend I wrote the names of all of our family members --his and mine, adults and kids, parents, exes, kids and their spouses too. I wrote his name and my name and the people I work with. It’s a lot of writing and a way of surrendering each person that I love

and even the people that I fuss with in my head.

 I live in the gap between wanting to make a complete surrender, making that surrender for an instant or a moment and then, seeing, even as I walk aback to my car how worry returns and how quickly my tendency to control is already back in my head.

Surrender is such an imperfect process but it is a process. I really do wonder about people who say they made their surrender once and it’s all done. Do they really never worry again? Worry means that I still think I can affect an outcome. Curiosity might be the antithesis of worry. Being able, after surrender, to wonder: “I wonder how God is going to play this one out?”

Maybe this worry of mine too is something I need to surrender.

Over and over I surrender and return. It’s familiar. The ocean’s rhythm: in and out, in and out, washing, soothing, wearing me down. Creating surrender.

Immunotherapy Uses Drugs to Boost Immune System for Cancer

This weekend's New York Times featured the second article by health writer, Denise Grady on the

Denise Grady, New York Times

increasing practice of "Immunotherapy". Currently, an experimental treatment, immunotherapy uses drugs to boost or challenge the patient's own immune system to fight cancer.

Here is the article in this link to the New York Times:

http://nyti.ms/2aRJLQC

Baseball is Back

Baseball season adds another layer to our lives. We both love the game and are able to

teach each other. He knows more about NOW and I know more about THEN. I love the history, and he loves the Yankees. It’s a source of humor, anger, passion and of competition. It’s a source of metaphors too—many of them sexyl --which makes it even more fun.

Here’s to getting to third base, and charging home with a scream and a cheer!

I Remember Waiting

John’s surgery day. I’m at St. Peters Hospital in the waiting room. I watch the other waiters—family members, loved ones of patients. Some are young parents and their little ones are in surgery, some I think wait for an older patient—adult children are the waiters, some, like me, are spouses. 

I get my coffee and read my new Louise Penny book. Inspector Armand Gamache is such

good company here.  Wise and calming.

I am aware of the routine of this room. The docs come out to chat, to give an update, to tell how the surgery went. As they speak to the families in this room I hear joking, “Oh she’s awake—giving us a hard time.” I see the tension relieved. Docs squat or get down on one knee—eye level with family. Never stand over seated family to deliver news. 

But I stand up to stretch and see the row of doors behind me—closed doors, no windows, each one labeled:  2915 Consulting Room (In Use), 2916 Consulting Room (Vacant). And I stand and I stare at those doors.

I remember.

I was 18 years old. Allegheny General Hospital. My father was in Intensive Care. I was in the ICU waiting room with my mother and brothers. Other family members came and went for three days. We sat with other patient’s families for those three long days. I watched the pattern of movement. Even then I was a watcher. 

Sometimes—like here—the doctors came out to the family in the waiting room and talked to them—gave an update, described changes in status. 

But twice I saw the nurse call a family into one of the small private rooms and those families never came back to waiting. Once I saw a family leave the little room. They were standing near the elevator, crying. I knew.

So when, on the third day, they asked our family to step into the small private room, I knew. I knew before my mother did. I knew before the doctor took her hand. I knew before my brother held my arm. 

Today, at St. Peter’s I look at those doors at the edge of the waiting room and I wonder at the collective pain that gathers there. I wonder if it aggregates and if they ever use sage to “clear” the rooms, or if they bless them when they are empty, or maybe sprinkle holy water on the tables where wives and brothers drop their heads in surprise, hurt, shock and grief? I hope they do.

I remember.

Mary Roach-- Still Not Talking About Sex

I’ve been on a Mary Roach reading binge. Her gift is making science accessible and in particular, making squeamish topics understandable and often bringing compassion to those subjects.

Roach has written about diseases and doctors, swallowing, digestion and elimination, and she has a special fondness for corpses. And, as I wrote last week, she writes beautifully and informatively about sex.

As you know, from reading this blog, I am an advocate for the need to make information about sex and physical intimacy available to couples facing cancer. I push and pull, and cajole and occasionally rant. But I have also assumed that, maybe; in other parts of medicine the conversation is more open, more supportive.

But then I read Roach’s new book, “Grunt—The Curious Science of Humans at War,” and

discovered that sex talk is even more restricted in military medical settings. Alas.

In chapter 4 called, “Below the Belt” Roach is visiting Walter Reed Hospital and she is observing and interviewing urogenital specialists who are repairing and caring for veterans who have injuries “below the belt”. These injuries are called urotrauma. Male vets are having penises, testicles, and urethras rebuilt and sometimes recreated. Yes, very specialized and very sensitive work.

So these are mostly combat vets—the ones who risked life and limb (and apparently their genitals, sex lives and reproduction) for the rest of us to live free. So surely they will get the extra help to deal with their urogenital injuries?

But it turns out, no. Or not so much. It seems the squeamishness about sex extends—sadly—to veterans too. It’s especially odd since the diagnostic term is “urogenital sexual injury.” Clearly acknowledging these parts below the belt have duty assignments.

Here is Roach recalling a conversation with nurse manager, Christine DesLauriers: “Its amazing how many (medical providers) are frightened to bring it up.” 

A Marine once said to DesLauriers, “Christine, I’ve had 36 surgeries on my penis, I’ve had my shaft completely reconstructed, and not one dam person told me how I’m going to go home and use the thing on my wife.”

When Roach asked DesLauriers about the divorce rate, she replied: “Divorce rate? How about suicide rate. And what a shame to lose them after they’ve made it back. We keep them alive but we don’t teach them how to live.”

For me, that’s it right there-whether it’s cancer or combat: Keeping them alive but not teaching them how to live. So let’s keep this conversation open and ask for all medical personnel to get real about how to survive and how to thrive. Longevity and sex.

***

And yet more on veterans and trauma in my new book, "Never Leave Your Dead" published by Central Recovery Press.