Thriving Past Cancer: Marine's Journey

Magical Mary By: Marine Yanikian-Sutton The King Arthur legend has captivated me since I was a wee tot. When my friend named her son “Arthur,” I named mine Elyas-one of Arthur’s knights. It wasn’t Gwenavere I wanted to be, it was Morgan le Fay.   What was it about her that caught my attention?   It could have been the long flowing hair, her enchanting approach to life, or even the way Hollywood made her glide over thin air, parting the veil. As an adult, I've come to realize that I am not Morgan and can never be Morgan, but I surely met one of her descendants during this last month. Magical Mary resides in Scotland and she weaves her captivating spells as surely as Morgan wove hers.  Mary Mconnell of Star Therapies , a healer from Scotland, a gift from Liza Baker of Simply Health Coaching, entranced me a few weeks ago and in so doing, healed my soul. Before meeting her, my neuropathy controlled every minute. Pain in my hands and feet deterred...

Hello Mary Jane! By: Marine Yanikian-Sutton My father was a smoker-nicotine. He took long puffs on his Marlboroes, finishing a packet a day sometimes. I'd watch from afar, a book on my lap. Occasionally, when he'd pause to step out of the fumes, I'd beg "Please, papa, please don't keep smoking. You're probably going to die of lung cancer and I don't want that to happen." "We're all going to die of something," he'd say. "But cancer?" I'd ask, "I heard it's horrible and it's all because you're a smoker!" "We're flowers on this planet, daughter. We grow from seeds and blossom into flowers. We share our beauty and then we wilt." "I don't understand!" "You will," he whispered, "You will come to understand that not everything in life is white or black. There are many shades in between." "No," I exclaimed, "I love you, but I wi...

I've always had a love/hate relationship with our Creator. I've felt abandoned and lost regardless of the amazing people he's brought into my life- that is until now. He sent me an angel ten days after my admittance into the hospital. Tall, strong, and glowing, she walked in with the largest of smiles. "Sistah," she exclaimed and gave me the warmest of embraces. She smelled of lilac and spices, endless green pastures, and the freshest of air. Tears burst forth the moment she walked in. She held up a crocheted heart and exclaimed, "I sat up all night, praying and crocheting. All the hope and love I have for you is in this heart." She placed it within reach and I grabbed it as though it were my life jacket. I couldn't speak. I couldn't formulate words of gratitude to match her deed. I was a sponge, and she was the water. "The girls and I miss you very much," she said. At "girls" I lost all control. She became my s...

By: Marine Yanikian-Sutton I was a freshman at USC double majoring in Psychology and English. The Psych professor stood before a hundred of us and held up a rubber band. "What does this represent?" he asked. Silence filled the room. He answered his own rhetorical question. "This is a representation of relationships. Once formed, they need to be flexible. They need to be able to stretch, change, expand, and retract." "What do you mean? If you overstretch it, it will snap," another freshman said. The professor held up a stick and continued, "Exactly. If your relationship can't change over time, if you can't walk down different paths and reconnect when needed, if it is as inflexible as a stick, it will break. That being the case, if you overstretch it, it will snap," with that he snapped the twig which could be heard as far back as the last row. When I met Ryan December of my freshman year I held on to what I had heard  about ...

My Chemo Companion: Shirley the Hell Hound. What might you think about while on death's bed? I thought of the past and the future that I would miss. I thought of my boys and husband.  I categorized all the firsts that would slip by with me not in the picture: graduations dates cars college application acceptance letters serious relationships grandchildren.  This list became my mantra. I couldn't write it down, couldn't bring my hand to lift the pen enough to to do so.  So, I spoke them in my mind's eye. I caressed them with tenderness and shed tears as  I went down the list. I hoped that God and the Universe would recognize that these simple attainable truths should not be denied in life and maybe grant me a pardon? I became encased in thought and wrapped it around me as one would a blanket. Anything could have been on the television screen, and anything was. The Food Network was airing non-stop holiday baking competitions with food I'd forgott...

My nine year old has an old soul. He hides it though and uses jokes to protect himself. We read together, watch old movies, and talk about topics that a nine-year-old should not be thinking about. Our recent adventures are found in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," by Frank Baum. He stopped me last week when we discovered that Oz was a fake and asked, "Why don't they see it mom? Why don't they see that they already possess everything they are looking for?" "What do you mean, my love?" I asked "Well, the lion keeps looking for courage, but he's had it all along." He paused, then continued, "It's like you, when you were in the hospital, you forgot that you had courage. You were the lion!" I gasped. "Talking about my stay in the hospital, what happened to you? You'd come and cower in the corner behind your I-Pad, you wouldn't look at me or talk to me." "I looked," he said. "But w...

December 2016, two days after my surgery, my surgeon, whom I have come to call the Thinker, removed a mass and reconnected me in the oddest of ways. He walked into my room, tall, lanky, confident. "How's my favorite patient today?" he asked. "Upset.  Doc, you forgot to sew me up!" I muttered. "We don't sew people up anymore.  We leave them open so that they can close from the inside out.  It's supposed to decrease the chance of infections." "And how am I supposed to go on with my life while I have this enormous gash in me?" "One day at a time," he said.  Then as an afterthought, he asked, "Why are you still in bed?" "You just operated on me?" I quipped back. "You've been lying here for almost a week.  You need to get up and moving." "What do I do if this hole you've left ajar splits open and my insides all fall out? My stomach?  Intestines?" "Lucky for yo...