Adventures with Scars

On today's episode, Lauren sits down with mom, wife, and hula dancer Rachelle Jenio. Listen as Rachelle shares her story of living with Metastatic Breast Cancer for the last 6 years and how she is dealing with the fear, isolation and broken identity. She also shares about how her and her husband decided to keep her diagnosis mostly private for the first few years. Grab a cup of coffee and hang out and enjoy meeting Rachelle, you won't regret it.

Lauren's guest for this episode is Christina McAmis. Christina had just had a daughter, was enrolled in law school and about to be married when she found out she had Stage 4 breast cancer. That was nine years ago, her story is a miracle, take a listen and be inspired. 

We are so excited to begin our second season of Adventures with Scars! This season Lauren will be interviewing AMAZING guests and digging into their stories of the cancering life and their experiences with the emotional side effects of cancer. Come for the stories, stay for the inspiration, you won't be disappointed. 

In this episode, Lauren has a conversation with co-survivor, Shirley Padgett. Lauren has  known Shirley  for five years,  two of her daughter's had Shirley as their second-grade teacher and she is loved by all. 

She and her husband Steve loved each other and lived well!  They traveled and celebrated life. They also served others in and out of their careers. Her husband's service to our community as a firefighter caused his terminal cancer.  Shirley joins Lauren on the podcast to honor his legacy and share the heart of a co-survivor.

Season 2 of Adventures with Scars opens up with a conversation between Lauren and Katie Harris, a young metastatic mother who participates in Leslie's Week.  Katie became familiar with Adventure Therapy  when Lauren spoke at Stage4Change, a conference hosted by Leslie's Week. 

Katie realized, when in preparation for sharing her story at this year's Stage4Change event, she found herself writing more than 40 pages!  She realized she had a lot to say. With this new personal revelation she reached out to Lauren and is boldly sharing her story with us on this episode.

Giving back should look different for everyone because we are all unique! Giving back doesn't need to be about giving money to a cause. Funding is always helpful, but your presence is infinitely more helpful, giving back means using when is uniquely you for the sake of someone else.

In this episode, Lauren will talk about this season in the healing process, which is where one can be considering the options for giving back. Once survivors work on moving through the trauma, the void, and the restoration process, we live with resilience. We have done hard things and have become stronger and more focused because of cancer. It is time to use what we know to help make the path a little easier for someone else. 

This episode Lauren talks all things restoration. Restoration is a beautiful opportunity. It is the gift of cancer. Once our life has been swept clean by the fires that are a cancer diagnosis and a cancer treatment, then we sit in the void of our damaged talents and broken dreams, then we begin to dream for a restoration. During this phase of survivorship, an individual can see their strengths, post cancer;, a survivor can be honest about their weaknesses, post-cancer. 

This season of restoration is a time to rebuild. It is a place for those who can see if future beyond where they are now. It is a place to encourage others to chase a new vision, even though it currently lives in a delicate balance. Restoration is a season of joy. It is a season to be celebrated. Take a listen and let us know what you think.
www.adventurefound.org
www.risefound.org 

In this episode Lauren talks about the season after the void which is a fragile, tender season of growth. The painful experiences of cancer are in the past, but uncertainty still hangs in the air. There are many low moments as we first feel raw even in the slightest shifts in the wind, but there are other moments where we feel our strength rising. It is time for us to begin to design our new identity with the strengths and weaknesses we have today. Growth is a season where we learn to live with uncertainty. 

The best way to minimize fear after cancer is to stop looking backward. Use this season to begin to look ahead. Who do you want to be? What do you want to become? As you start to invest your thoughts on questions based on the potential of your life, you will become less and less focused on the questions around the trauma of cancer.

The Void is the first season of survivorship that occurs in the first year after treatment. During treatment, all your strength focuses on surviving. Moving through your treatment calendar and recovering is all you can do. Then, one day, you ring the bell and get a certificate of completion. Someone declares treatments are over, and you are now “a survivor.” You walk out of the door of the cancer center and look at the parking lot, and wonder what comes next. This question, this uncertainty of the next step, is the beginning of the void. The first year after treatment is a time of realization. Since you heard the words, “you have cancer,” your mind has been in crisis mode. Now, for the first time, you can stop and take inventory of what a survivor’s life feels like. 

This is the most challenging moment of the cancer experience. 

In this episode, Lauren takes us through the VOID and shares how she believes to best navigate it and not to just rush through it, but to allow it to unfold in it's own timing as your life goes back to a new normal.

When mountains are on fire, you can smell it from 100s of miles away. Smoke fills the air and erases the horizon. Ash falls from the sky, and even the best moments are covered in a layer of someone else’s hopes that no longer exist.

When a terminal diagnosis surrounds you, your dreams are fluttering around those who are allowed to live. When your life is on fire, the mountains of your life are burning out of control, your mind is filled with smoke created by your former expectations, and everything is working together to choke you. It is hard to live among those who are not fleeing for their own life. It is difficult to see life as others see it. It is nearly impossible to engage in conversation or interaction that doesn’t desperately squeeze the life out of every moment.

In this episode, Lauren shares about her Mountains on Fire time and the healing that had to take place through it that affected not only her, but also her family.