Read an Excerpt
A New Beautiful: Overcoming Life's Obstacles
Ordinary Women, Sharing Extraordinary Stories
By Jennifer Pullara AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Pullara
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-2357-6
CHAPTER 1
Life Chapters
When someone dies there is a cause of death. But the real challenge in life is identifying the cause of life. How do you learn how to live?
Life is constructed of chapters, never knowing how long an episode will last makes planning for the future nearly impossible. Life, when left alone, takes care of itself. Nature is complex, yet so beautiful. Human influence brings chaos to nature. But whom do we choose to be? A part of nature or a human with free will to choose? Are things ever totally in our control? Or are they ever totally out of our control?
I think the purpose of life is to be happy. But the question is: How do I create happiness? Happiness is love, a joyful spirit ... which lies within one's heart and soul. But only I can create happiness for myself. If I know this then why does a part of my heart feel cold and sad? What do I have to do to awaken my inner spirit? Or does that spirit lie in the past and it is time for a new spirit, a new chapter in my life to begin? When I choose a new plan, when I embrace my emotions, when I conquer a tribulation ... a New Beautiful chapter begins ... happiness returns.
CHAPTER 2
Trusting My journey
My husband, Pete and I returned from a doctor's visit to find my brother in my back garden crying. My brother is not the crying type. Besides the crying, my brother has this very distinct look on his face when he is upset and it is seared into my memory. I've only seen it two other times in my life. The first was in third grade when we witnessed a classmate get fatally hit by a car. The second was the day my father's doctor told us that his lung cancer was no longer treatable. The third time was now. I want to erase the news and make it all better. I need him to know that I will be okay.
Rolling into the restroom with my IV pole, I am the center of attention at chemotherapy. I am a freak of nature - One breast, no hair and eight months pregnant for the first time. I hate the looks of pity. In my estimation the worst part of having breast cancer is the attention. The looks of sympathy, the whispering behind your back, the glances down toward your breasts wondering if you've had reconstruction. It's really depressing and I just want it to go away. So many questions about life within me – life without me.
As a social worker my job is to help others. I don't like attention or focus on me. I would always prefer to hear about another person and their life rather than to talk about me. I work in an elementary school and as far as I'm concerned, I have the best job in the universe. I get to help children and families with issues that might interfere with learning. When I was first diagnosed one of my earliest fears was how I would continue to work. At the time, I worked in a very close knit elementary school. My fear was that as soon as the staff knew I was sick they would never come to me asking for help for their students. I would sit in an empty quiet office waiting for students just thinking about cancer. For me, maintaining normalcy was paramount and I decided that I needed to keep my cancer a secret. I would tell a few select trustworthy friends but maintain privacy about my health from the rest of the staff and school families.
In early September, after my diagnosis, surgery and two months of chemo, I returned to school. I was six months pregnant. Most of the staff did not know I was pregnant when I left in June so the focus upon my return would be my big belly and my joyous news. Maybe no one would notice my wig, pale face, dark circles and lack of energy. Most of those symptoms could easily be attributed to pregnancy, right? All I had to do was get to December. Then I would go out on maternity and no one at work would ever know. As I left for work that first day back I stopped for a quick visit to the bathroom to be sick. This was not due to pregnancy or chemo. I was a nervous wreck about the wig on my head.
I told exactly four people at work. All were good friends who were supportive and loving with not an ounce of pity. They supported me and kept my secret. They protected me and made sure they kept my cover.
September to December was a blur. I was busy working, maintaining my cover and slipping out side doors to get to chemo in the city on time. The chemo was not as bad as Lifetime T.V. predicted it to be. I was not sick but I did suffer from insane constipation, numb fingers, fatigue, dehydration, black fingernails, anemia and short intense spans of grief which would dissipate as quickly as they came on. Oh and not to forget the heart palpitations that my husband could hear across the room. While most people gasp when they hear of a pregnant person with cancer I have to say being pregnant made it easier in a lot of ways. I had focus and purpose. I had to get better so I could care for this baby. I would push selfish thoughts about myself from my mind and instead focus on this baby that would need my attention and love.
Toward the end of my pregnancy I found out that someone had heard about my illness and told my principal and staff. At first I was angry but now I realize that the person who told must have had a greater need for attention and gossip than my need to maintain privacy.
Scarlett Jean arrived on December 30th 2003. A picture perfect doll with a perfectly rounded rosy face. Every specialist confirmed she was perfectly healthy with no impact from the chemo. The final scar left from an uphill battle. A good scar, a great scar. My Scarlett.
A year after my ordeal I was ready to move on. I had hair again. And when the scars were covered by clothing, the reconstruction looked pretty decent. I had every intention of having more children but chemo had really messed with my cycle and overall health. After a fertility doctor told me that I was in full blown menopause past the point of no return, I left his office in tears. I had to have more children. I couldn't imagine life for Scarlett without siblings. A big family was important to my husband and me. My brother was my closest friend growing up and my husband has nine siblings.
After a lot of late nights on the Internet looking up "fertility after cancer" and adoption websites, I had a plan. I had found a book that talked about all natural methods of ensuring health and getting pregnant.
My husband giggled when I told him my plans: acupuncture, herbs, a trip to Texas (to have a consult with the author), meditation and a major diet change. No processed foods. No white sugar. No alcohol. No dairy. I would eat fruits, vegetables, unprocessed whole grains and lean all natural meats and fish. He laughed because he knows me. Because I was always naturally thin, I ate whatever I wanted in my twenties. Chocolate donuts for breakfast with a glass of whole milk, a bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries for lunch and a rich dinner complete with cream sauces, gravy, pasta and of course I never missed dessert. I'm not sure if I ate any vegetables at all during my twenties. This "gift" of being thin also led me to believe that I was healthy. A cruel trick – just because you look healthy does not mean you are healthy. "One year," I told him. I would give it one year. What's one year of giving up my favorite foods? My backup plan was adoption. I would start the ball rolling for adoption and see which happened first. After a year I would have a baby or adopt one.
As with every plan and/or crisis in my life my husband, Pete was there supporting me and cheering me on. It isn't every man in the world who could make you believe you are beautiful even with a bald head, scars on a good portion of your body and reconstructed breasts ... but my husband somehow did. I am a lucky woman.
Five years before being diagnosed with cancer I started in a doctoral program in Social Welfare. My dissertation, like all dissertations was a tremendous amount of stress. Anyone who has completed the daunting task of writing a dissertation knows that it is ping pong match between you and your academic advisor. You write a draft, pass to them and they hand it back with notes and revisions. This dance continues for years and this is after completing a pretty intense and thorough load of course work. It is a process over which a student has very little control. It involves a lot of waiting for professors to get back to you. My plan was to hand back drafts and revisions so that I would not have work hanging over my head. I could take charge and speed up the lofty process. It was my way to try to take control of a difficult task and help it to be over quickly. My advisor would often complain that I had the draft returned so quickly for her to read and revise again.
I mention this dissertation and my diet together for a reason. Everyone asks you "Is it genetic? – Do you have any family history of breast cancer?" It's human nature to look for cause and effect. I don't know why I got cancer, but I truly believe it was the combination of stress and poor diet. Toxins enter everyone's body all the time. My body was not able to deal with the toxin of stress because I gave it no ability to fight. I did not feed it the nutrients it needed to fight the battle. I also had no emotional ability to fight it. I had no relaxation techniques. My acupuncturist once told me not to flatter myself thinking I had so much more stress in my life than other people. She reminded me that I had no ability to cope with the stress. It is your job to give your body the physical and emotional tools to deal with stress.
So while I completely learned a new way to live, I worked on my packet for the adoption agency. I collected letters from loving friends, had a home study done by a social worker, and started to write our family profile for prospective birth mothers to choose from. This task along with my new diet, acupuncture, meditation and one year-old Scarlett kept me pretty busy.
Meditation was the most difficult prescription the doctor gave. I adjusted to my new diet and the headaches I suffered from my white sugar addiction faded. I felt great. My head was clear and my body felt like it was working so energetically. But stopping to meditate during my new mother days was difficult. When Scarlett napped I forced myself to go in my room, shut the door and spend 25 minutes alone with peaceful thoughts. After weeks of struggling to push out the mental list filled with laundry, food shopping, house projects and really focusing on giving my mind and body a complete break, I was finally able to meditate and relax.
About a month after this new regimen I noticed that every ounce of baby fat was gone and I was amazed at how lean I was. I was the thinnest I had been since college. This was unexpected but gave me the feeling that I had some sort of proof that I was making a change. Two months after that I was no longer in menopause and two months after that I dropped to the bathroom floor in tears of gratitude upon seeing the positive pregnancy test. Since then I have had three healthy babies.
It is politically incorrect to talk about God these days. People think you are a Holy roller, a weirdo, against science, or a follower of silly rules. I don't care. I prayed on my knees for God's grace begging for more children and continued good health. I never stopped asking. While I was pregnant and going through the chemotherapy I would ask God to protect my baby and would picture a shell like substance around my baby. I would visualize how God was keeping this baby safe from the drugs only allowing healthy nutrients and love to slip into the womb. I knew that God was keeping this baby safe for me. While trying to conceive after the chemotherapy, I knew that my prayers would be answered even if they were adjusted to God's plan for me and my journey to come.
After a very long road, I have learned to focus on the positive, take care of my physical and mental health, enjoy the moment, be thankful and to trust my journey.
And so I became a New Beautiful.
CHAPTER 3
Religion Divides, Love Unites
In December 2012, my boyfriend and I went to visit his parents. While many couples in their late twenties spend time with each other's parents, this was no ordinary visit. For one, we were traveling to Dubai, an almost daylong journey from the West Coast of the United States, where I was living at the time. Secondly, this was the trip where Faisal was going to tell his parents that we were dating seriously and planning to get married. Although a visit such as this might likely be filled with joy and celebration, ours was one of anxiety and trepidation. While in much of the Western world it is a "tradition" in heterosexual relationships that the man "asks" the woman's parents for their "permission" to marry their daughter, in our case, we had to beg for his parents' approval of our impending cross-cultural, cross-religious union. This trip was the longest and most emotionally tumultuous eight days of my life.
Faisal grew up in a traditional Muslim household in India. His parents – and his extended family – are deeply religious people who pray the requisite five times each day and endeavor to live their lives piously. In India, in both Hindu and Muslim households, parents arrange most marriages. Nowadays, the prospective bride and groom do not meet at the altar, but rather their parents set them up and they date for a few months before getting married. In Faisal's family, many of the couples (including his parents) had arranged marriages, as is customary. A few of his older cousins had "love marriages" – as this type of non-arranged union is called – but they had all chosen their spouses from within their Indian Muslim community. Faisal's sister wanted to marry an Indian Muslim man she met while in college in the U.S., but he was part of a different sect of Islam than Faisal's family, and he had a traditional Hindu name (as his mother was raised Hindu but converted to Islam when she married his father). In order for this wedding to be acceptable, he had to convert to Faisal's family's sect of Islam, and the family wanted him to change his name to a traditionally Muslim name. While he did not change his name, this marriage – which did take place – was considered scandalous in Faisal's family, for his sister had married outside of their community. To Faisal's family, marriage and religion are not just personal decisions and preferences, but sharing a religion is an important aspect of being part of the Muslim community, particularly as Muslims are a marginalized minority in India. Marrying someone from within the community is not only a matter of religious beliefs, but also a matter of cultural practices. In short, I came as a complete shock to Faisal's family.
I grew up in the Midwestern U.S. in a nominally Protestant household. My sisters and I were baptized and confirmed, and we attended a private Episcopalian school. While we celebrated Christmas and Easter growing up, my family was not religious. My Episcopalian school was very liberal, and our weekly chapel services often incorporated traditions from many faiths, such as Judaism, the Bahá'í Faith, and traditional Native American religions. I was taught to be open and accepting of others, especially those who were different than me. This was not necessarily grounded in the Christian principles of love and acceptance but more so in an ethical conviction to treat others how I wanted to be treated and to respect people's individual and cultural differences. In my extended family, as is typical of many mainline Protestant Americans, everyone had "love marriages," and while most of my family members got married in a church and had a religious service, most of them are not particularly religious. Incidentally, my oldest sister had become very religious at the end of high school and ended up marrying a fellow Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christian from the South. My middle sister had fallen in love with her high school sweetheart, who happened to be a Catholic man from a small town in southern Germany. My parents and extended family accepted both of my sisters' husbands openly, only caring that my sisters were happy, not that these men's religious views differed from their own. To them, marriage is an individual decision, and it is not within the parents' purview to intercede in that decision. How two people work together to shape their marriage and family life is up to the individual couple and is less dictated by community norms.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A New Beautiful: Overcoming Life's Obstacles by Jennifer Pullara. Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Pullara. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
