Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Women

Miracles in the Middle

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I needed to write before I went into my appointment at MD Anderson.  Before I understand more.  Before I know the treatment course. 

I wanted to make sure I capture the miracles. 

Two weeks ago today, my doctor called and said a biopsy found a ductal carcinoma on my right breast. 

In my life, there are before and after moments. 

The first one I remember is at 12.  Before and after my parents divorce.  When the world as I knew it tipped on its axis. 

Before and after marriage, almost 15 years ago.  And world shifting moments since then – before and after infertility, before and after children, before and after Bray’s job loss. 

So here’s another one of those.  In the year of our Lord, 2020. 

In the midst of the news, and the logistics, and  the processing, there have been miracles.  God working in every single moment. 

On Day 1, I spoke with two women who gave me insight into their own personal stories of recent breast cancer and treatment at MD Anderson.  As a result, I went on line that night and filled out a form to get in to see a team there. 

On Day 2, at 8 am, I received a phone call from MD Anderson.  I’d been told it could take months to get in and I should consider seeing other doctors in order to get an evaluation more quickly.  Yet here was this woman on the other end of the line saying she could make appointments for me on what would be Day 11 and Day 12. 

That same evening, a dear friend and mentor of mine introduced me to his friend leading a team at MD Anderson.  He recommended a specific surgeon in the department.  I looked into the team I’d been assigned to see on Day 12 and realized the oncologist is not one that would be who I would ultimately settle on.  He didn’t have the background or experience I was looking for in the oncologist that would be with me through the entire process. 

Meanwhile, my closest friends and family members were praying like crazy.  We had told the children and they had shared with some close friends at school, and teachers, and a few more people began to cover our family in their prayers. 

On Day 3, MD Anderson called again.  I explained that I did not want to lose my appointment but I knew the oncologist I was assigned wouldn’t be a fit.  She said she’d check for the next available team appointment.  The next opening was only ONE BUSINESS DAY LATER, today, and the surgeon on the team was the very one the MD Anderson team lead had recommended.  The same one. 

I said YES PLEASE! Another miracle.

On Day 4, I wrote about the diagnosis here and the gates of Heaven were barraged by the prayers of so many on my behalf. The biggest miracle of all.

On Friday, Day 12, when I went into my first MD Anderson appointment for testing, another miracle.  They repeated the mammograms and ultrasound and noted possible bilateral biopsy.  That was to investigate other areas of concern.  They spent time US-ing my lymphnodes.  When the technician came back, she reported no further areas of concern and I was free to go. 

Let me be clear here.  Everyone has different results.  The fact that my results went one way while another’s come out differently does not reflect anything about their faith or their prayers or their community of support. 

But what is important for my individual story, as I process, is for me to acknowledge the hand of God in every thing that happens.  The big and the small.  The significant and the minute.  Because God is not just a God of the mighty miracles where seas part and the blind see.  He’s a God of the small miracles.  The daily walking around goodness – in open parking spots and appointment availability and test results and friendship. 

People came as God with skin on these past two weeks. 

They prayed.  We had two Tiff’s Treats deliveries and a delicious loaf of homemade bread. 

Five women from law school sent a “treatment tote” with incredibly thoughtful gifts, crowdsourced from their friends who had gone through this before.  Gifts for the children and button front pajamas for me and even a cute tote I could take to every hospital visit and then throw away when I beat this thing. 

Two of my best friends arrived days later with a bag laden with the softest blankets and sweaters and a diffuser with essential oils.  My best friend had the exact same sweater and wore it on Friday as I wore mine.  Solidarity with me on my first visit when she couldn’t be there. 

There’s more.  Every day, there’s more.  Family and friends and God right smack dab in the middle. 

The miracles started even before “Day 1.”  I was supposed to get a mammogram this month.  But in October, one time in the shower, I thought I felt something. I never felt it again.  But it made me call my doctor and get a mammogram a month and a half earlier than usual. 

I was supposed to get the biopsy results on a Friday.  I’d have gone nuts that weekend.  I couldn’t have DONE anything and it would have done us all in.  The boys on their hunting trip and me having to sit still.  Instead, my dear friend had an appointment (scheduled months ago) with my primary care doctor on Monday morning.  She asked her to go find the results and then I got the call.  On Monday.  When I could spring into action. 

Every day was another miracle. The God of the small and the big.

And no matter what they tell me today, no matter what the course of treatment, I serve that very same God. The one who shows up. The one who cares. The one who acts in all things for His good purpose.

The Diagnosis

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I sat at the blank screen for a while on this one.

I’m out of funny asides and nuanced language. 

My best friend left me a vox telling me how to write this post, so I basically went back and listened to it three times to use as a guide. 

Some of you already know this information.  For some of you, this will be a surprise.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Monday. 

I do not have a lot of information. 

All we know right now is that it is Stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma. 

I had a mammogram and ultrasound a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.  They found something “of concern.”  I had a biopsy last Wednesday.  And my doctor called Monday. 

I honestly hadn’t planned on writing here anytime soon.  I wasn’t ready to talk about it. 

But we told the kids at dinner Monday night.  Which will still go down as one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. 

As a part of that, we gave them permission to process it however they needed to.  If they needed to talk with a teacher or friends, then they had my permission to do so.  Or not.  Totally up to each of them.  So they shared with some friends.

And of course we shared with our families and some of my closest prayer warriors.  Then I talked to a few friends who have been through this. 

Which means, it started leaking out.

Since I can’t possibly reach out to everyone that we love and care about to share the news individually, even though I wish I could, I’m writing here.

I’m a little overwhelmed. 

I have triplets to raise and a marriage to foster and a full time job, and none of that stops with this diagnosis. I still need to keep doing those life things. 

So I am sharing what’s happened, and this is where we are. 

I will share parts of this journey here.  Some parts aren’t mine to share. 

I am very grateful for the phone calls and texts and messages and comments.  And most of all, for all your prayers.

I am reading every single one of them, but I’m also not able respond to them all right now. 

I’m also not ready to answer phone calls yet, so if it goes to voicemail know it goes there with great love and thankfulness for your love and support for our family.  My best friend gave me permission not to reply. 

I trust God.

I trust that He will use this for a good purpose. 

He is already at work. 

He is already doing great miracles. 

I will be at MD Anderson with a great medical team on December 18th and 21st.  Please pray for them as well.  Please pray for my husband and my kids.  They are so sad.  But probably in a place where they aren’t ready to talk about it either.

I’m was worn pretty thin by yesterday, just emotionally depleted. But I’m better today – my darling husband took us for the most fun dinner where we sat on the patio and ate great food and laughed. We are still laughing too.  I love you all and am tremendously thankful for you. 

Around the Table

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I have wanted to write about a conversation I had since the second it ended.  It ended two weeks ago.  And it happened around the table.  Only a different sort of table. 

The table of 2020 is Zoom. 

And the conversation was a leadership class meeting. 

Not where you would traditionally encounter authenticity and connection, but boy was it there. 

I’ve had the privilege of serving on the advisory council for the Institute for Energy Law’s Leadership Class this year.  I’ve been a speaker in the past, but this year I’ve actually gotten to work on the team building the curriculum.  This is the space I love to work in the most. 

Deep conversations with young leaders about communicating effectively, building inclusive environments, growing meaningful relationships and resiliency.  It was this last topic that was our monthly theme for October. 

As I led the discussion on resiliency, I shared not only the research on the topic (whatever it’s been called over the years – adaptability, growth mindset, grit, optimism, resiliency…) but also told stories from my own life.  If you are willing to share your own failures and setbacks, people can see a way through their own challenges to building a fulfilling career and life. 

You know it by now.  Parents divorced when I was in middle school, didn’t see my dad for years, lost all our belongings and mom on food stamps until she got a teaching job, went to school on grants and work study, tons of rejections in law school, lost a job after law school, and on and on until you get to me now. 

Plenty of setbacks. 

Well, we had this conversation, intimate and authentic, around a table.  Each of us at a different table, me at my kitchen table, all over Zoom.

Then, this breathtaking thing happened.  We broke into small groups.  Groups facilitated by advisory panel members.  My group had eight people. 

Each sharing their own stories of setbacks and failure in incredibly deeply real and unvarnished words.  Failing tests, abusive workplace, difficult family circumstance, getting fired, moving countries, long tenure without work. 

I could not believe it. 

None of us knew each other. 

This is the place I love to get to with those I meet – the real and deep story behind where they are today.  But usually it takes ages. 

An email came through from another advisory team member, which I didn’t see until afterwards, entitled THIS IS SO GREAT!  “The young leaders in my small group are sharing personal and difficult challenges.  Being very vulnerable. It is awesome.”

When did we get too scared to share our stories? 

When did we become so insecure or fearful or apprehensive that we would be rejected that we stopped telling the where and why of who we are? 

Resiliency is defined as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.  How much fuel would it give us if we knew the true stories of those we see as “heroes?” 

I was listening to Annie Downs That Sounds Fun podcast with Gabe Lyons on the 2020 Election this week and, among other really insightful comments, he said this:

We have quieted ourselves.  We’re not sharing what we really think because we’re concerned the person doesn’t agree with us.  So we back away from having these real substantive conversations, we get really quiet.  15 years ago we’d battle it out, we were okay being wrong, we didn’t mind sharing.  Quieting isn’t good for society.  Share.  You don’t have to do it on social media.  Start saying this is off the record.  The greatest conversations of change happen around the table. 

What conversations should you be having? 

Who should you be encouraging by telling your truest stories? 

What table should you be sitting at? 

You all know I’m a big fan of the table.  I even started a little neighbors table in my front yard a while back because I hungered for these authentic conversations (even if it has been a little unused as of late). 

This is the perfect time for conversations of honesty and resiliency. 

People are lonely.  Disconnected.  Out of sorts. 

Maybe you can have these conversations at your front yard table or at your kitchen table over Zoom. 

But we should all be sitting around the table talking to one another.  Sharing what connects us.  Sharing our failures and setbacks that make us human and make us OVERCOMERS.  

Don’t let an angry election cycle and global pandemic shut down these important conversations. 

Have them.

You be the one to start. 

Go. 

What’s On The Nightstand

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Hello friends!

There’s been a lot of heavy stuff with talking about the pandemic and racial injustice and parenting.

But there is good too and I really wanted to focus on that today.

What tops my good list?

Reading.

Cooking.

Rinse, repeat. 

Today, let’s talk books.  Books, books, and more books.  Fiction and nonfiction. Kids and adult.  I’ll even throw in podcasts!

I love to read, but I wasn’t getting nearly as much read as I had hoped to until the world stopped. 

Because I was curled up in my hidey-hole, I focused on fiction for March – May.  Fiction is my favorite.  Well, good fiction.  I love it so much!

So let me first recommend some of my favorites:  both The Huntress and The Alice Network from Kate Quinn, The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle, The Dutch House by Anne Patchett, and I’d Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos. 

Those last two are some of my favorite modern authors of all time so if you haven’t read them already, start with Run or Bel Canto by Patchett and with Love Walked In by de los Santos. (I also started The Parisians and hated it so much that I promptly stopped after Chapter 3.)

And while it is neither fiction nor a quarantine read, I tell everyone they have to read Educated by Tara Westover – I am still obsessed with this book.

In the nonfiction camp, I was rereading Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist which I love, The Book of Joy by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, and Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. 

I just read nonfiction slower, so I have not finished the last two yet.  (Because I pick up a new fiction book when things slow…)  I do like them both and would recommend. 

For the kids, we are ALL over the map.  I was reading the Harry Potter series out loud to the boys which we all loved, but now we have finished.  Sniff sniff. 

We have started both Artemis Fowl and Gregor the Overlander series together but haven’t finished either of the first books yet.  They are okay.  It’s no Harry Potter.  When we finish both of those, we’re going to read the Lord of the Rings series, and start with The Hobbit.  We’re hoping to find something to carry us away like Potter and his pals.

For little bit, she just does not love to read as much.  When we read together, she likes period fiction or mysteries.  We read several Great Depression era fiction books in the spring and she enjoyed those (like R, My Name is Rachel). 

I went through my mom’s storage unit and we pulled out all my old books.  So I have a huge collection now of Nancy Drew books, including my mom’s original books from the 1950s, so I’m hoping those may grab her attention.  And we’re reading through a Janette Oke series together because she has decided she wants to be a pioneer woman. (Not the chef, a real one, with a covered wagon.)  We’re part way through the Love Comes Softly set, and then will move on to the When Calls the Heart set because the Hallmark series based on the book has utterly captured her imagination. 

As a family, we’ll read Where the Red Fern Grows for 5th grade.  That and Wonder were required reading but we finished Wonder before third grade (and loved it!). 

Now, what’s on my nightstand now? 

I decided after months of fiction, I needed to be thinking about some important issues.  On the issues of racial injustice in our country, I’m reading White Fragility by Robin Diangelo and have Be the Bridge and Between the World and Me up next.  On the issues of parenting tweens, especially focused on technology rules of the road and conversations about their bodies and sex, I’m reading The Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch and Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality by Jim Burns, both loaned to me by one of our ministers, as well as 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter (and companion book for Your Son) recommended by a good friend.  On the faith front, I’m reading The Eternal Current by Aaron Niequist and Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport by Richard Mouw.  (I also have about a half dozen books on the faith front I really want to get to stacked by my nightstand!) On the leadership front, I am reading The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and rereading Plan B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. 

(And I have Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also on my nightstand, because I need at least one fiction book at all times…)

Now that I’m driving again, I’m getting to listen to podcasts again! Hoorah!  I just finished the compelling and eye-opening NPR investigation podcast called White Lies about the murder of a minister in Selma, Alabama during a 1965 civil rights protest.  (If you like this mini podcast format, I also highly recommend The Dropout about Elizabeth Holmes!)  I listen to Elevation to get my sermons from Steven Furtick, but I was also recently introduced to Miles McPherson at The Rock Church and have added him to my playlist. 

I keep Jen Hatmaker and The Daily in the queue, and I listen depending on topic.

For the kids, we are loving Wow in the World with Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz! Little bit has listened to dozens because four out of five days of the week they are super short!  I would really love some more kids podcast ideas! We’re about to try Smash Boom Best because little bit is obsessed with debate.

Okay.

Whew!

And to think I was going to try and combine recipes in this post! 

Cooking is tomorrow! 

And Friday we’ll return with some Fashion Friday after a long hiatus.  I’m back!

28 Days: Day 25, On Winning and Losing

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It was a day for winning and losing.

The boys were in the semi-final round of their basketball bracket. Of course, when they won their game on Saturday, we had to cancel our Mardi Gras dinner plans to make it to their big game on Tuesday (because I only get to do games for 8 more years, a fact I constantly think about).

They knew it would be tight. The opposing team was ranked 1. The boys team was ranked 5.

These games are the best ones because they are close and action packed. The boys team led the first half. But they fell behind in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was back and forth with the five best players on each side playing their heart out.

The clock sounded the end of the game and it was tied, 43-43. In playoffs, overtime is mandatory.

The boys team scored, then the other team. At the end of the first overtime, 45-45. Another overtime was necessary.

All the boys were wiped. Playing hard with each side wanting the victory to head to the championship Saturday. The other team scored. Our team missed the basket. The boys ended their season with a one basket loss and the eldest with a badly jammed pointer finger.

There were tears. They play with their whole heart, one of the things I love so much about them. The players hugged. We talked on the way home. What a way to go out! Isn’t it better to fight well to the very end than get blown out?

Regardless, it still hurt.

On the very same day, I had the opposite result professionally.

I’ve been working incredibly hard over the past couple of months and one of the issues I was working was intense and complex. One possible resolution was a long shot. Small odds of winning but it would completely resolve the big challenge.

And then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, we won yesterday. 3-2. Also close result, just different winner (in our home at least).

I was so excited I actually yelled in my office. Then I called my client and yelled with him. And because it’s sort of a hard thing to explain, I didn’t get the same level of thrill and excitement at home when I reported the news nearly jumping up and down. But for me, it was a good day.

So after the boys game, I came home and opened a very nice bottle of wine I’d been saving for a special occasion. It’s not exactly a parade on Main Street, but a big win is still satisfying.

What I’ve learned is there will be days with big wins or big losses. Days with little wins and little losses. Days with both.

But play hard. Do your best. On the days with losses, let yourself be sad, but then get ready for the next game. On the days with wins, celebrate. You never know when the next one will be.