You have exactly five minutes to get to work and you discover a major traffic tie-up along the freeway.

You see the orange pylons, freeway insurance, and suddenly realize that you are stuck in a construction zone. The stress of being late for work seems overwhelming.

Or, perhaps it’s 5:30 p.m. and you’re rushing to pick your four-year-old up from day care.

A car suddenly veers in front of you and you have to slam on the brakes. You barely avoid an accident. Again, your stress level is rising and you’re finding it difficult to cope.

In today’s world, driving is a major cause of stress. Many of us spend countless hours stuck in traffic jams. There seem to be more cars on the road than ever before.

In many American cities,, freeway insurance, traffic problems are a major public safety issue. And, at times, it might seem as if drivers are less courteous than they’ve ever been.

Another source of stress is the care and maintenance of your vehicle. You have to worry about paying insurance costs, inspection fees, rising gas prices, and basic maintenance bills. The financial stress involved in keeping a car on the road can seem tremendous.

Also, you might be saddled with a car that has constant break-downs, freeway insurance, . If you feel as if your car is not secure, it can be quite a stressful experience.

For parents, chauffeuring children can be quite a stressful time. You, freeway insurance, might have to referee fights between children as you drive. Or you might have to find innovative ways to keep children occupied during long commutes.

Keeping children well-fed in the car can also be quite stressful. In desperation, you might pull into a drive-thru, where the wait seems intolerable.

Driving stress is a fact of modern life. There will always be potholes, discourteous drivers, cranky passengers. You will inevitably encounter traffic jams on your way to work, to the store, or to school.

There will always be times when you grip the wheel, wondering whether you’ll be able to make it.

While you cannot eliminate, freeway insurance, the stress of the road, there are ways to curtail it. For instance, you might consider investing in some restful CDs. Classical music can be quite soothing on a difficult driving day.

Or you might like to listen to a CD of nature sounds as you are trying to negotiate your way through traffic.

If you don’t have a CD player, cassette tapes are another possibility.

Also, if you cannot afford to purchase tapes or CDs at a record store, consider purchasing them at a yard sale or church bazaar. You can even borrow tapes and CDs from your local library.

You’ll find that you’re better able to handle the stress of driving with, freeway insurance, some pleasant sounds emanating from your car stereo.

Another thing you might consider is changing your route. If you inevitably end up in traffic jams on the freeway, consider using residential streets instead.

While you might find that your commute time is longer, you might also discover that your, freeway insurance, stress is reduced considerably when your route is changed.

Another technique that many drivers use is to start out five to ten minutes earlier than they, freeway insurance, need to. That way, you don’t have to operate under such a time crunch.

Those five or ten minutes can make quite a difference to your daily commute.

In addition, you might enjoy having those extra minutes to yourself once you arrive at school or at work.

Driving is a necessary, freeway insurance, daily chore for most of us. The trick is to make it as enjoyable as possible in order to lessen our stress levels. Investing in a comfortable seat cushion,, freeway insurance, freeway insurance, or a relaxing back rest can do wonders for our frame of mind.

Singing or whistling in the car can be another effective stress-reducer. Playing games with your children—such as trying to spot out-of-state license plates—can, freeway insurance, be yet another effective stress-reducing technique.

Chances are you will not be able to reduce your stress level overnight. Many of us have become quite used to stress on the road. However, by trying to make our trips as pleasant as possible, we can go a long way to lessening driving-induced stress.

Source: articledashboard.com

No, the history I want to write about is microhistory, i.e., MY history. Specifically, I wish to analyze, evaluate and discuss my recent struggle with cancer, and its meaning and consequences, if such may be found in that experience.
The B.C. to which the title refers is Before Cancer (or Before Chemo, if you like) and the A.D. stands for After Deconstruction. Those concepts and their respective meanings will take up the bulk of this essay.

But first, the salient facts: on February 28, 2005, just after my family’s return from a ski trip in Lake Tahoe, I woke up at about 2:00 a.m. with an unstoppable case of the hiccups, followed by an attack of almost unbearable abdominal pain. An ambulance took me to the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital, where the doctors diagnosed a “perforation or hole in my stomach,” perhaps caused by an ulcer.

They needed to operate immediately in order to save my life, but hoped that the surgery could be done laproscopically, so as to be minimally invasive. As the anesthesia was administered (for which I was deeply grateful), I could not have known that everything up to that, lake tahoe homes for sale
, point was, for me, B.

C.
A day or two later (my memory is still somewhat hazy on the chronology of this period), when I was still heavily drugged, but able to speak and concentrate, I was told what the rest of my family already knew:, lake tahoe homes for sale
, that I had a poorly differentiated stomach cancer, known as linitus plastica, a cancer which, oddly enough, is more common in the young, and most prevalent in Japan.

The cancer had been removed, as had my lymph nodes, and the lab testing was underway, with the results to be forthcoming in a few days. Just a few years earlier, my beloved father-in-law had died of stomach cancer, so I suppose I could be forgiven for some lack of optimism at that moment.
My recovery from the surgery (which was not only non-laproscopic, but required, in fact, the removal of every millimeter of my stomach, and the attachment of my esophagus directly to my intestines) was surprisingly quick and quite satisfactory, but as I was about to be discharged from the Hospital, my surgeon informed me that the lab work had confirmed his worst fears: that the cancer had infiltrated my lymph nodes and that, although he had removed all of them, the chances of metasticization were great.

He informed me that my life expectancy without treatment was about three months, and that, with aggressive treatment, I might make it for as much as two years (although he had rarely seen that). In so many words, he suggested that I put my affairs in order and prepare myself emotionally for the journey from, lake tahoe homes for sale
, which there is no return (with all due respect to my believing Christian brethren, even He whom they believe DID return, stayed, lake tahoe homes for sale
, only for a short visit).

This conversation with my surgeon marked the beginning of my A.D. experience. It is an experience, I expect, more or less common to anyone who has been told that he or she has a fatal disease, and it forces one to contemplate not only death (indeed, for me, that was the easy part), but more importantly, a world and a future, in which he or she will have no part. Suddenly, and without warning, I found myself crying.

Not about dying. Not about suffering. Somehow, those things did not seem real, or tangible, or even important to me. But rather, what I found devastating was the prospect of not being able to visit colleges with my younger daughter, as I had done with my older one; of not being able to dance (and, as importantly for me, to pontificate) at my daughters’ weddings; of not being able to attend my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah in Israel (then ten months in the future).

And finally, of not being able to visit all those places all over the world which my wife and I had promised one another we would get to someday.
All of these considerations are deconstructing, to be sure. The prospects I mentioned were daunting to face, but, oddly enough, strangely liberating at the same time. Everyone…my friends, family, colleagues and law partners told me not to worry about anything, other than getting well.

I seized onto that and instantly felt freed from the shackles of my career, the need to pursue professional success and earn money (I was, later on, to pay dearly for this extended holiday from reality). My wife and I, together with my brother-in-law, who had (God bless him) flown in from Israel at the drop of a hat and a few close friends, had begun some surreal discussions of emergency estate planning, including the desirability of an immediate sale of our home, the creation of various insurance trusts, and the like.

My older daughter had been asked to fly home from college without being told why. My younger daughter, not generally being given to displays of emotion had, I was told, been crying into her pillow for several nights straight. My wife put up a brave front—she is, after all, an Israeli—but was plainly devastated. The rest of my family members, my mother, brother, sister, aunt, cousins, together with my family, by marriage, in Israel and their respective families, reacted as one would expect: with varying degrees of worry, disbelief and fear.

In the meantime, I was, mercifully, functioning on a copious supply of, lake tahoe homes for sale
, opiates, to deaden the post-surgical pain. It worked some benefit on my psychic pain, as well, and I was able, through the haze, to become inured to the idea that I was about to embark upon a fight for my life in which, it seemed at the time, I was unlikely to prevail.
People visited me both at the hospital, and later, during my convalescence at home, in droves.

I simply do not know how I could have coped without the support of my family and friends, both here and in Israel, and in particular, the support of friends and people whom I took to be mere acquaintances from my synagogue, Kehilath Jeshurun, in New York, together with its professional staff of Rabbis and others who visited, called, wrote and prayed for me. Cousins in Chicago sent out e-mails to their yeshiva friends to put my Hebrew name on their mi-shebeirach (prayer for the sick) list, and my daughter’s Chabad Rabbi in Buffalo, together with my own Rabbi in New York, Haskel Lookstein, still pray for me regularly.

I cannot even imagine how anyone gets through an experience like this alone, yet I know that people do. Part of the deconstructing experience was the realization, not only of how much I meant to people, in a way of which I was completely unaware, but of how much they meant, and still mean, to me. The support of this myriad of people has had a salutary effect on me, in that I try to take friends and family less for granted.

After much research, both by me, and by friends and family members, I began to interview oncologists, and narrowed the field down to two. Both reviewed my files and ran tests on me and, to my surprise, and immeasurable relief, advised me of their strong disagreement with my surgeon’s prognosis. They agreed that, although my type of cancer was serious and, indeed, life-threatening, the surgery, coupled with an aggressive treatment of chemotherapy and radiation gave me good reason to hope for a complete recovery.

After deconstruction comes reconstruction. I underwent the recommended treatments, and, 14 months A.D., am, as far as my tests, lake tahoe homes for sale
, can determine, cancer-free. I attended my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah in Israel this past January, and have taken my daughter to various college visits. As to whether I will dance at my daughters’ weddings, or take the “Grand Tour” of the World with my wife, well, that’s very much in God’s hands, on a great many levels.

I do, lake tahoe homes for sale
, not, and cannot know whether I have beaten this thing, but I do know that if there is more adversity, lake tahoe homes for sale
, to come from this disease, that I mean to go down fighting.
The difficulty, lake tahoe homes for sale
, now, lies not only in being vigilant about a return of my disease. That is, of course, self-evident. The trick is to take from this experience the lessons it has afforded me about priorities, and to live those lessons.

Easier said than done. The path of least resistance, of course, now that the immediate threat has receded, is to go back to old patterns of B.C. thinking, which focused on making money and engaging in material pursuits: A nice house, nice car, nice clothes, expensive vacations, etc. My personal relationships, B.C. were certainly important to me, but as, lake tahoe homes for sale
, much (I am somewhat embarrassed to say) out of a chronic and childish need to be loved, admired and approved of, as out of more altruistic motivations.

A.D., I still like nice material things. If anything, I am now more interested in nice clothing as, at 165 lbs., (80 lbs. less, lake tahoe homes for sale
, than my all-time high) I have the physical attributes to look much better than before in off-the-rack outfits. But I would like to think that my love of things material is somewhat more in perspective now. I approach those desires more in a carpe diem sort of way, than as goals in and of themselves.

As for my personal relationships, I try to appreciate my family and friends more. I do not always succeed, as my wife, above all, will attest to. Reconstruction, after all, (particularly MY reconstruction) is very much a “work in progress.” But I keep in touch (e-mail makes that extremely easy), and have grown much closer to some people whom I have known for most of my life. I find myself in the synagogue on a daily basis.

Many around me don’t understand what they see as something of an obsession, but for me, it suffices that I understand; I NEED to have a daily conversation with the Almighty, both to thank him for my recovery to date, and to ask for its continuation. Moreover, it is a mechanism for seeking the well-being of my family, my friends, the Jewish People, my Country, the State of Israel and humankind, all of which have now seemingly become infinitely more, lake tahoe homes for sale
, important to me.

I don’t know of anywhere else where one can hope (or dare) to place so tall an order.
I am working hard to rebuild my professional, lake tahoe homes for sale
, life. My illness and resultant inability (or unwillingness) to focus much on being a lawyer for the better part of Year 1, A.D., cost me, and I need to redouble my efforts just to get back to where I was. I mean to do that,, lake tahoe homes for sale
, and quite a bit more.

Luckily, I have recently joined a firm, in which a number of the partners are old friends, supportive, professional, and understanding. I have no doubt that I will land on my feet. Also, luckily, I am very good (I apologize, lake tahoe homes for sale
, for the immodesty, but this is truth time) at what I do. My clients, and potential clients will be well-served by me, and will be lucky to have me representing them.

So, can cancer actually be good for you? It seems a flippant, and ultimately, perhaps, a stupid question. But the answer, I think, is that it can be, provided, of course, that it’s the kind you can recover from. That’s obvious. What is less obvious is the beneficial qualities of the lesson or lessons one can take from such an experience. I can attest, of course, only to my own experiences. I now celebrate a second “birthday” on February 28, the dividing line between B.

C. and A.D.
Even the most fleeting glimpse of the Angel of Death can teach us something about priorities, if we are observant enough to learn the lesson, and are wise enough to “walk the walk” on an ongoing basis. May God grant me both the strength and the perspective.
Warren R. Graham
Copyright 2006
Warren R. Graham is a New York attorney with the Firm of Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner LLP. He is a frequent writer on a variety of topics, including legal matters, political and religious affairs.

His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of his firm or its members. Additional information on him may be found at http://warrenrgraham.blogspot.com

Source: articleage.com

With the burst of adrenaline associated with these situations, my mind was as clear in that moment as it would ever be. It was euphoric, enlightening and appeared to me (and still does) that I function at my coherant best when facing a “fight or flight” situation. So naturally, I put myself in these situations, canyon lake homes
, more and more. I did a lot of bad. Sometimes I got caught but mostly I got away with it.

For that instance of adrenaline and endorphine rush, I was the smartest, fastest, canyon lake homes
, and coolest, canyon lake homes
, person on the face of this earth and I was untouchable. Or so I thought.
I wasn’t untouchable the evening I spent the night at a friends house, sometime during my 5th grade year and decided that at 3 in the morning we would take his fathers keys and drive his car around Lackland Air Force Base.

Unfortunately for us we passed an MP without our lights on. He waved at us to stop but we plowed ahead, right into a large metal, canyon lake homes
,, canyon lake homes
, dumpster. We opened our doors and fled only to be caught and arrested for joyriding. We were only 10 years old. Needless to say my ass looked like that of a baboon for a few days and I was grounded until the next winter solstice.

It was clear then to my parents that I needed more than baseball and school to occupy my time. My violent outbursts at home as well as at school resulted in excessive paddling and many instances of “running away.” Typically, I would disappear for about an hour or two, canyon lake homes
, . Sometimes longer. Once it was for 3 months. On more than one occasion I threatened suicide and was even found (as I had planned) hanging by my neck from the clothes rack in my closet by my mother.

She slapped me across the head, told me dinner was ready and I lived another day. I never seriously attempted to leave this plane but I’ve never really found it very comfortable living here either.
They enrolled me into piano lessons, arts and crafts, boyscouts, sunday school and church. I went to summer camp, winter camp, baseball camp. All to no avail. Baseball was a given. A ritual necessity for the whole family.

But as in all other aspects of my life that too saw the best and worst of me. I was prone to games of brillance, followed by horrendous play. I threw bats, got into fights, was thrown out of games and even disciplined right on the field for my impulsive, angry outbursts. It was a viscious cycle of violence, followed by incredible affection (guilt perhaps). Of a heavenly peace one minute and Damian the next.

While perusing the youth center one day I stumbled across a martial arts class in progress. Not permitted to enter the dojo I sat just outside, watching the syncopated movements, the rapid strikes and kicks and the unison chants of “Ki aye”. The sensei, a portly and short man, who wore a thick beared and had piercing blue eyes, made his way in and around the class as they continued their lesson.
Mark Nichols always spoke in Japanese when speaking to his class.

Discipline, it was, canyon lake homes
, immediately apparent to me, was the key to success as a martial artist as well as in life, as my parents tried so desparately to show me. I knew in an instant that I would be standing in the next class.
Over the next 4 yrs I would dedicate myself to Mark Nichols and the “Bushido School of the Japanese Martial Arts.” The style was Kobodo-jitsu with an emphasis on combat and weaponry.

I immediately became a wiz with the nunchaku and progressed rapidly earning my green belt within 2 years. I also racked up quite a few trophies for placing in weapons kata and kumite (fighting). The pinacle came when I placed 3rd in kumite at the US Amateur Karate Championship in Houston at age 13 in my division. A few hours later I was inches from falling 13 stories from the roof top of our hotel in downtown Houston.

Needing an adrenaline fix I took the elevator to the top floor and made my way, canyon lake homes
, to the stairs which opened up high on the rooftop of our hotel. Followed closely by an entourage of kids I made my way to the edge and looked over just as a mysterious gust of wind thrust me forward leaving me flapping my arms in reverse as fast as I could, at a 45 degrree on the ledge of the enormous hotel.

Then I was pulled back by one of the assistant instructors, who was no older than I. I lay on the deck of the roof for what seemed an eternity. I thought my heart was gonna spring from my chest like “Alien”. I believe I cried for a few minutes and made my way downstairs to the safety of my hotel room., canyon lake homes
, Or so I thought.
Mark Nichols took me under his wing almost immediately. We went everywhere together.

He taught me about respect, discipline and self-control. He lectured me about obeying my parents. He even threatened me. He stayed in close contact with my parents and kept them, canyon lake homes
, abreast of my training and behavioral issues. Mom and Dad were immediately, canyon lake homes
, impressed and noticed a change within the first months of, canyon lake homes
, training. They both remember this period as some of the most peaceful and productive of my young life.

I stayed in baseball and continue to relish this new peace within. I was in awe of this man who magically “cured” me from my impulsive, angry outbursts and helped me focus my energy on the positive, on the arts and on success and growth. My grades improved, I continued to progress in rank and eventually was helping the new students in the class. On report of a problem at school I would not only get a whipping at home but have to take one from Mark as well.

I would bow into to the dojo only to feel Mark’s cold eyes fixed on me up until I was called to the center ring where he punched and kicked me into submission.
This happened more times than I could count. He would also have the other students/instructors punish me in similar fashion. My 6th grade school year, canyon lake homes
, was spent in Ft Worth with grandma but after Dad’s return from the Phillipines we moved back to Lackland and continued our life there.

I was eager to continue with my training, as my parents were eager for me to resume my tempered behavior, which had become quite irrational up in cowtown during Dad’s absence. Even a heavy dose of good pentecostal discipline didn’t keep me from stirring up trouble at grandma’s house. This culminated in the worst butt-whooping up to this point when I, a sixth grader, pissed off a well-known 5th grade, canyon lake homes
, bully (he had 20 + lbs on me) whereby I was punched repeatedly in the face during a football game until I was bloodied and dazed.

I remember well my mother standing over me, chewing me out for running my mouth and instigating the whole mess. She needn’t worry, I thought. My lips won’t move for a few days anyway for they swelled so large even Mick Jagger would be envious.
But Dad was back, Mom was happier than she’d ever been and we were heading home to San Antonio. By the eighth grade I was a brown belt. One belt away from black.

It was a moment I longed for and knew it was just a matter of time. Mark Nichols continue being my “second father” and continued to impress my parents with his control over me. For a spell, when I became raucheous my folks even resorted in threatening to call Mark and tell him of my antics, which usually stopped the situation or reversed the behavior in it’s tracks. I still had my moments but they were few and far between.

Achieving shodan status was the most important goal ever in my life up to that point and I wouldn’t, canyon lake homes
, let my erratic behavior jeopardize that.
Everything changed for me after a particular weekend outing at Canyon Lake, although I didn’t realize why until much later. Most of the class had attended this particular outing at our usual spot on the lake. Spread out in 3 cabins along the shore one night, most of the students, canyon lake homes
, slept.

In our cabin were myself, students Dee, Chris C, Stacey C, Mark, his girlfriend and another male acquaintance., canyon lake homes
, We kids were running around here and, canyon lake homes
, there while the adults were sitting at a table consuming large amounts of alcohol and spewing larger amounts of inappropriate sexual lingo. These conversations peaked my interests and I listened intently. I giggled at the talk of sex then proclaimed that I knew more about it than they thought, which I didn’t.

No sooner did that lie fly from my lips did I find myself being walked into the back bedroom by Mark’s girlfriend. This was pretty damned exciting for a thirteen year old, I must admit. She immediately challenged my false prowess by removing her pants, then her panties, spreading her legs and slowly pushing my head into her crotch. She gave me a lesson in, canyon lake homes
, the fine art of oral sex although she never reciprocated.

I am not sure if that pissed me off then but it sure does today. I remember tasting strawberry flavoring, like she had rubbed lip gloss or something down there, canyon lake homes
, before my pilgramage into the deep, dark somewhat malodorant forest.
I didn’t remember anything else that happened later that night for a full 15 + years. The pieces were filled in during a recurrent dream of sodomy some years later.

That dream then became entrenched in my waking moments. Then one day, it revealed it’s first and only other character besides me. It was Mark Adair Nichols. It was Mark Nichols, canyon, canyon lake homes
, lake homes
, who entered my room later that night to sodomize me and threaten me if I told anyone. It was Mark Nichols, canyon lake homes
, who assured my inherently agressive nature would turn violent,, canyon lake homes
, but this time directed not towards inanimate objects as had been the norm but towards those I love, my friends, the innocent.

I trusted no one, not even my family. I was now armed and ready. Ready to take on anyone who threatened me in any way. Fear permeated my existence. To build a wall and to stand guard just inside it was my priority now. No one will ever penetrate it’s walls ever again, canyon lake homes
, to get to me. Those who would try would face a violent thumping. I enterend a new world after that night on Canyon Lake.

I didn’t even realize why until much later. Looking back, it was effective in keeping me safe but I also realized that while it kept the unsavory out, it also kept out those I loved and kept me locked inside a dark, unforgiving, unloving place.
From around the time this particular horror came to light, around age 27, I started carrying a 45 cal bullet with me. I would purchase the gun after determining Mark’s where-abouts.

I envisioned the marking M.A.N. on the metal casing for Mark Adair Nichols. For he was no man but a sick freak who would get what’s coming to him, if only I could find him. Subsequently it was determined that Mark Nichols had raped or molested several young boys in that class. One in particular, CB appeared to have gotten the worst of it, when Mark Nichols conned his family into allowing him to stay at their place, where he repeatedly molested CB over a 2 year period.

I suppose because I immediately buried the incident in my subconscious, I stayed with the class and continued towards my black belt. Coincidentally, almost a year to the day later, I receive a “speed letter” from Sensei Nichols stating that I would soon test for my black belt and that I should start my preparations. I was witness to the indoctrination of DDP during her blackbelt testing, the thought of what she endured that day haughted me.

DD was pummeled by 3 instructors for a half hour straight. Bloodied and bruised with tears flowing, not from pride mind you but from pain and humiliation, DD gracefully accepted her black belt. Now it was my turn. In hindsite I guess all Mark had on his mind was what was going through mine. Had I snitched on him? What did I remember? Did I know or understand the horrors perpetrated against me that night on Canyon Lake? I hadn’t.

It was tucked safely in my subconscious but Mark didn’t know that.
In any event, Mark Nichols, DD and Sensei S. commenced to pounding me into submission. No gloves were used but the fingers were taped to prevent gouging of the eyes. And for one half hour I was beaten to a pulp until I lay on the mat crying uncontrollably and bleeding profusely. After gaining my composure, I was awarded my black belt, oblivious now of the ass whooping I just received but filled with pride at achieving such a distinct honor.

I had made it. I would go forward and share my knowledge and skills with others. I would now stand side by side with the other instructors with honor, pride and a new-found discipline that would change my life for the better. Or so I thought.

Source: articleage.com

People admiring my work often say, “I could never do that!” I say, “Yes, you can!”

Eight years ago, during a very difficult time in my career in finance (Downsizings, layoffs – let’s not talk about it, OK?), my company sent me to a development workshop for female executives.

I came out of a particularly thought-provoking discussion group and penned the following,