Saying thank you....

Two of the most important words in the language, IMHO, are “thank you.” It’s a powerful phrase for individuals and companies alike. Recognizing your friends and supporters is sooooooo important. We talked about this last Friday when I spoke at First Edge, along with my belief that I’d much rather have a smaller, core group of people who REALLY care, than a huge number of friends/followers/subscribers who SORT OF care.

So, thank YOU. For your attention, your time, your friendship and your amazing support during what has been been a #bajeezuz of a 2-3 weeks. I am fortunate to know every single one of you, and am really humbled by all of the caring notes, thoughts and prayers I have received during these challenging days.

It continues to be challenging in terms of pain management, but, I remain exceedingly grateful for what appears to have been the “best case scenario” outcome. My surgery went well, as well as it could have. As it turned out, there were no cysts Boom and Bah…just one huge bad mammajamma of a Chuck Norris cyst. (I have photos of Chuck, but I’ll spare you!) The biopsy is still pending, though since there were no visible signs of cancer we’re pretty confident that the “All Clear” will be sounding soon.

Until then…THANK YOU.

Announcing the winners of the Sprecher beer....

Ooooookay. Thanks to all who played along in the effort to name my two ovarian cysts without (or with) thinking I’m a whackjob. It definitely helped raise awareness of ovarian cyst/cancer symptoms; at least two women have made doctor appointments because of the post which makes me super happy; extra thanks to all of you who shared that crazy-ass post with your friends and family. And it also most definitely helped keep me entertained while waiting for surgery to be scheduled. It’s tomorrow morning at 7:30, so, time to name these bad girls and get them ooooooooout.

Between votes here on the blog and on Facebook, it was a close race between two suggestions. So, Sprecher Brewery has generously provided a second free case of beer so there could be two winners.

In the category of “the people’s favorite“, the winner is: Steve Farr @purpleonioninc for his entry “Boom” and “Bah”…as in Cyst Boom Bah.

In the category of “my favorite” (I mean, they are part of my person at present, so my vote has to count for something), the winner is: Steve Hawthorne @stonecreeksteve for his entry, “Chuck” and “Norris”.

While Cyst Boom Bah perfectly captures the spirit of celebration I will feel when these mutants are GONE, at the moment, I prefer to think of getting in there and kicking some ass.

Steve and Steve, you can pick up your free case of Sprecher at their gift shop whenever you like. The gift shop hours are here.

You might want to consider trying Sprecher’s new Summer Czech-style Pils; it’s getting really good reviews. Here’s how Sprecher describes it: “Brewed with imported malt, soft water and Saaz noble hops, this Czech-style Pilsner is the perfect summer beer. Its rich golden color complements the mild, earthy, spicy hop aromas and well balanced malt profile for a crisp, clean beer with subtle bitterness.” Yum. I’m salivating now and will be reaching for one of these as soon as I’m through surgery and off the pain meds.

Thanks again to all of you for playing along. Much love. -Spaight

Know your ovarian lumps....

Know the symptoms of ovarian cancer and ovarian cysts so they don’t go undiagnosed.

Feels like lately this blog has been turning into what the Discovery Health Network used to be…I called it the “train wreck” channel. Every time you tuned in, it would be the-man-with-the-100-pound-tumor or the-man-who-is-turning-into-a-tree. Today, we bring you…anthropomorphized ovarian cysts. Ta-Da!

Amazing art by Stu. www.stunamidraws.com

I offered some vagaries about my health sitch a few days ago, you were kind enough to offer replies, and I know enough now to share the deets. There are two golf-ball-sized mutated lumps in my abdomen. More specifically, on my right ovary. My objective here is not to totally gross you out, though that may be a side effect. Nor is it to throw myself a proverbial pity party. Quite the contrary. My objective is to discuss the symptoms of ovarian cysts and ovarian cancer so you or your loved ones don’t do what I did and wait several months to go to the doctor because you never put it together. And maybe, just maybe, find a little levity in the process while I wait for surgery.

Cancer is, obviously, serious and not to be made light of (though I certainly share the recent sentiments of friends who have told it to {redacted} off). Trust me…I do know this. I lost my Mom to it. Her Mom had it. Two of her sisters each had multiple cancers. I am quite fully in touch with the insensitivity of making cancer into any sort of joke. Thankfully (understatement), it seems, in my case, I likely don’t have ovarian cancer (though it’s not 100% certain until after surgery and biopsy), but *just* some ginormous ovarian cysts. They are painful and they suck but they are (probably) not cancer.

So, first, symptoms you need to be aware of, which can be signs of either ovarian cancer or cysts. For several months now, I’ve had a backache and leg pain. I never in a million years would have attributed it to ovarian lumps, but it is in fact a common symptom. I’ve also had symptoms similar to pregnancy, painful boobs, nausea, the whole nine yards of too much information. Also very common with ovarian problems. I thought I was just, well, 42. Digestive problems…also a symptom, but I’ve had those forever. Fortunately, I started bleeding, which finally clued me into the fact that something is wrong. But, they don’t call ovarian cancer “the silent killer” for nothing…it is not unusual for it to go undiagnosed, as it did for over a year in Gilda’s Radner‘s case. Which is why I want you to be aware and able to potentially self-diagnose. Here is more information about the similar symptoms of ovarian cysts and ovarian cancer.

Also, please, please, PLEASE do not put off your annual exam. No one looks forward to being poked (hat tip to @bootyp) and prodded, but DO IT. I was six months late, and that is just stupid.

If you’d like to join me in gratitude and in making a donation to Gilda’s Club of Southeastern Wisconsin, which really needs more support to continue providing services to people with cancer of all kinds and their families, I’ve started a Gilda’s Club fundraising page here.

Finally, while I wait, and try to keep my mind busy and free from worry, I had this random notion that I should probably name my two mutated ovarian lumps. Then someone told me that Gilda named her ovarian tumors (or maybe her ovaries, I’m not sure) Rosanna and Danna. HA! Classic. Suggestions thus far for mine have included things like: Rosanna and Danna, in honor of Gilda. Sid and Nancy (love). Itchy and Scratchy. You get the idea. Leave your suggested names in the comments and the one with the most “likes” when I go in for surgery (next week?) gets a case of Sprecher beer, on me and “the girls.” Update: Sprecher Brewery has generously offered to donate the beer, in honor of the “evil cystahs”. Thanks Sprecher!

Thanks for your support, playing along, and making us laugh. Right now, it really is the best medicine.

Come talk with me this Friday at First Edge...

This Friday, May 20, I’m doing a lunch-and-learn-thingie at First Edge. I’d rather not be talking to myself, so I hope if you’re local you’ll come down and talk; registration is here.

So, here’s the thing. I was asked to talk about Social Media 101, and we can do that if that’s what the people who care enough to show up want to do. But what I basically plan to do, in the true spirit of social, is to tell a few stories, answer questions, help however I can and ask others in the room to help too.

I don’t consider or call myself a social media “expert”. Yeah, I know some stuff. I’ve done a lot over the past couple-three years, and learned some lessons, both professional and personal, that I can share. Hell, I might even get a little verklempt at times, as some of these stories are powerful, emotional shit. You can see the softer side of Sue Spaight. Heh.

I know for a fact that other people in the room are as much “experts” as I am, meaning they too have done a lot, and learned some lessons. Come prepared to share, ask questions, help each other out. There’s social media 101 right there, in a nutshell.

If you have thoughts on what you’d like to talk about, leave ‘em here, K? See you Friday.

Making the most of precious time...

Nearly two years ago, while waiting for results of tests to determine if I had ovarian cancer, I wrote this post, You can tweet like hell, but are you living loudly enough? I ask this question as much of myself as of you, of course. Lo and behold, yesterday, I received some potentially unfortunate news from my doctor. I don’t know for sure what it means yet – so let’s not jump to conclusions – but it’s enough to scare the hell out of me, make me feel how fragile life is, and make me wonder anew if I am spending my precious time well.

I have, for the most part, I think, lived out loud, though I am FAR from perfect, and too often lazy. Here are some things I would tell you – and would tell my own children – about how to make the most of it. What would you add to this? How do you make the most of your precious time?

1. Get away from the TV. If you’re the “average American” and spending 150+ hours per month in front of the TV, well, that’s just a sad waste of life, in my opinion. You can do a LOT of living in 150 hours a month. Honestly, the same goes if you’re spending 150 hours a month on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Different strokes for different folks, but unless you want them to put your last tweet on your headstone, GET OUT THERE and live IRL, too.

2. If you’re anywhere near the ocean, get up early and watch the sunrise if you’re facing East, and watch the sunset if you’re facing West. For me, few things have as much power to make me feel how beautiful the earth can be. The ocean is a poem waiting to happen.

3. Have children, if you are able, and so inclined, or spend time around children. Children are joy in its purest form. There is no sound on earth better than the laughter of a child. Griffin, if you ever read this, I am speaking absolute truth when I tell you that you are the best thing that ever happened to me. With my husband and two amazing stepdaughters right up there.

4. “Spend less time trying to be perfect, and more time trying to taste good.” A very wise, beautiful friend and messenger named Naila – whom I love and miss terribly – gave me this message when I lived in New York and went to photo school. I haven’t done a great job of heeding it.

5. Take some chances. It’s true what they say, you more often regret the things that you don’t do than the things that you do.

6. Be forgiving. It’s easy to harbor anger towards people who have put barriers in your way and had a negative impact on your life, even your health. To live happy, it is necessary to forgive them.

7. Puppies. Lots and lots of puppies. Particularly of the black labrador variety.

What else? Eat more bacon? Travel the world? What makes you feel as though you are making the most of your life?

Corporate blogging: how to get more comments...

In putting together a presentation on corporate blogging for the BizTimes #BizTech conference, I decided to do an audit and scorecard on the blogs of the top 50 private Milwaukee companies. I’ll be sharing thoughts on how to be a blogging “Do” instead of a blogging “Don’t” on Wednesday, May 11th at 9:45AM; and mid-way through the audit now, I’m feeling good about my ability to rant well on this topic ; ) Most of the blogs so far are scoring painfully “average”, with a few above and below that line. But one challenge that they almost all share? Very few to zero comments.

From what I’ve read, about 10% of Fortune 500 blogs don’t even accept comments…that shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a blog. Some corporate blogs make it evident that they don’t really want comments; one example I saw today buried a tiny little “feedback” button at the bottom of the post. So they can say they’re accepting comments, without actually having to deal with much pesky feedback. In a word: weaksauce (is that one word, or two?). But even those that appropriately welcome comments have a solid amount of difficulty drumming up actual conversation.

Much of this ties back to other factors in the blogging scorecard, which I’ll share during and after the presentation on Wednesday, measuring factors such as the bigger idea surrounding blog content, utility, personality, and honesty aka lack of corporate spin job. Obviously if no one cares about the topic, and its just a regurgitation of your press release, and its not useful at all or doesn’t share an insight or entertain, no one’s going to comment (or read).

For a second opinion, I turned to Mack Collier, founder and master of #blogchat, where I’ve learned a good chunk of what I know about blogging, and posed the question, “what is the key to getting more comments on a corporate blog?”. Mack responded that much of it is in your mindset and your approach to blogging…”we are sharing our story” (DO), versus “we are promoting ourselves” (DON’T). He shared an example of the HomeGoods OpenHouse blog which has great content and an unusual number of comments. They generate interaction through details like pictures of the bloggers everywhere, referring to commenters by their first name, and writing as though they are writing a LETTER to their readers. All great stuff. I would add, though, that you could do these things and still not get comments. Much of it comes down to the STRENGTH or MAGNITUDE of the personality your blog exudes. Blogs can have – or not have – magnetic personalities, just like people. In fact, Mack’s got a great, related post up today, “Your blog should be a passion project.” I definitely agree that if you approach your blog as a passion project, you have a much better chance of success.

I’m assuming for the purposes of this conversation that you care about comments. Because if you don’t, you should. Do you care, or do you blog corporately for other reasons, like SEO or to try to drive website traffic? (we’ll talk about that on Wednesday) Have you found it difficult to get conversation going? What have you found to be effective?

What are you putting off? Deal with it....

We all have things that we should be dealing with, but aren’t. Distasteful things, that it’s seemingly easier to ignore than to take on…and move on.

My dog died nearly five years ago , and his ashes have been sitting in an unopened box in a closet, waiting for the day when I would make it a priority to take them to his favorite place in the forest. For whatever reason, today, Mother’s Day, I was out riding my bike and I realized that today was the day that I was ready.

So we did it. My husband, son and I drove out to the forest, went for a beautiful hike, and finally, finally laid Gomer to rest. It was, obviously, very sad, and my son cried for a long time. He was super sweet about it, and helped make a little memorial, with rocks representing Gomey’s body. He said it made his heart hurt.

It made all of our hearts hurt, to be sure. Explaining cremation to a child, not so much fun. But now, somehow, I am a little bit…lighter.

Whatever you are putting off, whatever your box in the proverbial closet is, I encourage you to get it out, deal with it, and move on. It feels good.

In Memory of Grace: Mother’s Day, Miscarriag...

WARNING: this post is not for the faint of heart. You should not read it if you are 1. a coworker who may already think I come on a little too strong or just doesn’t want to know a LOT about me personally 2. a client or prospective client who wants to see my professional side 3. anyone who doesn’t like to keep it really, really real and just wants me to be all professional and stuff. 4. one of my haters (yes, I have a few. If you are among them, you can please fsck off right now. This is not for you.) Many would say that, professionally, I should not publish this. I have my reasons, and the biggest one is a belief that I owe it to other women to share a horrific experience that I don’t want them to ever have to go through. Also, more selfishly, I have never talked about this and think it is really healthy to do so. There’s a secret club out there of so many women who have suffered through miscarriage and never talk about it until they know you are in the club, too; it’s time for us to come out and support each other. Or at least for me to offer my advice, support, and prayers for you.

Allright if you’ve made it through that warning and are still here, God bless you, I love you and thank you for your support. First off, I have to say God bless my mother in heaven, who had THREE miscarriages and a STILLBIRTH before she had the perseverance to have my two older brothers and me. I cannot imagine how strong she must have been. Then, I have to say how incredibly grateful and blessed I am to have my wonderful son, Griffin, and how much my heart bleeds for women who want to have children but cannot, including one of my very best friends. Believe me, I know how lucky I am.

Oooooookay then. Finally. Here’s my story…

My son was born five and a half years ago. I am often asked why we only have one child, and every single time, it shatters my heart all over again. (So, uh, think twice before you ask people that question, K?) We, like many couples, envisioned having two children. I would have been delighted whether the second was a girl or a boy. But, the girl had a name, and her name was to be Grace. Griffin and Grace…that was the plan. Sadly, plans don’t always go how we want them to.

Just over two and a half years ago, in the summertime, I found out I was pregnant for the second time. I was, of course, delighted. Exhausted and sick as hell, but delighted. They gave me the big binder on healthy pregnancy, scheduled my ultrasound for the next week, and sent me on my happy way to tell my husband and son that we were having another baby.

They had suspected a possible miscarriage the summer before, but it was so early in the pregnancy that they couldn’t be sure. Basically, while trying not to be TOO disgusting (and failing royally at that), some tissue had fallen out of me into the toilet that looked like it might be a very small person. OK, that’s so disgusting that it’s making me laugh…stay with me here…so, uh, they wanted the ultrasound to happen right away. At 39 I was no spring chicken, and at 53, neither was my husband. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

They did the ultrasound. And the heartbeat we were so anxious to see…wasn’t there. There was a well-developed amniotic sack…with nothing visible in it. They said there was a 90%+ chance that I had miscarried, but we’d wait another week to be sure. Try going to work every day with a smile on your face knowing that you probably have a dead baby inside of you…awesome. A week passed miserably, they repeated the ultrasound…still nothing. Definite miscarriage-in-the-making.

After my sobbing subsided a little, they gave me three choices: 1. wait for the miscarriage to complete itself on its own, which could take weeks or months. In other words, keep going to work every day with a fake smile on your face, knowing that you have a dead baby inside of you that might choose to come out at any time. Mmmm…no. No thanks. Not a great option. What else you got? 2. Have D&C surgery. Mmmm…I get massively sick from anesthesia. What else you got? 3. Take a drug called Misoprostol, aka “the abortion pill”. This will cause you to miscarry at home. From my vantage point now, I don’t know WTF I was thinking at the time, except probably just wanting to be curled up, at home, in the (irony) fetal position. I chose option three, the Misoprostol.

I scheduled some time off work, picked “the day”, and crammed some tablets up my vagina periodically as instructed, every few hours. (“Not now, Griffin…mommy is busy…”) It took seemingly forever, but I started cramping and, uh, “stuff” started coming out. I’ll actually spare you the details of that…suffice it to say that it was long and protracted and disgusting and painful and heartbreaking and there are no existing words that can describe it.

When that part was done, I started bleeding. Profusely. Like, WTF am I doing at home right now,  why would they let me do this here, profusely. Soaking through pads in a matter of seconds. It was evening. I called my doctor’s office, and there was no one available to talk to me. Umm…I kinda think I’m bleeding out here…”we’ll have the doctor call you back.” Yes, thanks, that’d be swell. I called my friend and asked her to come over right away and watch Griffin so we could go to the E.R. The doctor called me back, and said yes, yes, that would be the right thing to do about now. And just as my friend arrived…the bleeding stopped.

OK, it’s over. Except, it’s not. Not everything came out. So I kept bleeding, and ended up having to go in a week later for the D&C surgery that I should have had in the first place. I had to give the hospital permission to bury my baby’s (I am sorry, I cannot bring myself to call her a fetus, and if you do I will punch you in the face) remains in a cemetery. And they gave me this, which still makes me sob, two and a half years later, every time I see it.

I have no way of knowing, of course, whether that baby would have been a boy or a girl, but in my heart, I know that was my Grace. This experience was so devastating, I was never strong enough to bounce back to the point where I wanted to try again. I wish to God I had been as strong as my mother was. So, we’ve never really tried, and we’ve never really tried not to.

And now, as I write this, I’m 42, and my husband is about to turn a very young 56. I’ve bounced back to the point where we could try again, but pregnancies at our age are risky and very unlikely to succeed. That doesn’t mean I am not open to it…I would be thrilled.

The moral of the story…if, God forbid, you are ever presented with this choice, and I pray to God that you never are, I would strongly encourage you to just have the D&C and move on. Misoprostol sucks beyond expression.

This Mother’s Day, God bless all Mothers…and all who want to be. In my view, if you ever had a baby inside of you, then you are a Mother.

Thank you for listening. Please share your experiences here if you’d like to talk about them and get some support.