In a recent podcast episode on DoorWays Ministry, I talked to Ric Shields about retirement’s challenges and growth. Sharing my journey after an unexpected retirement from medicine, I’m learning the distinction between identity and profession, and how retirement can lead to renewed purpose through faith, family, and service.
In previous posts, I’ve told you that my friend Ric Shields invited me to be a guest on his DoorWays Ministry podcast series to talk about the questions that really matter when it comes to retirement.
After bringing you three episodes of the series, in this post I’m sharing the podcast where I share my thoughts and experience of retirement.
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “retirement”? The word comes from the verb retire, which means “to go to sleep”. But most of us don’t plan to spend our retirement sleeping all day.
Most people think of retirement in terms of work. The dictionary definition is “to withdraw from one’s position or occupation; to conclude one’s working or professional career.”
Whether retirement is still years away, you’re getting ready for it, or you’re already a seasoned retiree, this series has something for you. We’ll explore how to plan, prepare, and thrive in whatever season of life you’re in now.
For decades, you’ve known how to answer the question, “What do you do?” But what happens when the job title disappears, the routine changes, and the work that once defined you is suddenly behind you?
In this episode of the DoorWays Ministry podcast, Dr. Aletha Oglesby shares her deeply personal experience of an unexpected retirement after decades in medicine. When her position was eliminated, she faced feelings of loss, grief, and uncertainty. Over time, she discovered that while her professional role had changed, her purpose had not.
Together, we explore the difference between what we do and who we are, how to recognize when retirement is becoming emotionally difficult, and why meaningful living starts with understanding our core values and calling.
Through faith, family, new experiences, and opportunities to serve, Aletha discovered fresh ways to live out the purpose that had guided her all along.
Because retirement may close one chapter of your life, but it doesn’t mean your story is finished. It may be the perfect opportunity to discover who you’ve been all along.
Ric Shields, DoorWays Podcast
Fifty years after our wedding, Raymond and I made it to Niagara Falls.
The year after I retired, I went on a ministry trip to Paraguay with my church. I donate monthly to a child sponsorship program based there. It was a special treat to meet the child I sponsor.
Exploring the HEART of Health
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In this article I discuss the profound impact of cancer on individuals and society, focusing on personal experiences and mental health challenges faced by survivors. It emphasizes the importance of prevention, understanding risk factors, and the emotional toll of cancer. Despite survival rates improving, many experience ongoing anxiety and depression post-treatment, necessitating better mental health support.
My husband and I have almost lost count of the number of friends and family who have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years. You may be able to say the same.
Some of them are doing well after grueling treatment regimens that sapped their strength and their hair. For some of them, we have celebrated their life with their loved ones at poignant memorial services.
Cancer touches all of us in some way. Whether it’s our own health or a family member, cancer robs us of time, freedom, peace of mind, and money. Cancer costs our society in terms of increasing insurance premiums, funding needed for research, and lost productivity.
Right now our best defense against cancer is prevention. We should all know the risk factors, especially those that pertain to us. We are learning that genetics contributes to many cases.
But lifestyle still remains the biggest variable that we can potentially control. Use of and exposure to tobacco, alcohol, ultraviolet light, workplace toxins, and diet should be targets in our cancer prevention efforts.
Cancer also takes an emotional and mental toll on those affected and their families. This article I am sharing from Iowa Public Radio via KFF Health News puts faces on this aspect of cancer,
More Americans Are Surviving Cancer. But the Mental Health Challenges Can Persist.
By Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio
Morgan Newman was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer at age 24 but has been free of cancer free for a decade. She says she still deals with lingering fears of the cancer returning. (Natalie Krebs/Iowa Public Radio)
The cancer diagnosis came as a shock, disrupting Morgan Newman’s plans for launching her life. It was 2015, and she was working as a dental assistant in Des Moines, Iowa, while studying to become a social worker.
After an abnormal result on her Pap smear, her doctor brought her back in to check the tissue for signs of cancer. Newman wasn’t that concerned at first. She was only 24 years old.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. Friends had received abnormal results, she recalled, “and they turned out to be OK.”
But during the follow-up examination, she started bleeding so heavily that the doctor stopped the exam and immediately referred her to a gynecologic oncologist. Newman soon learned she had cervical cancer. She had just moved into her own apartment for the first time.
An increasing number of Americans are getting — and surviving — cancer. There were more than 18 million cancer survivors in the U.S. in 2025, and the National Cancer Institute estimates that number will grow to 22 million by 2035. But long after completing treatment, many survivors face lingering mental health challenges that go unaddressed.
Newman underwent six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. Her scans after that were clear until the six-month mark, when her doctors found suspicious nodules in her lungs.
Newman endured additional chemotherapy, which had more side effects. It was physically exhausting. But she was also struggling psychologically as she watched her friends hit significant adult milestones.
“My friends were getting married, they were having children, you know, progressing in their lives and their careers, and I just felt stuck,” she said.
Newman had done therapy before, for anxiety and depression. But after she got sick, she had to quit. Therapy was too expensive now that she had her other medical bills. And amid the doctor appointments, college courses, and her full-time job, she didn’t have the time.
Newman’s cancer treatment ended, and the scans remained clear. By 2017, she had a new job with better health benefits. So she decided she could go back to therapy.
She worried that every ache and pain could be the cancer coming back. At times, it was emotionally difficult to spend time with her friends who had kids, because the radiation treatment had damaged her reproductive system, leaving her unable to have her own children.
Now, almost 10 years later, Newman remains free of cancer, and cancer prevention has become her passion. She started a new job in December as the Iowa grassroots manager for the lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society, and she has served on the boards of other cancer organizations in Iowa.
But she continues to go to therapy to deal with the lingering anxiety, as well as the lingering effects of her treatment, such as her infertility.
“The fear of the unknown really takes over and can physically impact your body, as well as your mind,” she said. That question kept circling: “What if the cancer is back?”
Studiesshow cancer survivors experience anxiety and depression that can last years after they finish treatment.
The advocacy group Cancer Nation surveyed patients nationwide last year. It found that about a third of those who had finished treatment reported anxiety about their cancer potentially coming back, as well as problems with not feeling like their “old self.” Only 1 in 5 of the surveyed survivors reported seeing a mental health professional.
Finding therapists who understand how cancer can affect people physically and emotionally can be a challenge, especially in states like Iowa. According to the Iowa Cancer Registry, the number of Iowans living five years after their diagnosis has increased about 0.4% each year since 2000, and the state has the second-highest rate of new cancer diagnoses. Researchers aren’t sure why, but the University of Iowa scientists who run the registry are taking a deep dive into the issue in a two-year, state-funded project.
Iowa is also largely rural. Some of the counties that have the highest cancer rates also have the fewest mental health workers. Newman went through several therapists before she was able to get an appointment with Julie Larson, a Des Moines-based therapist who works with a lot of cancer survivors.
“I just felt like I needed something more specific to what I was going through,” Newman said.
In Larson’s practice, it’s common for clients like Newman to start therapy months or even a year after finishing treatment, when they realize they aren’t feeling how they expected to feel.
“Physically, people’s bodies have changed,” Larson said. “And they are reconciling loss and grief. And those experiences are a little bit more silent, a little more invisible, and friends and family don’t often fully understand or grasp that.”
Larson said cancer survivors often seek her out because she understands cancer and the different forms of treatment people may have experienced.
“I’m not a doctor, but I’ve done this a long time. So I know what happens when people have Adriamycin. I know the treatment protocol for carboplatin,” she said, citing chemotherapy drugs.
Richard Deming, medical director at the MercyOne Richard Deming Cancer Center in Des Moines, Iowa, says the clinic has recently added services such as yoga and counseling to help cancer patients and survivors deal with mental health issues. (Natalie Krebs/Iowa Public Radio)
Oncology and Mental Health
When it comes to treating cancer, the field of oncology often neglects mental health, said Patricia Ganz, an oncologist and professor at the UCLA School of Public Health who has spent decades doing research on cancer survivors and their lingering challenges.
“We know how to give pills. We know how to give pain medicine, sleep medicines. But we’re not really schooled in the antidepressants,” she said.
There’s an increasing awareness about the need to screen for psychological distress in cancer patients and the need to provide mental health services for cancer patients and survivors, Ganz said, but expert-recommended screenings and referrals don’t always happen to the extent they should.
“You get cared for intensely when you’re getting treated for cancer,” By contrast, when people complete treatment, the care typically shifts: “It’s almost like, ‘You should feel fortunate that you’re cancer-free and just get on with your life.’”
To treat cancer comprehensively, Deming said, doctors need to pay attention to far more than just physical symptoms. That requires a shift in the way doctors treat patients, he said.
“Every step along the way, whether it’s through diagnosis or treatment or follow-up, we have to ask, ‘What are the issues you’re experiencing?’” Deming said. “Not just: ‘Do you have cancer? Did we get rid of the cancer?’”
This article is from a partnership that includes Iowa Public Radio, NPR, and KFF Health News.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
“After You Hear It’s Cancer” by Dr. Lori Leifer and John Leifer offers a comprehensive guide for navigating cancer diagnosis and treatment. Drawing on personal experiences, the authors provide practical advice on various stages of cancer care, including diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment challenges, along with resources for support and advocacy.
How has cancer touched your life in the past year? What did you learn from the experience? Did it prompt any changes in how you approach your own health?
What more information do you need about protecting yourself from cancer?
There is plentiful “advice” on line about cancer prevention and cures. But your best souce of counsel is still a physician who knows you. Seek advice from that person who has invested time, money, and thought into knowing the most about you and how best to help you.
Celebration of Life Mural-The mural was created to honor those surviving the disease of cancer. The mural’s tiles are inscribed by cancer survivors and represent the continuous flow of life.
