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"Somebody should have made me sit down. Somebody should have forced me to get off the sidelines at my sons&amp;#039; soccer game and rest in my folding chair like I had promised to do when I signed up as the team&amp;#039;s assistant coach. But our head coach was away and the other team was heading for our goal. And so, three days after chemotherapy, there I was, screaming, &amp;quot;GET THAT BALL OUTTA HERE!&amp;quot; when I should have been sitting down. Please don&amp;#039;t tell my oncologist. Last year at this time, I wasn&amp;#039;t just a head coach, but a head coach of two teams. I ran around soccer fields in my Boston University Women&amp;#039;s Soccer T-shirt, grass-stained shorts and muddy cleats, showing the boys on my teams how to pass, dribble and shoot the ball. I was strong. I was agile. I was in charge. But when I found out I had cancer this summer, I demoted myself to assistant coach, figuring that the team&amp;#039;s head coach, Dmitri, would do all the real work while I sat down, took notes and gossiped with the other parents.  And then Dmitri went on vacation. I brought along three of my own assistant coaches to our first game: my husband, my mother and a thirteen-year-old neighbor who had taken pity on me and offered to help.  For much of the game, I let them coach. But when it was 2-2 in the final minutes, and the other team&amp;#039;s star forward was steamrolling toward our goal, I just couldn&amp;#039;t help myself. I jumped out of my chair, raced to the sideline, flailed my blanket-covered arms and yelled, &amp;quot;Marcus! Come out of the goal!&amp;quot;  Or I tried to yell. My voice, weak from chemo, made me sound like a goose being strangled. Parents who didn&amp;#039;t know me stared, friends shook their heads, and my sons pretended not to know me. And then the other team scored.  Clearly, there&amp;#039;s a reason that the first three letters in &amp;quot;assistant coach&amp;quot; spell\u2026well, you know. &amp;quot;You looked like a crazy sick woman,&amp;quot; my third grader told me after the game. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s because I am a crazy sick woman,&amp;quot; I explained. But I don&amp;#039;t want to be. I want to be able to put on my cleats and belt the ball with the boys like I did last year. I want to sound commanding, not like I should be detained until the authorities show up with a tranquilizer. I want get out of my chair, and get up and coach.  I am sick of being sick. My doctor told me that the tumor in my chest most likely started growing last October \u2013 right in the middle of soccer season. I was coaching two teams, and yet, I had cancer. The only difference between this season and last season is that, now, I know it. In other words, I was a crazy sick woman then, too. I just looked and sounded much better. Dmitri will be in charge of soccer games this week, so I&amp;#039;ll leave most of the coaching up to him. But if I have to \u2013 and I know I&amp;#039;ll have to \u2013 I&amp;#039;ll get up out of my chair and coach. Please don&amp;#039;t tell my oncologist. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a20403/good-grief-100207/>