Lisa M. Kelsey, MFT

07/11/2025

Reflections Day 1874: In life we have to advocate for ourselves. We know ourselves best. When I got home from my trip yesterday I started to get a sore throat and I was hoping it would go away when I woke up today, but unfortunately it didn't, in fact it had turned to my usual of swollen tonsils. When this happens I need to get liquid steroid that day or it will get worse. When I got up I called my primary doctor and waited to speak to someone and was bumped to voicemail and left a message. I called again and was bumped to voicemail. I needed to speak to someone as I needed to get the liquid steroid. I tried to log into our myChart and the system had changed to a new one on 7/1. I tried to set up an account and it wouldn't work. I was getting frustrated, didn't feel good and set up an appointment at urgent care. My old primary doctor and nurse practitioner always had someone to answer the phone or would get back to you in a few hours. They provided the liquid steroid in their office and even did breathing treatments when I needed them. It is extremely disappointing to not be able to find this level of care, however I do know that in urgent care they will help me the same day. I got to urgent care, was taken right in and shared what was going on. I was negative for strep throat which I knew. I then shared with the doctor and she checked me out and was discouraging me from taking liquid steroid. While I appreciated her sharing some side effects and concerns she had, I didn't feel like she was listening to me. I have been dealing with swollen tonsils my whole adult life. When I get them if I don't get this steroid they can get worse. This can happen once a year to me or more times in a year. The liquid steroid always works and I've had no side effects. I get she needed to do her job, but it was also important for her to listen to me. I shared that I avoid taking steroid medicaiton as much as I can in fact the last time I was presribed prednisone pills I didn't take them. The last time this was bad I did take them. I wanted to let this doctor know that I know my body, I know how my tonsils get and needed the medication to stop the swelling. She agreed to give me the medication. Some of us maybe would have felt uncomfortable to question the doctor. Please, please remind yourself you know your body, you know how you react to certain medications and say what you need. I am so grateful she gave me the meds, within 3-4 hours my tonsils were not swollen anymore. I am also taking Tylenol and Ibuprofen per her recommendation. I am resting, drinking fluids and taking care of myself, feeling like I'm on the mend. Speaking up can be hard, but speaking up for yourself so important.

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06/30/2025

Reflections Day 1873: In my life I have taken 3 leaves of absence from work. The first was for my ACL/MCL surgery, the second was maternity leave when my daughter was born and the third was extended bereavement leave when my dad passed away. My surgery and maternity leave were standard leaves of absence. The extended bereavement leave was a bit harder to come to. I went back to work to both of my jobs a week after my dad passed away. Most people couldn’t believe it and I thought I was fine. I wasn’t really fine, but I was trying to do my best to get back to life. A few weeks back to work I started to notice I wasn’t feeling right, and I was missing little things I wouldn’t normally miss. I started to think maybe I need some additional time off. It was a really hard decision because I had to admit I wasn’t ok. I am a very strong person, a proud person and to admit I needed help and ask for it wasn’t easy. I remember calling the person that I would discuss my leave with, and I told them why I wanted to take the leave and how my doctor supported it and that it would be about 3 weeks from that date. The man said that most people are usually already on their leave and asked why I was waiting and planning it? I said I had someone on medical leave and someone else on sabbatical. The man said to me you are important too. It reminded me that while it’s my nature to take care of others, I also needed to take care of me. I didn’t change my leave date, I kept it the same, but it was a big lesson about taking care of me. You may be wondering why I am talking about leaves of absence? Well, I’m at another turning point where I was noticing that things were not ok. For some time, I’ve shared that I’ve been going through something really difficult and about a month ago I realized it may be time for me to take another leave. This one is a bit different than the others as it’s not a surgery, not a pregnancy and not a death, but it is a huge loss that I’m grieving. I am not sure how it will turn out and that is very scary, however I know I need to take the time for me away from both jobs to have the space to heal. This too was a big decision and thank goodness I had so much support from my family, friends, my manager, my clients, my direct reports and all the people in my corner. I start my leave tomorrow and I will take each day for me. I have a few trips planned, I will continue to work with my therapist, I have a few books to read and most importantly I can just be me without the mask up that I’ve had to hold up for 6 months. On Friday I was meeting with a few colleagues and shared about my leave and what has led to it. Sharing this story is not an easy one and yet sharing it helped one of the people I spoke with share their story. They had never told anyone the full story and they trusted me to tell me. I felt honored and I felt proud that my sharing led to their sharing. Many times, we are really concerned with what people will think, how they will react, what they will say, me included. Remind yourself in those moments that telling our story is one of the most powerful things we can do. I am grateful for this time I will have on my leave as it’s a gift for me to heal.

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05/14/2025

Reflections Day 1872: Thank you so much to SSF Police for the Public Safety Community Meeting they held last night to support our community after the April 28th shooting on Arroyo Drive. They did a great job walking us through minute by minute what was going on and for me it provided a beginning to closure. Thank you to my neighbor for letting me know the meeting was happening. On my block we had thought we heard about 30-40 shots, turns out the shooter shot over 60 shots and the police 20-30 shots. Can you imagine being 2 doors away from over 80 gun shots, wow. Can you imagine what the neighbors felt that were getting shot at? SSF Police offered mental health support to the community and held us last night as they walked through everything and showed the video shortage. I felt seen and heard and that us the community was valued. I felt supported and protected by the SSF Police that put their lives on the line to protect us. Here is the recording of the meeting and the video they showed with no sound of the 911 calls and body cam footage. We are not alone and our neighborhood and this community has come together and will continue to support each other.

City of South San Francisco Public Safety Community Meeting 5/13/2025

05/01/2025

Reflections Day 1871: The day started off not so good with remnants of gaslighting, minimizing and downplaying that occurred the night before about scary night of the shooting in my neighborhood. It stayed with me most of the morning and I was able to process it with my therapist. This afternoon we had a cekebration of tgd GNE milestone anniversaries of 10, 15, 20 and 25 years. My people leader surprised me and honored me with a beautiful word cloud highlighting words colleagues shared to describe me. I was so touched by this kind and thoughtful gesture. The words meant so much that she said as she gave me the gift and when I read the words. This kind gesture allowed me to shift my mindset to celebration and gratefulness. I’m honored by all of the great words and so thankful.

04/29/2025

Reflections Day 1870: Wow was tonight worthy of writing a reflection. Around 5:30 pm tonight I starting hearing loud noises and yelling coming from outside. I thought the loud noises were fireworks but they were gun shots, yes let me say that again gun shots. There were so many of them and then it was quiet. Then there were more gun shots and I'm not talking about 2-3 gun shots I'm talking about 6-10 gun shots so loud. I can't get the sound of those gun shots out of my head, it felt like it was right in front of my house. I reached out to my neighbor via text and she confirmed they were gun shots and to stay in the house. She let me know there was an active shooter out there. I was so scared, an active shooter in SSF, so close to my house, no way. I started to message neighbors closer to Arroyo Drive which is where the gun shots were coming from. Thank god they were ok. One neighbor said she was not and the shooter was shooting at her home. I was so worried for her. The gun shots just kept coming and then they would stop and then happen again and then stop. Us neighbors were all scared and yet we were banding together via text to let each other know what was happening. Friends were reaching out as they heard the alert of an active shooter and to shelter in place. The story we later heard was this was all over trees hanging over the shooters fence. I had just recently went through some challenges around my own 3 cypress trees and a neighbor being upset about those trees and I decided to remove them. Even when I had them trimmed it was never enough and they kept complaining. It was a hard decision and yet financially a good one, but oh the loss was hard. I didn't realize how attached I was to the trees until they were gone. I am grateful my situation didn't escalate into something violent. The neighbors shared seeing an arrest occur, hearing there was a minor injury and it was just officially confirmed via SSF Police that the shooter was killed. The shooter had fired into neighbors home and at the police. SSF Police also noted he had a pistol and shotgun at the time of the shooting. They are still doing forensics in the area and at the edge of my block as a bullet went into the neighbors fence just across the street from me. I was supposed to be going to the grocery store right at that time. My neighbors were going to take a walk at that time. We should feel safe in our neighborhood and today we were sheltering in place. The neighbors on Arroyo Drive were down on the ground to not get hit by bullets. This s**t was real tonight. It was scary, we were worried and we didn't know if the police would get the situation under control. Sometimes I like to share some words of advice but on this one all we could do was wait and oh the waiting was hard and scary. I'm still processing this one and hoping I will be able to sleep tonight.

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04/10/2025

Reflections Day 1869: Every night I think about wanting to write a reflection but it’s been too hard. Over the past few days, I felt guided to write this one and share how I am. People ask how you are and most of the time we say good, lately I’ve been saying ok, however I’m not ok. The pain and the heartache are really wearing me down. I still can’t believe all that has happened. Every day I ask myself did this really all happen as it doesn’t seem real? So many things trigger the grief and loss. A song, a picture, a memory, a holiday item, a food item, a saying. I never know what will bring up the feelings and sometimes the loss is unbearable. I am trying to let it all play out, but it’s so hard. I have to act like I’m not who I am and it’s the worst thing I have ever went through. I get up each day and go to work and try to do my best and be all I need to at work and at my practice and most days I can, but some days are so hard. I can’t believe it’s been months; it seems impossible. I want to reach out, I want to listen, I want to talk, I want to ask questions, I want to show my care, I’m concerned, I want to show my love and share how much I miss. I wait and hope for the day I’m reached out to. The holidays, creating traditions and being with family and friends are so important to me. When you are feeling how I have felt you don’t want to do much or celebrate much. Sure, I have gone through tough times, but nothing that has taken such a hold of me. I hesitated after Christmas with my decorations and my family and friends reminded me how important those decorations are to me. They are part of who I am and putting them up makes me happy and provides joy to me and to everyone who sees them. After Christmas, I put up Valentine’s Day, then next was St. Patrick’s Day and now Easter is up. All of those decorations have special places in my heart, meaning and great memories. And while they are up and they warm my heart, I am also reminded of loss and it’s thick and felt every day. I appreciate the support, messages and calls I’ve received from family, friends and coworkers. People reaching out to see how I am has made a huge difference. Knowing there is care and concern for me even in my darkest moments has meant so much. I try to take each day as they come and put one foot in front of the other. On days there is joy, laughter and a moment I can appreciate or be happy about I will take it. On the days that are harder I sit with those feelings and I have to be honest, it’s extremely painful and difficult. The struggle is real and I look forward to the day that something begins to shift.

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03/20/2025

Reflections Day 1868: Today is my 25th Genentech anniversary. Wow that is almost half my life, I can’t believe it, it just doesn’t seem possible. From a contractor position that I wasn’t sure about in October 1999 to turning permanent on March 20, 2000 it has been quite the journey. I am blessed, I am grateful and hey I am proud of myself. I started not knowing much about biotech, the drug development process, or the regulatory process and I learned it all from the beginning to the end. My background and education are in Psychology as you know I’m licensed as a Marital Family therapist, but guess what I got my Masters, did my internships all while working full time at Genentech. As I grew my career at Genentech, I was also able to start my private practice, build and grow it over the past 12 years. I can’t say that sometimes Genentech and my licensing path didn’t battle it out, but I persisted, I stuck up for myself and I made it all happen to have both be successful and both be important to me. Many questioned me along the way saying aren’t you going to choose 1 and I said nope I’m not, both are important to me. I am glad I stuck to my plans and saw them out. What has kept me at Genentech for 25 years has been the company and the people. We have certainly seen many changes over the years but Genentech is one of the best companies around. I have come across so many good people that I’ve met, worked with, mentored and were in awe of. Being a people leader over the years is one of my proudest moments. My team is one of a kind and I am so proud of each them and of who we are together. Being in charge of committees, company-wide events and in the past 2 years PDR Site Head to bring people together, another great joy. Being part of the mental health initiative to lessen the stigma around mental health, remind people it’s ok to not be ok and that we have the benefit of 25 free therapy sessions per year per family member, so rewarding and so needed. Starting the gParents club a few years ago and having over 800 parents be part of this club, providing support to parents, leading the following cohorts: Working Moms, School Age Kids, Older Kids, getting and giving support feels so good. Some strengths and skills I’d love to tap into more at our company would be around coaching individuals, teams, groups and leaders, industrial organizational work especially with teams, assimilating new leaders to an organization, and coaching and building people leaders and their skills. Genentech has been through a lot over the years but the one thing that hasn’t and will not change is our care, concern and focus on patients. We are doing now what patients need next and I am proud to work for a company that impacts patients’ lives every day.

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03/20/2025

Reflections Day 1867: Today my team came together in person and it was so great to see everyone. You all know how much connecting with people means to me and being able to connect with my team meant so much to me. There is nothing like in person interactions, communication and connection. The focus of our F2F is the roll out of a few new business systems, hands on training, knowledge sharing, and community building. We are also wishing a long-time extremely valued colleague an early good bye tomorrow and this will be hard. We laughed together today, we got to know each other even better and tested how well we know each other, we learned together, we laughed some more, we ate together all day and we continued to build our strong connection to each other. This team has over 165 years Genentech/Roche experience, can you even imagine. I value each and every member of this team and I have the honor of letting them know as often as I can. This team values each other, respects each other, has each other’s backs, helps each other out and works together like no other team I know. I am lucky to people lead most of them and to lead our capability. When you think of a job you think of the people you work with and these people are extraordinary.

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03/15/2025

Reflections Day 1866: The last 4 weeks have hit me hard. It started with waking up with both eyes being puffy, to irritated internal eyes needing prescription eye drops. I had to pick up this prescription on San Bruno Ave in SF as my Walgreens was out of it. I hadn’t seen so many locked plexy glass cabinets on the aisle in any other store before this Walgreens. The candy was the only thing not locked up. I was in and out of there as it was late at night and I was parked over a block away. A few days later I started to not feel well and my tonsils were swollen and this led to urgent care visit 1. Thank goodness they could give me the liquid steroid Dexamethasone, my tonsil swelling lessened within an hour. Even though that med helped quickly, it still took about 1.5 to 2 weeks to feel better on over-the-counter meds, rest, salt rinse and lots of fluids. Next up I picked up a very light box and wrapped my arm around it and pulled something. It was hurting so bad I wasn’t sure what it was and of course I thought am I going to need surgery? This was my urgent care visit 2 and luckily it was just a pulled muscle, I was so relieved. It hurt for several days and stretching, Tylenol and ibuprofen helped. 3 days after feeling better from previous cold, I started to not feel well again. This time it was feeling like my usual bronchitis. I waited it out a few days but when my chest started to tighten up, I knew I needed meds. They put me on zpac and prednisone. I don’t like taking prednisone, but within one full dose my chest was so much better. My immune system is shot and I hope to be able to get it back on track. I don’t know what caused the puffy eyes but I hope to set up an appointment with an allergist to get to the bottom of it. The other piece I know for sure is stress. Stress causes our body to react in ways we can’t imagine. Hives, rashes, digestive issues, cognitive issues, inflammation, allergic responses, anxiety and panic attacks, heart issues, insomnia and I’m sure many more. Stress can also lead to our body going into fight flight or freeze mode. When our body is having these physical responses and then psychological responses it is extremely hard to function. I’ve experienced over the years and especially in the last 2 years hives, rashes, digestive issues, inflammation (puffy eyes, puffy lip), allergic responses and the fight flight or freeze mode due to stress. Sometimes we don’t know what we will be hit with next when it comes to stress. It’s hard to prepare for how we will respond or how we will feel and we are waiting for the next thing to happen. It can also impact how we enjoy our lives. I am someone that loves to spend time with family and friends, but dealing with being sick has really impacted this and it’s hard. I am not a rester by nature and have had to put rest first and foremost to recover from these different things. Some fun I’ve = fitted in on the days I wasn’t sick was spending time with my mom and brother on the anniversary of my dad passing, going out to dinner with a friend and seeing Mary J Blige, going gambling with my mom and my brother, going to my cousin’s birthday party, watching my niece at her swimming lesson, and getting together with friends and family. Time to enjoy life definitely counters stress. Learning tips on how to deal with stress, process it and move forward also helps with stress. A good support network, thank you all so much, definitely helps with stress. I hope to get my immune system back on track and stronger so that when an illness comes at me I can bounce it off and when stress comes at me I can bounce it off too. I don’t want to take these in, I want to reflect them out.

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03/01/2025

Reflections Day 1865: Today is March 1, 2025 and nine years ago today we lost my dad. We didn't know that morning as we headed to the hospital that's what would happen, we didn't know it at all. I can remember all of the moments of that day leading up to that moment when that doctor came in to the low lit room they brought us to, to tell us he didn't make it and the shock my mom, my brother and I felt. There is no way to explain that shock. When they brought us into his hospital room his body was there but he was already gone, I believe gone to heaven. I can remember not wanting to leave that room as it would be the last time I ever saw my dad as he was going to be cremated. We stayed for hours. Family came and went and we stayed right by his side. I am grateful to my brother who stayed until they took him to Duggan's, my mom and I couldn't stay for that. The day was a fog after that, my dad was gone and it didn't seem real, except it was. Any loss is hard but the loss of a parent is like no other. I had a very special relationship and love with my dad and I am so grateful for the time we did have together. He had a special relationship with my daughter and I am so grateful for that. He and my moms relationship and love was that one of a kind love we all would like to have. He and my brother were like best friends and I'm grateful they had that. We were all blessed to have him in our lives. I know he is still with me as I feel his presence from time to time and that means the world to me. The grief is thick today for my dad and for many others, but so is the love. The love I had for him and the love everyone had for him is so strong and we celebrate his life and that love. Tonight my brother, my mom and I will come together to celebrate him. We will have dinner and likely share stories about him and we will play games like we all used to play together. We miss him every day and we know he is right here with us, loving us closely and supporting us through our lives. Love and miss you dad.

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02/26/2025

Reflections Day 1864: On the latest update of my iPhone it features random pictures throughout the day. So many of these photos bring so much joy for the event, time, moment or occasion they were taken. I smile as I see so many of the photos. Some of the photos can also bring up sadness when the person is no longer alive or no longer part of my life. I can definitely remember each and every one of the moments and remind myself of that exact time. Some of the pics were when hard moments were happening in my life and the photo can bring up that moment too. Today I went on an afternoon walk with a friend, and when I got in the car there was a pic from 2009 that came up of a fun trip and I smiled and I sent it to him and his partner. It brought me joy and them too. A little while later I saw a pic of a friend and her daughter when she was really young at my Easter Egg Hunt. I sent the pic to her and she couldn't believe how long ago it was. Photos also get put together into a video and 9 years ago I was on a work trip in Lisbon and it compiled those beautiful photos into a movie with a hip hop song I love. I smiled as I remembered the moments of that trip. It also touched my heart and made me sad as my dad passed away a few days after that trip. Isn't it crazy how a picture or video can bring us joy and sadness at the same time. Sitting with both feelings is hard and yet it's so important to hold value for each. When we take a picture we are capturing a moment in our life that we can later look back on. Treasure those moments and the pictures.

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02/24/2025

Reflections Day 1863: This morning I kind of lounged as my girlfriend and I planned a little getaway. We started with looking into San Diego, then we looked into Hawaii, then Palm Springs, then Vegas. We settled on Vegas and are both looking forward to it. She said we better look for some bathing suits and I responded with I better not eat until the trip and we both were like LOL. I've gained weight and it doesn't feel good and I know its from overeating, one of my coping tools. It's funny how we know its not really good for us and yet it's also hard to fix it and yet I know I will. I've done it before and I can do it again. The food can be kind of numbing and yet it doesn't fix what is bothering you. By the time I got out for my walk it was almost 12 noon and I was dragging a bit. I prefer the morning first thing to get my exercise in. A couple times over the weekend I wanted to send a message out to someone about something they could relate to but I didn't and it was hard. Today I had some more family time and it was really nice. I sent my coworkers baby a little gift last night of some teething rings that arrived today, I texted happy chewing for him as I know he's teething, hope they soothed his gums. This weekend's time with friends and family filled my heart.

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