From the beginning of ‘the Adventure,’ fear has been an ever present, if unwelcome presence, in our lives. Whether I want to admit to it or not. When COVID began, I was just starting to allow the Damocles sword above my head to fade a bit into the background. I was just starting to allow the first faint blushes of hope to glimmer on the horizon, only to be hurtled right back into fear and anxiety.

Friends and family say they want the truth. But do they? How much of the sometimes incredibly rough truth do they want, really? And how much do you want to share?

I did it! I actually traveled for business. What an incredible and simultaneously anxiety producing feeling. There is nothing like the camaraderie among a talented, passionate, technical team striving for perfection. There is also nothing like managing my nerves as I emerge from this strange time of COVID.

I’ve been on a total or modified lockdown for more than 18 months and now that I’m fully vaccinated and equipped with masks, which will be a part of my wardrobe for the foreseeable future, this is as good as it’s going to get, so it’s time to go back to life.

Souvenirs from my Cancer ‘Adventure’ – Sometimes the Rules are Different.

When you say, “I’m seeing a physical therapist”, everyone says “great, hope you heal soon”.

But when you say, “I’m seeing a therapist”, it’s typically followed by an awkward pause in the conversation and a change of subject. Why?

Taking care of your mental health should be no different than taking care of your physical health, but in our society, there is a huge chasm between the two.

Down the rabbit hole. It would have been so easy to just curl up under a blanket and stay there. So easy to not face the reality of Stage IV cancer in my spine. So easy to not listen to what was being said. So easy to not get up again.

I have been asked many times how I was so brave, so resilient, facing such a devastating diagnosis.

It was painfully simple. I was not ready to die.

While cancer is certainly an unwelcome surprise, there are gifts on the path. One of the best gifts of the ‘Adventure’ is the calling to raise my voice to honor my tireless cheering squad of doctors, nurses, physical therapists as well as countless family and friends.

One of the most important things I learned from the ‘Adventure’, is that self-advocacy is paramount because at the end of the day, the person with the most knowledge about you IS you.

Pain. Unremitting. Unrelenting. Pain. This is one of the souvenirs of my cancer ‘Adventure’.

I have not been out of pain since February 2016 and have come to accept I will never be pain free again. Learning how to manage the pain and how to navigate daily life in pain has been an extra ‘Adventure’.

They mean well. Every single one of them means so well. They want me to be safe. They want me back in the world. They want to get together. They want a hug, maybe as badly as I want one.

Call after call comes in, multiple times a day, with each person spouting ‘new’ ideas about how I should be getting, or demanding, or even illegally obtaining, a vaccine. It is excruciatingly maddening.

After staring down Stage IV Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2016, I AM HERE. And I am grateful beyond measure.

But I am also learning that the treatments that saved my life come with a high cost,

and that in its own way Survivorship is actually the hardest part of what we now call ‘the Adventure’.

I was a surprise to my doctors. We are more than our age, our gender, or our cancer.