No good place to begin

Too frequently, I forget that I am not actually in this alone.  I forget that others have shared these experiences, these emotions.  People I know are, right now, fighting the same fight I am struggling with.  They are winning gracefully and embracing the new lives they have been gifted.  Less than three years ago, at a climbing camp hosted by First Descents in Jackson, Wyoming, I met a group of young adult cancer survivors.  I was utterly overwhelmed by the experience and by the other survivors themselves.  They all seemed so well-adjusted to this survivorship thing; they all seemed like they had their lives back on track and were living every day happily and purposefully.  And a few of them were regular and fairly serious runners.  I was none of those things at the time, and I didn't understand how one could possibly reach that point.

I learned over the course of the week that my initial conceptions were not exactly right...  We were all struggling with adjusting to being young-adult cancer survivors; not one of us quite knew what that even meant.  There was still so much pain and resentment, still so many questions that none of us could answer.  One woman, in particular, impressed me as someone I would like to strive to emulate.  Again, over the course of these past few years, I have learned she is just as fragile as I am; her own cancer struggle was ruthless.  Yet I still look up to her and am inspired by her wisdom and ability to verbalize pretty much exactly how I am feeling.  She blogged the other day, and while her story is completely different from mine, her words hit home, hard:
"Recovery seemed to go on forever, in a kind of horrific slow motion.  Time stopped.  During treatment, there are at least markers and milestones to let you know you are moving toward something.  Once it ended, it often felt as if the limbo would never end.  Life in the immediate aftermath of cancer is suspended animation."

For me, it has been five years since my diagnosis and treatment, and all of those years I have spent suspended.  Cancer took something from me that I have only recently been able to define.  I used to have this deep, burning energy, this drive I could never really explain but innately knew as part of me.  Those who have known me since cancer would probably say I am driven and full of energy, but I am talking about something a little deeper.  This energy was almost a cosmic pull from the future, something hooked and taking me as fast as possible into an incredible and limitless future.  I was going to be a singer! a journalist! I was going to travel the world, taking photos of sick children in Africa, making a difference!  I lived my whole childhood and teenage years believing that everywhere I was going was taking me somewhere new, that everything would lead to something else, unknown and wonderful.  So many years ahead, so much potential.

And then, when I was 20, I got sick.  All of those feelings and beliefs and unconscious understandings were stripped away and I was left bare of everything but a day-to-day struggle to live, to remember to wake up and inhale.  I lost my drive.  I lost my belief in a limitless and spectacular future.  And then when the cancer was finally gone, I think that drive was replaced by fear.  I graduated from college but had no idea how to plan a future because I didn't truly believe I still had one.  I spent a lot of time asking God and the Universe in general, "Where am I supposed to go from here?  What am I supposed to do with this experience; surely there is a reason for my still being here...?"

I know a few people now who would say that First Descents marked a shift in their view of themselves as survivors, changed their lives.  FD certainly changed my life, but I think my epic turning point started just about a year ago.  Just about a year ago, something sparked in me, very quietly.  Whatever that spark was, it brought me to Colorado.  I still had no direction, but I was going to live directionless on my own.  One year ago, I began treatment for immunogammaglobulinemia (basically no secondary immune systems.  Chemo was too effective).  Gradually, my quality of life increased to levels I hadn't experienced since I was 18.  I literally hadn't felt healthy in over five years.  And then I kept kind of getting sick, and it turns out I have celiac disease.  And it turns out my bones are osteoporitic.  And I have high cholesterol.  And I ran the Boston Marathon this past year.

This past year...  I made friends; I learned that I can actually support myself.  I changed my diet, and I feel Incredible.  And recently, within the past six months, the most important things have happened: I developed this crazy relationship with someone I actually want to have a future with.  Really?  Is that what it comes down to, this whole "love" thing?  My heart is growing in directions I honestly didn't think were possible for me.  But it is so much more!  All of these things, the immune issues, the celiac, finishing the Boston Marathon, hiking up a mountain at 14,000 ft in the air, and now this blowing open of my heart and soul for another person - this year, I realized pretty much two days ago, has reignited my drive.  This deep and growling fire in my chest was a feeling I thought was gone.  I thought the antidepressants were stamping it out or cancer had killed it for good.  But unimaginably, there it is.  Finally, painfully, almost reluctantly, I am looking to the future once more, allowing myself to be pulled into it once more.  I am still terrified of the unknown, the lingering threat of sickness, whether mine or someone else's, the fear of losing everything I've built up (again).

It does seem, though, that the most important thing a person can possibly do is define and face their greatest fears.  It isn't easy, and when you're living in suspended animation, sometimes it is actually impossible to pull yourself from that state.  Sometimes it takes a sea change of events to wash away our restraints: a beautiful, incredible, seemingly impossible baby (for my friend) and a family bursting with more love than seems possible but it is because of everything they have overcome.  For me, it took allowing myself to fully entrust myself to another person, to being diagnosed with celiac, to finishing the Boston Marathon though totally untrained and consuming no gluten and to pretty much fully recovering in about three days...  That stoked this ambition to go back to school for nutrition (?!).  So I am going back to school for food science and human nutrition!  It is going to be at least four or five years before I'll be finished with everything, and then everything Really gets exciting.  But look: a plan.  A long-term, long-distance, future-based plan.  A plan based around healing myself and hopefully, ultimately, helping others heal (and walk and run and eat lots of kale).

And fear, still, but fear tempered by love.  I don't know what will happen at any point down this line, but I know what I dream about; I certainly know what I am hoping for.  And so, like my friend, I have to end with this, because it is a universal something we all seek: Hope.  There is hope for a future and whatever it holds and whatever it throws at us.  I know this is supposed to be a blog about running, but humor me this post about running headlong, finally, again, into whatever is coming my way.  Running through the snow and the rain and the 95 degree days and the perfect, breezy spring mornings and running next to someone who won't leave me behind and loving it all just for the sake of being alive and moving and breathing and Oh My God, it's gorgeous outside today!  There is so much, and life is still hard too often, but it is all so worth it.  It really is nice to have Me back.  I feel so fully complete now, now with a purpose, with some ambition, with this love guiding me forward.

Thank you for reading, if you've made it this far.  Promise, more running and nutrition-related posts to come, just had to get all this out.  Love you, love me, love life.  It's all good.  Now go live a little!  And happy summer...

A strange victory

As of this morning, I am officially "in remission" from the lymphoproliferation that had been growing in my face.  A non-cancerous tumor in the lymph tissue in my sinuses, this little bugger wasn't exactly harmful, but it was growing and who knows where it might have grown to if left to its own devices.  They discovered the mass in late August, and I began a 6-month course of treatment for it in October.  Had my last drug sesh just after the marathon in April, and today I had my PET scan to determine whether the treatment worked.  Supposedly, the treatment worked!  Targeted B-cell therapy - not technically chemo, but a drug with the same idea: seek out any rapidly reproducing and growing B-cells, attack and kill them!  Hilariously, though, this is the second time I have gone through this.  So, please forgive me if I'm not jumping all around in ecstasy because, I'm in remission! 

Yes, I am happy, beyond happy that the facetumor is gone.  But I suppose it could come back.  It has happened before.  Also, this past December was my five-year anniversary of cancer diagnosis.  This past December was when this was all supposed to be finished, five years worth of treatment and follow-up care.  Today, though, marks the beginning of another five years worth of follow-up.  Scans every three months for a year, then every four months, then every six months for the remaining three years.  Get all that?  It is a strange feeling, knowing that you have a doctor's appointment in three months to make sure there are no foreign masses growing somewhere in your body.  Cancer wipes out any sense of security we have about our bodies.  It gives root to a very deep, mostly ignored fear of betrayal by the one thing that is supposed to be impermeable: ourselves.  A tumor physically removed is tangible proof that we actually have no control over what happens to us.  Yes, we can quit smoking; eat more fruits and vegetables; remain active; wear sunscreen.  We can take actions to Lessen our chances of cancer or sickness, but no, we can't stop it.  I had leukemia, a blood cancer caused by a defective gene.  Doctors don't know what causes it or why it manifests in some people at certain times and not others.  Why did I get ALL when I was 20 and not three?  Why did my facetumor return without the presence of any viral instigator (as was the case the first time)?  Why does a 28-year old woman with absolutely no genetic predisposition and a healthy lifestyle develop a lump in her left breast?  There are no answers to these questions, at least not today, but we are still allowed to ask them occasionally.  I think the key is to not dwell on them, though.

I just had an interesting visual: my body is constantly at war.  I always considered this cancer thing a war, that I was fighting for my life with a little help from my chemotherapeutic friends.  Now, I have an autoimmune disorder where my insides are beating up my other insides.  I get to help this fight by eliminating the main catalyst, gluten.  But then I also ask crazy things of myself: wake up every day.  Bike to work every day.  Run 3, 6, 26.2 miles, Right Now!  In a sense, I don't want this battle to ever end.  I don't want to ever stop pushing my limits, testing the waters of recklessness and endurance.  Now with the gluten thing, I get to get creative with my diet and nutrition and fueling all these crazy adventures.  It is all very interesting to me (cue up another post on that...), and I like being in control of the madness that is my body.  I don't like tumors and uncertainty and having to rely on drugs to stay healthy.

There are also days (sparingly), when I feel like I cannot plan my life too far in advance.  I have a doctor's appointment in three weeks for my immunoglobulins.  I'll have another one in another three weeks.  I'll have a PET scan in three months.  I'll have another colonoscopy in three months.  Life lived incrementally, plans made around requisite hospital visits.  Forgive me if this post sounds ungrateful or whiney.  I've written loads before about the fact that I love my life, my world, am so thankful for the experiences that have led me here.  But I am ready for this medical nonsense to be finished.  And it won't be for at least another five years.  So, today, I get to grumble a little bit.  We always get to grumble a little bit.  Like I said above though, none of it is worth dwelling on.  We live the lives we have and make the best of it.  I am planning a vacation to my happiest place on earth in two months, thinking about grad school (there's that other post teaser again!), baking delicious gluten-free foods.  Life goes on.

And I'm planning on going for a run tomorrow morning, after the pint of ice cream I ate earlier settles down a bit.  So, awesome.  And I'm going hiking/camping/off-roading with good people this weekend!  And, haha, I'm in remission.  Again.  So, yay, life.  Thanks for stopping by...  Keep on running.

9 weeks.....

In nine short weeks, it will be the night before one of the most storied and historic road races in the country, if not the world.  The night before a race that covers 26.2 miles of western Massachusetts' rolling hills, passes countless universities, and ultimately ends in one of the most beautiful cities in the country.  The Boston Marathon is rapidly approaching, and I have an official charity entry to it.

I am 25 years old; I have been in remission from acute lymphocytic leukemia for five years; I have already completed one marathon.  And someone thought it would be a great idea to offer me a highly sought-after charity entry.  Someone believed I could train through the winter, log in the necessary miles, and show up in Boston in April physically, mentally and spiritually prepared to conquer this marathon.  They also believed my pledge that I could raise funds for this charity, an organization I so strongly support that I committed to doing something I still have no idea if I can do.

So there, then, is the crux of all of this: I have written before that I struggle hugely with self-doubt.  That hasn't gone away...  In fact, as the marathon approaches, my doubt is only growing.  Truth: I am not running nearly enough miles (I don't think).  Before today, I had only run Once in the past two and a half weeks, a run truncated by debilitating stomach cramps.  For whatever reason, the past three weeks have basically just sucked for my general intestine.  I don't know the cause of the issues, but I do know they have really been sidelining me.  None of this excuses me, and I am not trying to justify anything, but do know that it takes a Lot to bring me down.  I did finally see a GI doctor, and he recommended trying a few things to at least alleviate some of my symptoms.  We scheduled a super-fun colonoscopy next week though, so maybe, just maybe, we can get this figured out.  It was heartening though to finally meet with a doctor who was concerned about my weight loss and wants me healthy for this marathon.  (Yes, I've lost weight because I'm just not holding onto the calories I eat.)

Now that I've gotten all that out, the Good.  The good is that even though I didn't run the past two weeks, I haven't lost nearly as much of my fitness as I imagined.  Today, I laced up my bright green sneakers, pulled on shorts over my running tights, yanked on my toque, and headed out my door with the intention of covering 6 miles even if I had to run/walk them.  And I did!  I ran all 6 miles and at my normal pace, no less.  So, that's good.  I felt great, too.  No pain, no muscle fatigue, and relatively easy breathing.  Yes, I have not yet gotten in a good long run.  Yes, that is Hugely important and I kind of really need to get on that.  But yes, I may actually have a pretty solid base mileage, and I am actually in pretty good shape/fitness.  I am still fighting all the self-doubt, but I am done with letting it hold me back.  And also, I am Healthy (GIssues aside), which is beyond awesome.

On March 1 from 7-10 p.m., at the Bannock Street Garage in downtown Denver, I am hosting a fundraiser for First Descents and this marathon challenge.  Finally, the details are coming together for this event, and it is going to be a blast.  Stop by if you're in town!  My miles are accumulating; my fundraising is coming along; the sun is coming out from the clouds just in time for a stunning sunset over the mountains.  We all struggle with something, be it doubt or fear or uncertainty whether we can accomplish what we have set out to do.  The key, I think, is to stare down that emotion.  Acknowledge its presence, accept what it means in your life, then do whatever it takes to persevere and push past it.  Setbacks are an expected part of this life.  It is how we approach them and deal with them that matters.  So I am going to keep fundraising and keep running as far as I can even when I don't know how any of this is going to turn out.

Thanks for checking in; have a wonderful week!!  Running more and more and more....