One year later - this is what a year of cancer looks like

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. - Unknown. 

I've tried really hard to find the right words to share what this week means to me but I'm falling short. 

What I really want to say is thank you. 

Thank you for supporting me and holding me up when I was unable to do so on my own. 

Thank you for allowing me to be so raw and authentic and feel safe to bare my soul during this difficult time.

Thank you for laughing with me while I'd find my way out of the darkness and back into my funny and sassy self. 

Thank you for all the notes, messages, comments, flowers, gifts, dinners, prayers, good thoughts, energy, and most importantly, love. 

I truly would not have been able to do the last year without you. 

I don't know what the future holds and to be honest, whatever comes my way I know I'll handle it just the same. 

Often you read that difficult times will make sense down the road. I'm not sure if that is always the case. Some situations just never make sense. However, I know for me, it is. All of this is starting to make just a little more sense. 

Most importantly though, this last year has taught me just how important it is to have faith and to be okay with asking for help. 

I did my best to document the year in photos. One thing was consistent, as much pain I was in, I often found myself smiling. A lot. And that felt really nice. 

To many healthy years ahead. 

This is what a year of cancer looked like. 

---

A few days after being diagnosed...a love of my life found his way into my heart. 

I had a real life Grey's Anatomy experience with a room full of interns...

I was surrounded by love and friends who give uplifting gifts that make your stitches hurt from laughing...

Family came to visit and take care of me and I got the most amazing one-on-one time with my sis-in-law...

And my older bro...never finished that chicken coop though :) 

I had lots of pokes, prods, needles and procedures. So many. 

But I had my first art opening...

And a trip to Joshua Tree...

And a drive north to Seattle...

To be with the three other loves of my life...

I walked into my first day of treatment ready to face it all...

And then flew to Miami a few days into treatment and found a few days of solitude...

My favorite part was crossing each treatment off...

And just like that, six weeks, five days a week...was finished. 

And I turned that page...

And took myself to Idyllwild for my birthday, rented a little cabin in the woods and hiked for the first time since treatment ended...

Sadly, I lost the other love of my life. 10 1/2 years together and I will never forget his love. 

And I met my women for our Red Tent. I didn't leave this spot all weekend. 

Spent Christmas with my soul sister...

And enjoyed life.

that's a wrap

Hello Old Friend - The Return

Ladies and gentlemen. I have an announcement to make. 

This morning, one of the most wonderful things happened to me. 

It has returned. 

My period. 

Is back. 

Holy. Shit. 

Miracles. Do. Happen. 

Let the celebrations commence! 

Bring out the marching band and champagne cause Aunt Flo has come back to town and she likes to get turned up!

Actually, Aunt Flo likes to put on her cozies, crawl into bed by 8 pm and binge watch The Bachelor but hey, that's kind of like getting turned up in your late thirties, right? 

I have never, in all my life, been more excited about the presence of swollen boobs and cramps and I'm fully relishing in both. 

I don't even know where to begin.

About a week ago I started noticing old familiar things happening within my body. I cried relatively out of nowhere. Nothing too new here however, that coupled with sore ta ta's and puffy, swollen appendages and face, lethargy, brain fog and feeling like I wanted to eat all the chocolate in the world (side note: I don't even care for chocolate anymore), I couldn't help but feel as if my body was on the verge of starting her cycle. 

But it couldn't be. I was 100% convinced that radiation sent me into menopause. 

So I brushed it off. Couldn't be. Both my oncologists were pretty certain that because they had to alter my treatment and my right ovary was exposed to radiation scatter, I was more than likely going to lose the function of both ovaries, thus, go into early menopause. 

The funny thing is, when my radiation oncologist and I met way back in August right before my last treatment, I had asked her when I'd know if radiation sent me into menopause. She looked back at me with wide eyes and sighed, "Oh you'll know. Right away.  Within the month you should start getting the symptoms." She said.  

But nothing happened. No hot flashes or night sweats. No trouble sleeping, No huge change in sex drive. None of the normals signs of menopause were happening. 

And I was confused. 

So confused. 

However, I had my mind made up. My ovaries were crispy marshmallows and thus, I mourned and let go of a dream. 

The funny thing was, something deep inside of me wasn't sitting well with this. You know, that tiny voice we don't like to listen to. Let's call her Gut Feeling. Intuition. Home Girl. You get it, right? 

I kept getting these visions or whatever you'd like to call them, of one day waking up and realizing I had gotten my period again but kept brushing it off because I really didn't want to get my hopes up. Something deep inside of me knew though. 

So waking yesterday to her wasn't a total shock but at the same time, was. You know what I mean? When something happens that you knew was going to happen but then you're like, how'd that happen?

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. 

You see, I mourned the hell out of her this past fall. I cried, and let myself feel the feels and said goodbye way before I was ready to. I mourned all the dreams that having a period brought. Mainly, just my fertility and sex drive but I was never one of those girls who dreaded my period. It always made me feel connected to my sense of being a woman and I kind of like witnessing my cycle throughout the month.

But now it's back and I'm never going to take her for granted again. 

Claire Baker, and adorable gal whom I went to IIN with, has a whole program called Adore Your Cycle where she teaches you to look at your cycle as a gift rather than a burden. I'm kind of stoked to do this now. 

You see, we've been taught that our cycle is this dreaded thing that happens for a few days once a month because so many of us have had horrible experiences with it. However, your cycle actually holds so much information. It's quite powerful really. To be clear, when I say cycle I am referring to the whole calendar month. That is your cycle. Not just the three to seven days you bleed. 

There is a wealth of knowledge out there about the various phases of your cycle. Again, Claire has a wealth of information on this you can find here. And by the way, she has no idea I'm even linking to her. I've just always admired her work and have been leaning into the idea that we women are incredibly powerful, cyclical creatures. Think about what we could do and create if we learned to work with nature instead of against it!

Anyway, I digress a bit. 

So yes. It happened. This thirty-seven year old is back in action. Bring on the chocolate and rom coms because day two of aunt flo is in full effect and I need some Meg and Tom in my life! 

But in all seriousness, I still have a lot to think about. In a weird way, going into menopause early would have made my decision to have a hysterectomy easier. I still want to wait until I'm forty at the earliest but if I'm still flowin' then, I wonder how I will feel about having to decide? 

However, I'm incredibly grateful for a little more time to reconnect with the deeper meaning of my cycle. To explore how it influences my creativity and drive and see how it can teach me to love myself even more. 

I hope, if anything, that if you are a woman and reading this it's sparked a little curiosity within you. 

And now you officially know way more about me and my period then I bet you ever thought. 

You are welcome. 

On Waiting For What Is Next

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next."

- Gilda Radner

Today, September 25th marks one month post treatment. One month of slowly healing the physical, mental and emotional wounds of the past six months. 

Both my radiation burns, the one in my groin and the one on my left butt cheek (I didn't know I was going to get that one) are almost nothing more then a faint outline and a patch of dry skin. I remember starring at my naked body in the mirror wondering if those burns would leave scars. It's nice to know they probably won't. Physical ones that is. 

I've started moving my body, slowly finding my way back into my physical sense of self. However, even that looks different. My body looks different. It feels different and I'm trying to work with those changes the best I know how.

Limited range of motion on my left side, random nerve surges down my leg, a strange tingling sensation in my groin, a slight limp, extra weight, scramble egg brains, lethargy, massively swollen boobs 24/7, which I imagine are hormonal changes triggered from frying my reproductive organs. All new enough to make me feel as if I'm living in a different body. 

I laugh now at the memory of talking with my mom three weeks into treatment. "Mom!" I say in my most dramatic voice. " I swear, I can literally feel my left ovary dying." It's funny now though, because I really do feel them dying. I feel them taking their last long, slow, deliberate breathe  and I feel this longing for just six months ago when my periods were like clock work and the womanly feeling I had each month at the sight of Aunt Flow. 

Now what? What do I do now? 

When most women spend so much of their time desperate to rid their lives of her, I'm desperate for just a few more months or years with her.  

I can't help but picture my left ovary as a puffed up burnt marshmallow dripping off a stick over the hot flames of a backyard fire pit. All from five weeks of a few minutes each day on a cold, sterile table in the basement of a hospital. 

How is it that I have to lose so much from something I never asked for? For something I had absolutely no control over? And then I hate that I just said that because I still have so much to be thankful for. 

All in all, changes are happening and it's safe to say I am not the same person I was only a few short months ago. I do believe, it's even safe to say, I am not even the same person as I was yesterday. 

And now I find myself in waiting. Waiting to see what happens next. How do you anticipate the future when there is so much riding on past events? I guess that is why you live in the moment.

I worry though. 

I worry with each passing day that there is a monster still lurking inside me, breeding, hunting, stealing from me, desperate to latch on and feed off every part until I no longer can breathe, suffocated by it's mere existence, and then, just like that, I'm gone. 

That is what keeps me up at night. That and the night sweats and vivid dreams and thoughts of how God chooses. You live, you die, you get to have children and you don't.

Then there is the sheer panic of not knowing how to exist in a world that doesn't really want to know how you are truly doing. A world that wants your diluted pleasantries instead of your God honest truth. 

"How are you doing?" They ask. 

"I'm great! I'm feeling more and more like my old self every day." I say with a fake smile. When what I really want to say is that I'm okay. I'm taking it day by day, moment by moment and coping the best as I know how. But sometimes I spin out of control and wonder where the last six months went. I wonder how I move forward relating to a world that has no fucking idea what I just stepped in. How do I smile and cheer on one more women who tells me they are pregnant and suck back the sobs when I see the reminder of what I will never have as they rest their hands on their swollen belly.

It's funny how bad you want something when you are no longer able to have it.  

So now I find myself in this place of ambiguity, both longing to close off from the world and needing to be seen. To hide away for just a short while longer as I sift through the dust and debris of this messy matter and tend to my heart. Yet, I long to be given new opportunities and people and to spread my wings and grow so wide that the world can't stuff me away into a little box labeled cancer or survivor or menopause or woman. 

I balance my worry and anxiety with meditation and writing, yoga and New Moon Circles and it helps. 

I've asked the world to bring me new people and situations aligned with where I want to go, with my goals and dreams, and it has. It's funny what happens when you set out with a fierce determination and deep clarity. I will not let this experience ruin me. I will do something great for the world with it. 

And then I spend my time with those in my life that I already value so much. I'm slowing down, just a tad, to give myself more to others. To be their shoulder to cry on, their comfort and support in their own turbulent times because one thing I've learned is that life isn't easy for anyone and everyone is doing the best they can. 

So now I wait. I do all this and I wait for what is next and I do my best to live my life and to figure out who I am after all of this. 

Then the call comes from my oncologist who was revisiting the tissue from the slides they created from the tumor they removed and he tells me I have to go in for another procedure to rule out bladder cancer and I laugh and say, "that sounds like fun."  And he nudges again about a hysterectomy and more searching for this monster. 

So I'm really not done yet. It's as if life is laughing at me and says, "buckle up Amanda...it's about to get bumpier."  

And I just sit here waiting telling everyone that I feel more and more like my old self and I feel like a big lier.