The Hard Pill

To be clear, I know this is a hyperbole, but I am starting to feel a little bit like Job. And before you jump down my throat, I do realize that my situation is not remotely as dire as his. But I can’t help but feel like I’m being tested. Every time that I feel like things are settling, every time I start to feel a little bit happy or at least that life is under control – wham. Something "challenging" happens. And I’m getting just a wee bit tired of people telling me that my body is sending a message or teaching me a lesson. How many life lessons is one person meant to learn? (My son’s answer: infinity. I fear he may be right.)

Now, I am not starting a “woe is me” post, don’t worry. Because maybe that is just life. Maybe these things happen so I will never run out of stuff to write about. Maybe it’s nothing special to me and all these hiccups (and explosions) are to be expected. Everyone has upheavals and illness and injuries to deal with. I'm nothing special. I've started to feel like cancer is a normal part of everyone's life - until I tell my story to someone new and they are utterly shocked. And when friends start saying, “Wow, you have the worst luck!” And, “I can’t believe that happened to you again!” And, “You need a break, lady!” Then you start to wonder if it is indeed you, and not life, that is attracting calamity.

Less time for work means more time for
Mother's Day tea at school.

Example number one: at the end of April, I was finally feeling like I had things on track. My parenting was improving (no more yelling), my kids were healthy, my professional life was going well, my business was growing and I had planned to use my “extra” time in the first few weeks of May to finally set up a proper website (you thought I didn’t know that I need a proper non-blogspot website, didn’t you? Well, I know).

My first mistake? Looking at my calendar and thinking I’d have “extra time.” You moms out there know that is code for the universe to give you a sick or injured child, right? Never even think it.

More time for selfies!

I went to pick up my daughter from her part-time daycare and allowed her and my son to jump on the trampoline while I spoke to our lovely daycare provider (you can see where this is going). Well, there is a reason why gymnastics centres only allow one kid at a time on trampolines – you ER nurses know what I mean. There I was, happily chatting, when…BAM. A fall, a shriek, a trip to the children’s hospital, a fractured tibia, and a thigh-to-toe cast. Fantastic.

So, as you likely can guess, my “extra time” was completely sucked up with doctor’s visits and carrying my broken baby around, as she certainly could not go to daycare or anywhere else. But, as with all calamities, there is usually some sort of upside. I had more quiet time with my daughter, and I had more rest, as I had to skip those second workouts that I try to squeeze in.

And children are incredibly resilient. Ten days later she got a weight-bearing cast, and within a few days she was up and walking on it. Dancing, even. I had to plead with her to please not jump on her casted leg.

Then I went to Las Vegas. Yes, I gleefully kissed my family goodbye to have three days with friends at a work conference in Sin City. The pool and sun and friends and training were all amazing, and I came back inspired, though definitely not rested, to jump into life full-force (as if I ever do anything else).

Example number two: exactly five days after my happy return from Vegas, I started to get a pain in my neck. I thought it was from swimming, so I merrily continued on. I did a ninety-minute trail run, my neck sore but my legs strong, and the next day I did a two hour bike ride followed by a twenty minute run (the famed triathlete “brick” workout – because that’s what you feel like afterwards). That night I noticed a rash on my neck – I thought it was from the heat of my magic bag and ignored it. The day after that was my rest day, but we decided to do a bunch of digging and gardening, so it was not exactly “restful.” My neck was getting increasingly sore and that’s when I noticed the blisters. Somehow I immediately knew.

Shingles.

The dreaded adult version of chicken pox. If you’ve had it, you know that the pain is some sort of cross between spikes being jammed into your body and someone holding a lighter to your skin. I have a really high pain threshold and I am still taking the strongest pain medication they can give me. (So if this post makes no sense, just blame the drugs.)

On a 6am run in Vegas.
Apparently I do Vegas "wrong."

The irony of this tale is that I’d been on antivirals to prevent shingles for nearly two years. I just stopped taking them two weeks ago, against advice from my transplant doctor. He said I was free to stop taking them at any time, but he’d recommend I stay on them indefinitely. I figured it was nearly two years post transplant, so my immune system should be rocking, and I didn’t want to take any medication “indefinitely.” Like many, many other things in life, I was so very wrong.

Am I sick of being knocked down? Of course! I have my first running race this weekend and have no idea if I will be at the start line. I am tired of always having something to “fight,” of always pulling myself up and staying positive, of always digging deep to “rally” against whatever is bringing me down.

But am I angry about it? Not really. It seems like a perfectly logical consequence to my own actions – training hard, going off the prophylactic medication, not enough yoga, and not enough sleep.

Doing Vegas "right."

The bigger question is: am I going to do anything differently? As much as I want to inspire, as much as I want to achieve, it’s high time to recognize that I just cannot perform at the same level that I used to.

This is a hard pill. I am not the athlete I once was. I may never be. And I might just have to be okay with that.

So here is what I’ve decided. I might not be what I want to be, but if one person, just one person with a cancer battle or other life struggle, reads my story and is inspired not to give up because I didn’t, then it will all have been worth it. Right?

As for today, I’m just going back to bed.

Learn This

Sometimes the only answer is a martini.

Wait, that sounds bad.

Sometimes the only answer is… um….well…yep. Still a martini.

First off, I need to apologize to some of you most loyal readers for abandoning you for so long. I lost a bit of my mojo when my most tough-loving transplant doctor banned me from competing in Hawaii. I was so defeated that I just couldn't write for a while. I took some time off training, did a lot of yoga and meditation, and became a devoted regular at my gym. (Really. I’m on a first-name basis with the owner). I gained some muscle, got really good at squats, got my lungs back, and finally jumped back into the pool (quite literally). Now I am training for the Vancouver Triathlon in July, where I will wear a Team in Training race kit and make all of you sponsors proud. In March 2015 I will compete in the Lavaman Triathlon as promised.

Now. Back to that martini.

I had to make a big decision yesterday, a decision that I’ve been wrestling with for two years. I had to decide whether I was coming back to my PhD, or letting it go to pursue a different life.

I won't go through all the agonizing details and conversations that went into making this decision. But in the end, it just seemed crazy to go right back into my former, stressful, high-achieving academic life as if cancer had never happened. I could not make sense of anything in the last two years if that’s what I was going to do. At least if I took a major left turn in my life, then cancer (maybe, sort of, kind of) made sense. Not that I really believe that we get cancer to learn life lessons. But we learn those lessons whether we were “meant” to or not. Cancer is not a gift, and I will never say that. But it is a wake up call. And like any human, I like things to make sense. I like things to have a reason. And if cancer had no reason at all except to pour trauma onto my family and wreak havoc on my body…well… then the only answer is definitely a martini.

One thing I know for sure. When I was lying in that hospital bed, hearing the word leukemia and thinking I was going to die, I was flooded with overwhelming regret, thinking that I had just spent the last two years I was ever going to have being stressed out and unhappy.

Trust me, that is not how you want to go out.

And whether I have two years left or forty, I want to spend them happy. I know better than most how tenuous life can be. You can have everything mapped out, you can have your perfect five year plan, and then ka-boom. Cancer. Car accident. Aneurysm. ALS. Freak fall down the stairs. Heart attack. The universe has unlimited creative ways in which we can leave this world without warning.

So if you learn anything from me at all, learn this: if you are always stressed out and unhappy, it is time to change your life. Your future is not guaranteed, and you don’t want to spend your last year or two on earth being a miserable human being. (And you definitely do not want cancer to be the way you learn this lesson. Trust me.)

 I know one more thing for sure: 2012 was not my year to go. God has other plans for me. I’d like to believe that we all have something to do before we kick that proverbial bucket.  Whether I have a small role or a big one, I am clearly not done, because I am still here. And I have to respect that by doing life right.

So… what am I going to do, besides drink that martini?

I’m going to live life fully. I am going to love deeply. I am going to have adventures. I am going to spend as much time with my kids as I can. I am not going to play it safe. I am going to help others less fortunate than I am. I am going to travel and dance and laugh and run. And I am going to write about it all.

And hopefully, I will find my role somewhere along the way.