Mythology

It's been too long since my last post, and for that I apologize. I’ve had a rough week. Well, a rough few weeks, to be more accurate. I’ve lost my iPod, my phone, my wallet, my padlock, my planner, my gloves, my motivation, my water bottle, my hard drive, my temper, and an entire chapter of my book. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t lost my children somewhere along the way. A few of those things I’ve managed to recover, but not all of them.

I would love to chalk it up to chemo brain, but when I mentioned this to my doctor, she disagreed. “You’re just exhausted,” she said. Fingers in a few too many pies. You’d think after cancer that I’d learn, that I’d be more enlightened, more aware of my limitations and my tendencies to take on too much. 

You’d think.

The happy dance I'd like to have.

See, I really thought that after cancer I would become a better person. I think it is part of the mythology of survivorship. There is this misconception that since we’ve faced death and survived, we’ll come out the other side more patient, more joyful, more calm, less hurried – in other words, better. There are countless books perpetuating this myth, so when one does survive cancer and does not come out the other side automatically enlightened, calm, and amazingly joyful, it can feel like a bit of a failure. When I am not happy every day, I am frustrated with myself, because I feel that I should be happy. I survived leukemia for crying out loud. Every day should be a happy dance.

Right.

But let’s back up for a second. I need to tell you a little story. First, I finally got my pony. Thanks to the generosity of Euro-Sports and the creative budgeting of my husband, I was able to land a beautiful new road bike at a fairly low cost. Even better, I managed to pick it up right before the snow fell and ended the road riding season. I got exactly one ride outside on my new steed, and it was glorious.

My first and only outdoor ride on my new pony.
(Yes it was cold.)

Then I went to see a sports medicine doctor, who told me that it might take up to a year for this running injury to heal. If she is right, then a triathlon in March is not a possibility. I have a bone scan on Friday to know for sure. So suddenly I was looking at the possibility of another race down the drain. And I was going right back to the beginning. One minute of running, one minute of walking. After spending a year working so hard to get my fitness and muscle back, this was devastating. How many more setbacks must I have? I cried right there in her office. (And no, she didn’t hug me.)

I gave myself two days to have a pity party. I cried, I wandered the house in a daze, I stopped answering my phone, I whined incessantly to my husband (yes, he deserves your sympathy). I served spaghetti with sauce from a jar for dinner. Twice. Then my kids got sick and started puking everywhere (hopefully not from the spaghetti), which only further extended my little party for one. Honestly, I thought as I wiped vomit off my clothes for the third time, don’t I deserve a break by now?

But one does not survive leukemia and a bone marrow transplant and multiple life-threatening infections to be taken down by a running injury. At least that's the mythology. We are survivors. Nothing is as bad as cancer. We are tough as nails. (Right?)

What a "home gym" looks like around here.

I got home and stared down the road bike that we couldn’t really afford, that I might not really need, because I might not be able to do the race anyway. This diagnosis also meant I was looking at three weeks in BC over the holidays where I could not run. Three weeks of family and Christmas craziness and warmer temperatures, and no running. (Can you hear the ominous drumming of my impending doom?)

And then winter came with a vengeance. Since I cannot run and don’t cross-country ski, all my exercise became an indoor endeavour. Full disclosure: I am not a winterized Canadian. Even though I have lived in the Ottawa area for eight years, I was born and raised in the Vancouver area, where it usually only snows in the mountains (where it belongs). So inevitably, when the winter cold hits around here, with no real mountains to snowboard on, I get a little grumpy. And then I chastise myself for being grumpy. Because at least I’m not in the hospital, right? How could anyone who survived cancer ever be ungrateful about anything after that?

And this is where the mythology hits again. Should cancer survivors be grateful and joyful and embrace every delicious second of life, every single day? (“Hooray! I’m so grateful that I had enough energy to run hard and get injured! Three cheers for injuries!”)

Maybe we should. But even though I am a chimera and probably a mutant from all that radiation, I’m still mostly human, and I still get bummed out. So every time I am unhappy or stressed or depressed, I feel guilty because I “should” be happier. And then I get stressed that the stress is going to bring back the cancer, which stresses me out even more (you follow me?). I have set myself up to be this inspirational story, but often I do not feel very inspirational. I sometimes yell at my kids. I growl at my husband. My floors are dirty (really dirty). I skip workouts. I hardly ever meditate. I don’t create anything worthy of Pinterest. I drink too much coffee and wine. I lose things all the time. Often I feel like I’m just barely getting by.

Why am I admitting this to you? Because cancer doesn’t automatically make anyone a better person. And surviving it doesn’t automatically give you a better life or a clearer purpose. I wish it did. But we have to choose what to do with our scars. Sometimes we rise above them and become the inspirational story we want to be, and sometimes they swallow us whole. And sometimes both of those things can happen in the same week.

It has been nearly eighteen months since my transplant, and while most days feel pretty normal, some days I go down a black hole of anger from which I struggle to crawl out. “Why me?” rears its very ugly head, and then I berate myself for the indulgent whining, because I have been blessed with so much.

I got on the bike yesterday, pedalled for twelve minutes and then quit. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that this is very uncharacteristic of me. There are very few workouts that I have started and not finished. I've done two hour sessions on the trainer. But I just couldn’t do it. My brain and my body were not communicating. Nothing was firing. And I gave up.

I know. Never give up, right? But sometimes I do. There, I said it. Myth shattered.

Cancer happens to all kinds of people. Nice people, mean people, young people, old people, rich people, poor people, healthy people, sick people. Anyone at all. And the experience might make us better. But it might also make us angry, bitter, hurt, and sad. I heard someone say the other day, “You know, I bet when they look back at it, some people are glad that they got cancer, because of how it changed things.” I nearly screamed (and then I reminded myself that a more enlightened person does not scream at others). Yes indeed, I'm so glad that I got cancer and that my life blew up, that my kids were traumatized, that my husband didn't sleep for a year, that we spent a small fortune on supplements and medication, and that my body was permanently damaged. I want to rip all that “cancer is a gift” nonsense into a million little pieces. (Clearly I have a lot of work to do in the Zen department.)

For some of us, it takes much longer to recover mentally and spiritually than it does to recover physically. Just because we survived doesn’t automatically make us heroes, or even good people. We are all deeply flawed, and I think most of us fall just as often as we rise above. I am thankful every day for the forgiveness of others.

I’d like to think that surviving such an aggressive cancer has made me tough. I’d like to think I’m pretty hardcore. Badass even. That is the mythology, isn’t it? That I “kicked cancer’s butt” and thus am unstoppable? But I’m exhausted. Injured. Hungry. And human (mostly).

So you see, when it all comes down to it, I'm really not a hero. I'm just a woman who needs some sleep. And maybe a sandwich.

I think it's time to show my couch some love.

The Ride

I went for a ride with Rick Hellard of Zone 3 Sports last Tuesday. Rick is somewhat of a triathlon celebrity here in Ottawa and beyond. He has raced in the Kona Ironman World Championships multiple times, and he coaches some of the best triathletes in Ottawa. I have heard stories about him for years, as he coached one of my good friends for her first Ironman. He is also the running coach for Team in Training, which is how we met. When I asked him to go for coffee to talk triathlons (since I essentially know nothing about the sport except “swim bike run”), he suggested that we go for a ride instead.


Gulp. 

“Um…well… but I’m slow.” I said carefully. My mind raced to my borrowed, too-small bike and my flat pedals, sneakers (horrors) and decidedly uncool cycling gear. Not to mention my utter lack of experience on the bike. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that,” he said.

“No, I’m serious. I’m really slow.”

“I don’t hear what you’re saying right now. What time should we meet?”

So that was that. We were going for a ride.

My new heroes.
Give them some love and check out their shop.

In a panic, I headed straight for Euro-sports, where one of the kind-hearted owners, Jon Palframan, had taken sympathy for my cause and offered to give me a deal on equipment. I went in and told him I needed clipless pedals and cleats. Right now. No way was I showing up for my ride with Rick Hellard in running shoes and flat pedals. I'm no expert, but I knew that was a definite "avoid at all costs" situation. I had bought road shoes in the summer for a ridiculous deal at the Great Glebe Garage Sale ($200 shoes for $20!), so at least I had those. Never mind that I had never worn them. Jon didn’t charge me for the pedals and gave me a sweet deal on the cleats and booties (to save my feet from freezing). He is awesome.

So I was set. I had new clipless pedals, and I had exactly no time to get used to them before our ride. I envisioned myself rolling up to meet Rick, not being able to get my foot out in time, and sprawling out on the pavement at his feet. This was going to be epic.

“Just make sure you unclip before you stop moving,” was my husband’s sage advice. No kidding.

On the morning of our scheduled ride, I woke up to gale force winds. Now not only would I fall over in my new pedals, I was going to get blown into the ditch by the wind. (My bike handling skills are not stellar.) I headed to the pool, realizing as I jumped into the water that maybe a swim workout on the same day that I was going for a ride with Rick was not the best idea. But I would be OK, right? I mean, swimming is a lot of upper body and who needs upper body strength on a bike ride? (As it turns out, everyone.)

As I came home from dropping off my daughter, Rick gave me a call to say he was stuck in traffic and would have to reschedule our ride. "That's fine with me!" I heard myself chirp in a voice much higher than my own. I wouldn’t be killed by the wind and pedals after all. But I still needed to fit in a workout that day.

I'm only smiling because the workout is almost over.

I called my husband and asked him to send me instructions of how to set up my bike on the trainer in the basement.

“Just go to the gym,” was his reply. Oh ye of little faith.

“At the gym, I have to watch baking shows on the Food Network. You want me to ride for over an hour watching Baking with Anna?! Do you care about my sanity at all?" (I'm not making this up. They really do play the Food Network in front of all the cardio machines.)

He relented and sent me patronizing instructions  like "use a screwdriver" (thank God he mentioned that, because my fingernails weren't working). It was nice to prove to my husband that I could indeed use tools without his help (we won't mention all the little mishaps along the way, and the fact that I was talking, er, yelling, at the trainer to get it to cooperate). But seriously, there is a lot to learn in this crazy sport of cycling.

Rick and I rescheduled our ride for last Tuesday. Thankfully by then I had done two rides in Gatineau Park with my new pedals, so I was feeling a little more confident. I still had no idea how to fix a flat tire, so I just prayed that I wouldn’t get one.

When I rolled up, Rick was already waiting, looking every bit the professional triathlon coach that he is. I felt a little intimidated and amateurish in my logo-free tights, Lululemon running jacket, and headband over my ears, beneath my mountain bike helmet (I took the visor off). So very uncool.

We headed off into the hills, and he was exceedingly patient with me. He gave me great tips about shifting and pedalling techniques, and it was obvious he loved the sport and liked being a coach. At one point, as I gasped up to the top of a hill where he was waiting, I said to him: “See? I told you I was slow!”

Ever the lovely, generous man, Rick said: “No, actually, you are way better than I thought you’d be. You are doing just fine. You could ride with just about anyone out here.”

A cyclist and trail runner in the making.

Now I know he was probably just being nice, but still. It’s always good to hear that you are not quite as bad as you (or someone else) thought you were. We finished the ride a solid ten minutes faster than I had done the same loop by myself on Sunday. I guess the right company really can make you better.

As I arrived back home, elated with how everything had gone, I reached into my pocket for the garage door opener and felt nothing. I looked at my unzipped pocket and swallowed a few four-letter words, realizing that the opener was likely lost somewhere in the Gatineau hills. I patted every other pocket. Nothing. Just as I became certain that I was locked out, my son’s bus pulled up. 

I was tired, cold, and starving after a two-hour ride, with an exhausted five-year-old and a daughter stuck at daycare. And no keys. I ransacked my son’s lunchbag and found a banana and granola bar (which I inhaled without shame), and then knocked on our lovely neighbour’s door and asked to take refuge from the cold. Tea never tasted so good. 

Thank God I had my cell phone, and that my husband actually picked up his work phone (not always a given). He gallantly jumped on his bike and made record time back home to let me in, and I managed to pick up my daughter on time. In spandex.

What did I learn from this day? A good bike ride can make you forget about cancer. Nice people are everywhere. I'm stronger than I thought. If you become a cyclist, get used to lots of spandex. And zip your pockets.

And never, ever schedule an early swim workout the morning after a tough bike ride.

Ouch.

Some Kind of Reason

 

Did I get cancer so that I'd go to France? No.
 Did I go to France because I got cancer? Yes.

No matter who you are or where you live, at some point in your life, something bad has happened to you. Maybe not as bad as what happened to me (I hope), but something unfortunate has occurred, of that I’m certain. And I’m fairly confident that at some point during this bad event, someone told you that “everything happens for a reason.”

Now, depending on what was going on at the time, you either found that comforting or wildly annoying. Perhaps a bit of both.

For a cancer survivor, this one simple little phrase can be the source of endless angst and debate. If everything happens for a reason, then why did I get cancer? What am I supposed to learn from this? What did I do to make this happen? Why would God be so cruel to me? How can I make sure this never happens again? How can I make sure this doesn’t happen to my kids, or my husband, or my parents?

When I was first diagnosed with leukemia, I made myself crazy trying to figure out what caused it (never mind that the doctors told me it was impossible to know). Before cancer, I exercised, I ate right, I did yoga, I tried to avoid toxins as much as possible. So what went wrong? Was it because I drank from a hose as a child? Was it from eating disgusting raw animal products during a “Fear Factor” night at a pub when I was nineteen and stupid? (True story – I still shudder to think about it). Was it the aerial spraying against mosquitoes that happened in our area every year? Was it some undetected virus that I contracted while traveling in South America? Was it the insane levels of stress I was under due to graduate school and infants who didn’t sleep and a husband who was overseas? Was it something during my pregnancy that suppressed my immune system and allowed cancer cells to thrive? Or was it all of the above?

What was it? For months, I nearly made myself insane.

And then came the moment that I think all cancer patients arrive at eventually: I don’t know why this happened, but I’d better learn something so that it doesn’t happen again. As if we could prevent what was unpreventable the first time around.

Now that I’m out of the acute illness phase, I have come to recognize a few things.

1. Not everything happens for a good reason.

When people say, “Well, it must have happened for a reason,” they are implying that there must be something essential to learn from the terrible event that we couldn't learn any other way, or some bigger plan that necessitated a life-threatening disease with permanent side effects. Does God give people cancer so we can learn life lessons? I honestly don’t think so. Did I learn some big life lessons? Of course. But that had more to do with how I chose to respond to the situation than the actual cause of the situation. More likely, I got cancer because we are systematically and unapologetically poisoning ourselves and our planet. That’s a reason all right, just not a good one.

2. People have a desperate need to make sense of inexplicable situations.

When I was diagnosed, it was a shock to everyone I knew. I was the last person on earth who should have got cancer. Because of my extra-healthy lifestyle and no history of cancer in my family, many people I knew were scrambling to make this diagnosis make sense. There must be a reason. We are driven by a need to explain things, to make life make sense. But if you get cancer out of the blue, you know that life is not at all fair and doesn’t always make sense. A lot of people landed on stress as the cause. It was the one thing I wasn’t doing “right,” so it must have been the stress. Sure, maybe stress exacerbated the situation and caused an acidic environment that allowed cancer to thrive. Maybe. But did it cause my cancer? It’s doubtful. Otherwise every stressed person on earth would have cancer. And it essentially meant that, despite my healthy life, it was still my fault that I got cancer, which, as a side note, is not something you should generally say to someone who is dying. We feel terrible enough without being kicked in the teeth with “it’s your fault.”

3. Once you’ve had cancer, you can stop justifying your choices.

Yoga on the French Riviera? Yep.

Obviously cancer doesn’t give you carte blanche to be an idiot (or a jerk). If you’re doing that, stop it. What I mean is, if you get sick and decide to overhaul your life, if you decide that your Type-A, overachiever life just doesn’t jive with your exhausted post-cancer self, let it go. It doesn’t mean that you got cancer because God decided you needed to change your ways. It just means that you’re choosing to learn from a hellish experience, and life is too precious to waste being stressed to your eyeballs. My life has much more space in it now for things I love, like yoga and writing and friends, and especially for my family. Did I think I’d ever be a yoga teacher and a health and wellness consultant before cancer? Of course not. Do I think I got cancer so that I would change direction and become those things? Of course not. But I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six, and I’m finally getting back to that. To me, that's no small thing. At times I miss debating world events with other smart and ambitious people. But in this new life, I don’t spend every Saturday buried in academic journals and debates on war. I’m a lot happier. Do I feel like I’m letting myself and others down by not finishing my PhD? I do. But that’s not a good enough reason. And I’ve stopped justifying my choices. I had cancer. End of story.

Do I believe that everything happens for a reason? I do. But I don’t always believe that the reason is some ethereal, spiritual, divine intervention. Maybe sometimes it is, but often it’s not. And I think by attributing unexplained cancers to cosmic reasons or individual faults, we are shirking responsibility for what really causes them: us. Not necessarily as individuals, but as a collective whole. We cannot keep polluting our water, air, food, and bodies (and babies) the way we are, and expect anything to change. Instead of finding and preventing the real reasons for many cancers, we are scrambling to repair people once they are already broken.

Pretending to run

I got a hip flexor injury in August and wasn’t able to run (still can’t). Because of that, I started cycling and swimming and decided that a triathlon was an excellent idea (and then I panicked, but that's a different post). Did I get injured because the Forces That Be wanted me to see the light and switch to triathlons? No. I got injured because I was stupid and trained too hard, too fast, too soon. But instead of wallowing, I chose to do something great with a not-so-great situation. (See? Cancer is awesome for the life lessons.)

We can make ourselves crazy trying to find the reasons for bad things. Or we can just accept that our world is broken and poisoned and people are imperfect and bad things happen to good people all the time. I distinctly remember getting a chest x-ray during my hospital stay and resenting the x-ray technician for being healthy and alive and able to do her job. Why was she OK and I was the one with leukemia? No fair, I thought. And then she told me that her five-year-old son was in the children's hospital getting his third round of chemo. We all have our battles. Sometimes they are not immediately apparent, but they are always there.

I, for one, am going to stop asking why Bad Things happened to me. There's no good answer.

The better question is: What am I going to do about it now?

New Tricks

In the week since I posted my last blog entry, I have learned quite a few things. Since I’ve never done a triathlon, and I’ve never taken on a major fundraising project, this should not have come as a surprise. But I don’t always think things through before I dive in (you’re shocked, I know). Some of my lessons were funny, some poignant, and some just plain painful. For your reading enjoyment, I’ve compiled a short list.

My daughter commandeering my cycling shoes.

1. Sometimes the money comes from where you least expect it.

When you do a fundraiser like this, you think you can predict who is going to donate money and who won’t. What you can’t predict is that your blog is going to blaze through social networks like wildfire and people who don’t even know you are going to lay down huge chunks of money. I have already raised fifty percent of my goal. In one week. Many of my donors are people I don’t know at all. I am humbled and grateful and shocked. On the flip side, over 2,000 people read my last post. If every single one of those people donated just $5 to the cause, I would have exploded my fundraising goal. Please don’t forget that small acts of kindness can add up to really big, amazing, life-changing things.

2. Learning two new sports, especially when you don’t have a key piece of equipment, is tricky.

True, swimming is not exactly a new sport for me. But I haven’t done it competitively for fifteen years. There is some rust to shake off. (OK, a lot.) And I forgot that I always look like a raccoon for hours after a pool workout. This is kind of awkward when you have a business meeting immediately afterward. To get around that, I invested in goggles that are more like a snorkeling mask than actual goggles. I am quite certain that the hardcore triathletes at my pool are deeply embarrassed for me (I swear I bought them at a reputable swim shop). So I look like a fool in the water, but at least I don’t look like a dork afterward. I promise I will get different goggles for racing.

If Aquasphere makes them, they must be cool, right?

Pool etiquette is particularly interesting. Swimmers get a bit uppity if someone is swimming in the “wrong” lane, and it took me a lot of laps of passing slower people to finally have the guts to switch to the fast lane. That is, the lane of the Ironman tattoos and flip turns and speedos and serious-looking coaches on the pool deck. It’s intimidating, no doubt. And it also makes me swim faster (fear of getting passed, or of being kicked in the face while being passed, is apparently a great motivator). I guess that’s not so bad.

      As for cycling, that truly is a new sport for me. The fact that I am currently training on a heavy mountain bike makes me certain that once I get on a road bike, I’ll simply be flying. That’s true, right? I’ll be whipping past everyone on my new steed, when it miraculously appears. Either that or I will be crashing in a twisted heap of metal because I can’t get out of my pedals in time, or because I can’t balance on the aerobars. All definite possibilities. And if my bike doesn’t appear, well, then I’ll be racing on a mountain bike. Worse things have happened. (In my life, that statement will pretty much always be true.)

3. Cyclists have a lot of rules.

My trusty steed. Perfect for a triathlon, right?

When I committed to this event, my husband gave me the rundown on everything I needed to know about cycling. I also read Bike Snob. Coming from running, where pretty much anything goes (Shoes? Shirt? Shorts? You’re good to go), I discovered that cyclists have a lot of rules. You can’t have a visor on your helmet when on a road bike. You can’t wear fingerless gloves on a mountain bike. You can’t wear a jersey with a big logo that is different from the big logo on your shorts. You cannot wear road shoes on a mountain bike. Fenders are decidedly uncool (even if they are super practical). And that’s not even including the triathlete rules, which I know nothing about except that there are many.

Also, my sitz bones were not prepared for the effects of two-hour bike rides. While a long ride doesn't hurt in the same way as a long run, having something hard wedged into your rear end for two hours is really not the most pleasant thing on earth. You know what else hurts? Being passed by an old guy on a commuter bike, with panniers no less, who doesn't even look like he’s trying very hard. Clearly I've got a long way to go.

4. You need a very understanding spouse to do this.

Let’s just say that no one is the best mother or housekeeper after putting in two workouts a day. Between training, fundraising, my business, yoga teacher training, and writing, I am sufficiently maxed out. I am living out of laundry baskets and ignoring dirty floors. My husband has endured more pita pizza dinners than he probably should. But he doesn’t complain. And he fixes my bike. That’s love.

5. Not everyone sees things the way you do.

Honestly, I should know this by now. But it’s a good lesson to re-learn. Since I started this endeavour, most people have been remarkably encouraging. Even if people were unable to donate money, they sent words of encouragement. But some people don’t understand why I would ever want to submit myself to such rigorous training. Others don’t understand how racing a triathlon in Hawaii is beneficial to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Am I just asking you to pay for my vacation? No. But it’s a fair question, so I thought I should explain.

First of all, I didn’t pick the location. I was looking for a way to raise money for LLSC, and my injury dictated that it couldn’t be a marathon. I checked the Team in Training website and this was the first feasible option for me. The fact that it was in Hawaii was a definite bonus, but I would still be doing this even if it were in Toronto. Second, if I just wanted a free trip to Hawaii, I would already be done. (I definitely don’t need $6,400 to fly to Kona.) Third, I am paying for a good chunk of the travel expenses myself, LLSC gets great group and charity rates, and I am looking elsewhere to cover the rest. Fourth, and perhaps most important, is that these destination events are why Team in Training is so popular. Many people who have no connection whatsoever to blood cancers still have wildly successful fundraising campaigns, because they want to do the cool events. If it didn’t benefit LLSC to send people to Hawaii, they wouldn’t do it.

So… if you’re hesitant to pay for my trip to Kona, that’s OK. Between my own money and other resources, it’s already paid for. But I’m still raising funds, because I want to contribute as much as I can to blood cancer research and survivor support. It’s really not about Hawaii.

I am learning things about this process every single day, and it’s important to me not only to raise money and race well, but also to be a good ambassador for the LLSC. If that means a bigger personal investment, a sorer backside, and a raccoon face, then I guess that’s what it takes.

So when I hobble off my husband’s old mountain bike with road shoes on and rings around my eyes, you can pretend you don’t know me. I’ll understand.

Do It Anyway

May 2011. Ten months pre-diagnosis (and eight months pregnant).

“Mommy, do brave people ever get scared?”

“Yes, they get very scared.”

“Then why do we call them brave?”

“Because, honey, brave people get very scared, and then they do it anyway.”

Last October, I was celebrating one hundred days post-transplant. My hair had only just started to grow back. Peach fuzz. I was still wearing a wig and I had no eyebrows. I was a skeletal waif, shuffling along the river paths, and I could barely do one push-up. I could “run” for about fifteen minutes, tops.

Fast-forward a year. My two-year-old daughter talks like a three-year-old diva, my son is in kindergarten, I have re-defined my professional goals, I have gained nearly 10 pounds of muscle, and I am now training for a triathlon.

Am I scared? Yes. Will I still do it? Yes.

Because really, what is so scary? Well, I’m a bit scared of swimming in the open water with limbs flailing everywhere. I’m scared of being kicked in the face, losing my goggles, or of someone swimming over top of me. I’m also scared of learning to ride a tri or road bike, which are both very different from a mountain bike. Wait, back up. I’m scared of not even having a bike to race on. I’m scared of getting a flat tire and not remembering how to change it. I’m scared of crashing. I’m also a little scared of the run, even though it is my strongest sport of the three – I’m scared that my injury will not be resolved and that I won’t be able to finish the race.

I’m also scared that I won’t be able to raise the funds I’ve committed to raising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Sure it's scary. But is it cancer? No. So I'm doing it anyway.

June 2011. Nine months pre-diagnosis.
(Did I already have leukemia? No one knows.)

Because someone has to.

Let me clarify. When I was in the hospital, being told I had a low chance of survival, being told that the treatment would permanently damage my lungs and possibly my heart, being told that I would never be fast again, I spent hours on the Internet, searching for someone who had defied the odds. I wanted a story of an athlete who had received a bone marrow transplant, but was still able to return to the life he or she had before. I found a lot of BMT survivor stories about chronic illnesses, repeated hospital admissions, kidney, liver and lung damage, permanent disabilities…the lists went on. These people were alive, which was a relief, but competing in athletics? Definitely not.

I was terrified. I needed to be active. I could not comprehend the idea of being sick and disabled for the rest of my life, or even for the next few years. I needed to find a story of someone who had a BMT and returned to competition, someone who got back to the level of training they had before, or perhaps even better. Someone who overcame the fairly discouraging odds. But I couldn’t find it. (Ok, I know you’re going to say Lance Armstrong, but I’m talking about a regular person, not a famous/infamous professional athlete. I read his book in the hospital and was inspired that someone could go through all that and rebuild himself and compete again. His story is amazing and gave me hope. Without venturing into the drug allegations melee, Lance has undoubtedly inspired many people struggling with cancer – myself included – but it is a bit hard to relate to someone at world champion level. I will never be a professional athlete. I just wanted an everyman/woman story. Plus, he didn’t have a bone marrow transplant. Just saying.)

So now I am that story that I couldn’t find. Or at least I want to be.

April 2012. One month post-diagnosis.
Think a triathlon is hard? No. THIS is hard.

I want to show those considering or undergoing a bone marrow transplant, and their families, that there can be a rich, athletic, fulfilling life after such an extreme, harrowing treatment. I want to raise a ridiculous amount of money for blood cancer research and support. And I want to show my kids what it means to never, ever give up.

I invite you all on this visualization exercise with me. Imagine you are a fit, athletic person in your early thirties. You have never smoked, you eat ridiculously healthy food, you are careful about avoiding toxins in your products. Women, imagine that you have a seven-month-old infant and have just worked to get yourself back into shape after pregnancy. That infant is not sleeping. Ever. You are sleep deprived but running every day anyway, because it’s important to you.

Now imagine that you don’t feel quite right on one of your runs. Something is off. You go snowboarding and feel a little dizzy. You get progressively sicker over the next few weeks. You try to run but can’t. You go on antibiotics over and over again. Nothing works. You get blood tests, you get a bone marrow biopsy, you get a broncoscopy, you get sicker. Finally you are admitted to the hospital and they tell you: you have leukemia. Your life explodes. You have to wean your breastfed daughter immediately. Your children cannot visit your ward. You call your mom.

Then they tell you: you have a very aggressive leukemia. Your chances of survival are not good (understatement). Without treatment, they give you weeks to live. Weeks. You need a bone marrow transplant right now. Your brother is not a match.

You have to explain to your three-year-old son what "cancer" means, and that mommy has it.

October 2012. Three months post-transplant.
Hiking with the wig (and a sleeping baby)

You are confined to your room, not even allowed to walk the halls. Your only athletic reprieve is a reclined stationary bike. You put on your iPod every morning and climb on, IV pouring chemo into your veins as you look out the window at smokers gathering below. Despite yourself, you hate them for being able to go outside and for wasting that freedom with something as toxic as smoking. You redirect your anger to the bike.

Now imagine that you survive months of daily vomiting and severe pain and mouth ulcers. Crushing fatigue, anxiety and depression are never far off. At some low points, you feel so awful that you just want to give up and die. But you don’t. You rally. You force yourself to eat. You lose twenty pounds and almost all of your hard-earned muscle. You are so tired you can barely walk one hundred metres. But you do it anyway, because you read somewhere that the more you move, the faster your lungs will recover.

A few months later, weak, skinny, but alive, you start running again. You will not lose this fight. One minute on, one minute off – it’s a shuffle, without doubt. You do it anyway. You go back into the gym to regain that lost muscle. You can’t even do one full push-up. But you do push-ups anyway. Girly-style.

You look at your skinny self in the mirror and envision a stronger you.

A few months after that, you can run a few kilometres. Barely. You get pneumonia. You recover. A few months after that, you push yourself to run a full ten kilometres, in the dead of winter. You get a vicious gastro illness and lose seven pounds. You recover. Then, ten months after the doctors killed you with chemo and brought you back to life, you are at the start line of a fourteen kilometre trail race. And you actually beat some people. You sob.

You are not quite back to where you were, but you’re close.

June 2013. Victory Lap.
12 months post-transplant, racing Emilie's Run 5k (time: 21:32).

Then you set a goal to run a half-marathon. You register and you train hard all summer, but injuries keep happening, one after another. Hamstring, calf, hip flexor. Your mind is ready for the heavy training, but your body is not. Finally you can’t run at all. You have to pull out of the race. You give yourself one day to cry. But there’s no giving up now. So you start swimming, after many years out of the pool. You ride your husband’s mountain bike. You crash. You bleed and feel grateful that you don’t have to worry about platelets and infections like you used to. You get back up.

Now imagine setting a new, slightly crazy goal. A goal to show people that you are not done yet. A goal to show cancer survivors, and especially BMT survivors, what’s possible. A goal that will help others through the same nightmare you just lived. You decide to try something you’ve never done. Something that scares you. You decide to race harder and farther than you’ve ever raced. To go somewhere you have only ever dreamed of racing. Somewhere you never thought possible.

Now stop imagining. This is a true story. This is my story.

I need your help to finish it.

***

The crazy details: 

I have signed up to race the Lavaman Olympic-distance triathlon in Kona, Hawaii with Team in Training to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. On March 30, 2014, I will race 51.5 kilometres (1.5km swim, 40km bike, and 10km run), farther than I have ever raced before (pre- or post-cancer).

If you want to help me achieve this dream and help find better cures and treatments for blood cancers, please consider donating to the cause here.

If you’re not sure how much to donate, consider $1 for each of the 51.5km that I will race. Or just sponsor the bike leg (40km) or run leg (10km). If you can’t afford that, you probably know someone who can. Please pass it on. Spread the message far and wide to everyone you know. Anything helps.

If you cannot donate funds but still want to help, I am looking for a few volunteers who could donate 1-2 hours a week to help me with fundraising – you can live anywhere to do this. As my budget is very tight, I am also seeking donations of new or used training gear (specifically: a bike [lend or donate], race goggles, and tri shorts/top). Air miles donations are also welcome!

Contact: rachel@rachelschmidt.ca.

Start Now

I’ve decided that every cancer survivor should get a trip. It should be a package deal: “We’re sorry to tell you that you have cancer, but there’s more! After you go through hell to get rid of it, we’re giving you an all-expenses paid trip to wherever you want!” It would not make the year or more of hell any better, but it sure would be a nice reward after all that suffering. When I was first diagnosed and dying in the hospital, I remember telling my mom that all I wanted after this nightmare was to go lie on a beach in Hawaii. I would daydream of myself on a beach, cancer-free, cocktail in hand. (Billionaires, take note: cancer survivors deserve free trips.)

I was lucky. I survived and I did get my trip (albeit not for free, and not Hawaii). My husband and I recently returned from ten glorious days in France. It was our tenth anniversary (yes, we married young) and if it weren’t for cancer, we likely would not have done something so extravagant. But since 2012 was without doubt the worst year ever, we were determined to make the bliss of 2013 outweigh it, even if that meant stretching the budget just a tad. It is hard to fully explain the strain that cancer can put on a marriage. While in the end the experience made us stronger and closer, it is an understatement to say that it did not afford us much enjoyable time together.

But we made up for that in France. We spent half the time meandering around Paris, taking copious amounts of pictures and ducking into endless cafes to escape the rain. The other half of our trip was on the French Riviera, soaking up the sun and enjoying the luxury of beach time that didn’t involve sandcastles or water fights. We ate on terraces, practiced our feeble French, and gawked at the yachts in Monaco. I swam in the sea. My husband longingly watched countless cyclists whip by on the coast, and both of us began to ache for some real exercise. Despite that, I literally ate my way through France. Pain au chocolat, cheap wine, croissants, macarons, fresh mussels, baguettes, espresso, goat cheese, crepes with Nutella…there was little I didn’t devour. And to my shock, despite the fact that I could not run, I did not gain a single pound. French women really don't get fat! Apparently paying large amounts of money for small amounts of food and walking for hours each day will do that. (Oh, and the smoking. But not in my case, obviously.)

Being able to celebrate life in this way was by far the best post-cancer gift I could have ever had. My husband and I had not had a real child-free vacation since before we had kids (our oldest is five). My parents generously flew out from Vancouver to care for our children while we were away, and having that much time without work or parenting or doctor’s appointments was so completely foreign to both of us that it took a few days to realize we didn’t have anywhere to be. No babysitter to get home to. No six o’clock morning workouts. No work deadlines. No meetings. No errands. No training logs. And best of all (for me), there were no meals to cook and no bathrooms to clean. I highly recommend it.

Now that we are back, regular life is in full swing. Young kids don’t wait for jet lag. But I feel great. I still get tired, of course, but I cannot tell if that’s still post-chemo fatigue or just the general exhaustion of raising young children while juggling writing, yoga training, a new business, and training five or six days a week (I’m guessing the latter). Compared to last year, or even compared to previous years in graduate school, I don’t even recognize my life. And that’s a great thing.

The only trouble is, I currently can’t run. Not only can I not run fast, I cannot even run across the street. I had to drop out of the half marathon taking place next week that I've been training for all summer. Devastating. About a month ago I was hit with an excruciating pain in my hip that still has not resolved (diagnosed as bursitis). After lamenting about how many injuries I’ve had this summer, my coach surmised that perhaps part of the problem was that my post-cancer body was simply not ready for the mileage and hard workouts I was putting on it. When I mentioned this to my physiotherapist, he shook his head.

“That’s not part of the problem. That’s all of the problem.”

Oh. OK then. But how do you know when your body is ready? His answer: you don't. Frustrated and generally bummed out, I took some rest time, then returned to the basics and hit the gym. Desperate for cardiovascular activity after a few weeks off, I also hit the pool for the first time in years (though admittedly, there is something a bit torturous about jumping into a cold pool at six in the morning). Then I borrowed my husband’s mountain bike and went for a spin. After a couple weeks of this and still no injury resolution, I realized I was turning into a triathlete out of necessity. Interesting.

I’ve always wanted to do a triathlon. I swam competitively in high school and I’ve run competitively for a while, so it sort of made sense (yes, I was fully ignoring the cycling aspect of the sport). And then, of course, there was my Ironman obsession that arose while I was sick. (This came after the Biggest Loser obsession – I told you I watched a lot of TV last year). I read Chrissie Wellington’s book and then started watching Ironman footage, repeatedly, on Youtube. Eventually, I was sold. It's no secret that I like crazy things - especially crazy things that involve amazing feats of human endurance. I wanted to do one. Never mind that at the time I was a waif running eight-minute kilometres, and I hadn’t hit the pool in three years, and I didn't own a bike or a helmet. I could dream.

I've also been an honoured teammate for Team in Training for the last eight months (TnT is the fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). I am supposed to be inspiring the people training for various events who are raising money for blood cancer research, but honestly I think they inspire me even more. I have had so much love and support from these people, and I've decided it is my turn to start giving back. But my bursitis dictates that I can't really train for a marathon right now. My ambition and restlessness, however, dictate that I need to be training for something.

Then I saw that Team in Training is doing a fundraising event in Kona, Hawaii in March. An Olympic-distance triathlon, in the same location as the Ironman World Championships. Interesting again.

I've learned many things from cancer. One of them is to not put off things you've always wanted to do. Don't say "maybe next year," because you might not get a next year. Don't say "we'll do it next time we come here," because you may never be back. Don't wait for ideal conditions. If it's feasible, plan it. Then actually do it. Start now. That's why we went to Paris and didn't wait until we had more money. And that's why I want to do this triathlon and not wait until the timing is better or the situation perfect. This might be my only shot. You just never know.

Of course, there is this teeny, tiny obstacle called a bike. I don’t own one. I used to have a mountain bike that I loved, but it was stolen while we lived in Vancouver. I haven’t owned a bike since and cannot afford to buy one - just a slightly small obstacle in a sport that has a significant cycling component.

But I like to think that I'm not easily defeated. I survived one of the most aggressive forms of leukemia there is. If I can do that, then there is really no good reason why I can’t solve this bike issue, and this injury issue, and do an Olympic distance triathlon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society five months from now. And if I can do that, then there’s no reason why I cannot do a half-Ironman eleven months from now. And if I can do that… Well, maybe we should leave it there for now. (Let's just say a lot of bargains and bribery would have to take place in my household before I could even think of training for a full Ironman. I guarantee you  my husband is shaking his head as he reads this.)

So my obstacles now are finding a road bike, learning how to change a tire, and fundraising the required amount for Team in Training. But honestly, after what I’ve been through, that’s really not much… is it?

I guess I’ll find out. And you'll find out, because I will write about the whole crazy journey.

But you all already know how much I love the crazy.

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P.S. If you are interested in sponsoring me in this event by donating to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, check back on this blog soon for a link to my fundraising page. Thanks!