Victory Lap

I came home to BC yesterday. I call it home because this is where I grew up and got married and lived the majority of my life, and this is where my heart is. Not a single winter has gone by since I left beautiful BC where I have not yearned for the green, mild days of January in Vancouver.

It was a strange homecoming, in a way, because I have not been back since I got cancer. I was here last February, when I was battling a reoccurring kidney infection and we knew that something was wrong. But we had no idea how wrong it was. It wasn’t until I got home and underwent a battery of tests and ended up in the emergency room that we realized I had been fighting leukemia for the entire time I was in BC. So now that I’m back, I’m flooded with a range of memories. Memories of waking up in my parents’ house, drenched in sweat and feeling miserable, but getting up anyway to nurse my daughter back to sleep. Memories of snowboarding with my brothers and falling a lot at the end of the day because I felt a bit “off.” Memories of an amazing birthday with my friends where I felt a little unwell and was battling a feeling of dread. Memories of going to Minneapolis to meet my new professors and getting cold sweats every time I had to walk somewhere. Memories of going to the walk-in clinic repeatedly for antibiotics until a doctor finally told me that I needed blood tests.

In retrospect, it is clear how unwell I was. But at the time, I thought it was just a bad infection that I couldn’t shake. And then the piano fell on me.

Coming back now is like a victory lap. On my first day back, I ran into the trails behind my parents house with glee, hopping over roots and logs, and running up the insanely steep road back to the house, not stopping even once for air. That, to me, was miraculous. I have hardly run any hills since I started running again, and my lungs have less capacity than they used to (thanks, radiation), so I had no expectation that I would be able to make that climb. And yet I bounded up with relative ease after already running hills for an hour. I really have no idea how.

I am going to run those trails again today, and tomorrow, and the next day. And on Sunday I am going to run part of the Vancouver half-marathon course with my dad to keep him company. After that I’m going to go trail running in North Vancouver and maybe do a hike with my brother. And then, right before I leave, I’m running my very first race post-cancer – a 14k trail race at Golden Ears.

Victory lap? Yes. A punch to leukemia’s throat? Indeed.