Good Morning, 

I've told this story before, so I'll keep it brief but four years ago today, they told me I had cancer. They told me I would receive some chemotherapy and all would be fine. But what they forgot to explain was the long road that awaited if I was among the 3%. The 3% whose lymphoma didn’t respond favorably to the first line of treatment. And after those first six months of chemo, after keeping my eyes firmly fixated on the end date. That's where I found myself, blood stream continuing to circulate with those undesirable mutated cells. So forward we trudged, my mom and I - hand in hand, through multiple stem cell transplants, and countless restless nights in the hospital. Through blood transfusions and platelet transfusions, monitors beeping and nurses rushing. Through targeted drug therapies, and immunotherapies that didn’t work. Through a clinical trial and autoimmune hepatitis and meningitis, through stressful car rides across state lines. Through radiation and more chemotherapy. Through opiates and steroids and too many prescriptions to count. Through atrophy and decay, through swollen limbs and uncomfortable water retention. We showed up every day and we did what they told us. And now here we are, on the other side of three long years filled with arduous endurance, and one full year solely focused on my recovery from it all. 

I am now faced with what feels like the constant curiosity from a community that supported me and my family during this difficult dance. The questions of where my health is and how I am doing, and where I am headed and who I am now come at full force and some of these questions have simple answers while others I can only hope to begin to wrap my head around. But I find this process of articulating my circumstance cathartic, and I hope to gain some clarity by presenting in some way, plus I see a value in sharing. In being known and knowing others and while at times these questions may feel like too much, at the end of the day I appreciate the kindness and care they are rooted in, so here it is. 

To start I want to say that there are so many thank yous to send, my NP at Dana Farber who seems to be the only doctor I am comfortable fully exhaling around. Our conversations are filled with tears on my end and nothing but compassion and understanding and unrelenting support on hers. 

I hold so much gratitude for BFIT in Bristol. A space where I have been able to go to remind myself of my physical capacity for strength and whose generosity has allowed me to constantly show up for a year now, to rebuild what I lost. In the last year, I have hiked the 500 mile Colorado trail in 3 weeks, I have run in an 100 mile relay race, I have finished a marathon, and I have spent the past 3.5 months with skis on my feet, charging down the fall line. I have remembered how to self prescribe a push against my body's limits and feel those self imposed boundaries, rather than disease forcing me to face them. 

There are the team of people who I work with on a daily basis, who remind me that I am capable of connecting. That human interaction can be uplifting, not solely draining. The people who have welcomed me and encouraged me and supported me in my efforts to rejoin the world, to once again contribute to it. The opportunity for responsibility outside of myself has been both terrifying and elating. Knowing that I have a role to play, that my actions can have consequence to others has been both empowering and a source of great stress. As I do my best to balance it out, I am so appreciative of those around me whose hands help me learn from my mistakes. And are there to catch me in the case of anything catastrophic. And each day that I do manage to show up, I gain a greater confidence that I can amount to something outside of a sick bed. 

And to all the people who are sending thoughts and love and encouragement out into the ethers just know I feel it, know that I receive it. 

And what people really want to know is that my health is doing tremendous. In March I will be a full two years post second stem cell transplant, and I will have received all my vaccinations. My blood counts are incredibly normal and my immune system reached a point earlier this Winter where they allowed me my first ever covid vaccine. I am firmly in remission and scans continue to show no evidence of disease. I am still taking multiple medications to support my body to be its best. But that is all routine. 

I am living in Vermont, I have moved out of my moms space and remember how nice it is to have one that is all my own with all my own things. I am working full time as a ski patroller, I cook and I vacuum and I scrub my bathroom. And in reality there are so many moments where the requirements of living feel too overwhelming to do anything outside of scrolling on my phone. I feel like I am constantly wondering how will I ever manage to keep it all together and I hold on to a desire for an external source of validation that I am truly doing enough. It still remains difficult for me to ground myself in the fact that I do get to have a future. I have to remind myself that a little over a year ago, I was rehearsing my final goodbyes. I was imagining who I wanted to be by my side and who I didn't when I took that last breath. I had fully accepted that my death wasn’t just inevitable, it was right around the corner. I came to terms with the fact that the final years of my existence would be filled with this struggle, and then all at once it would simply be over and I was in such a state that it was truthfully a welcomed notion. I have to tell myself that it isn’t an easy task to shake what came to settle beside me in my cancer cocoon. And remain vigilant for all the stark contrasts between where I have been and where I am now. I can accurately say that this current rollercoaster is certainly preferable to the one I was ushered onto 4 years ago today. And with that I can remain hopeful that as the years continue to pass, the crashing of waves will look and feel so much different and the notion that life unfolds for me that carried me through all those years of disease continues to hold and comfort me now. And I can adequately say, I am so so grateful I did survive the desolation and I get to cultivate an existence I feel is worth living. 

And the final thank yous to make are to my mom for holding me up when I needed it the most, to my sister Jessie for every ounce of love and comedic relief, and to everyone who continues to hold the space for what I have been through and sees me for all that I am now inside and outside of my history with disease.