A Different America

In the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in the candidates were Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and billionaire Ross Perot. I was 21. Clinton won. My friends had a bumper sticker that read: Lick Bush in 92. (Laugh--even if you were a Bush supporter, it's a funny bumper sticker!)

Perhaps it was that election that set up the Clintons to run against billionaires. Ross Perot is actually very similar to Donald Trump. He never held a public office, but ran several successful corporations. You could never understand what Perot was saying. And both he and Trump are a bit funny looking. Looking back over this year's "race to the white house" I can't help but think Trump learned something from Perot. He had to get the Republican nominee to have a chance in hell. And the star of that "Primary" circus was Trump. On the democratic side Hillary was groomed by the National Democratic Party to be the next president since being defeated by Obama eight years ago. Poor Bernie never had a chance.

As the election came to a close Trump was declared the victor. He beat Hillary by electoral votes. And Hillary? She joins Andrew Jackson (Democrat, 1824), Samuel Tilden (Democrat, 1976), Grover Cleveland (Democrat, 1888), and Al Gore (Democrat, 2000) as a candidate to win the popular vote, yet not the electoral vote.

Whether you voted for Trump or Clinton, the ballots have closed and Trump has won. I can offer one condolence for those supporting Clinton -- marijuana, whether recreational or medical, passed in all states where it was a ballot measure except Arizona. This makes the west's "blue" states (pun intended) a recreational marijuana mecca. And don't worry Arizona, California rejected this measure the first time around also!

What happens next? For some, fasten your seat belts, for others run for the border--to escape or go home, your choice before the wall goes up. Republicans rule the House, the Senate and the Oval Office.

Trump is the first businessman to take the seat. He is not a politician. Let's see what he can do. And in four years, if America is not "great again" we can say "You're Fired!"

Seven Year Cancer-versary

It's been seven years today since I heard those magical words "you've got cancer." Last week someone asked me what the significance of 7 years was. I told her it's like turning 19. It's older than 18, but still three years away from 21.

Graduating from high school is like the first cancer-versary, whew, I made it. Turning 18 is similar to the 5 yr cancer-versary. You're still getting "window" envelops with medical bills, but you're strong enough to "vote" for the medical care you wish to receive in the future. Then you wait five more years to reach the holy grail of cancer-versaries -- 10 years. Ten years is definitely the equivalent of 21. You can drink! Before health care reform after 10 years you were stamped "CURED" by the insurance companies and cancer was no longer considered a pre-existing condition.

Yesterday I woke up to Truckee blanketed in 5 inches of snow. I donned my snow boots and walked the dogs to the river. It reminded me of years ago when it used to snow every April in Truckee. It reminded me of backcountry skiing "right into the lake" before feasting on a shared sandwich and cookie in front of the fire at Tahoe House with a friend that is no longer alive. It reminded me to enjoy this very moment watching the water flow away from the mountains towards Pyramid Lake where once I took the Squaw Valley company car -- a sporty Subaru -- to see how fast it would go. I drove 120 mph down a two-lane road and to this day that remains the fastest I've ever driven.

A lot of life has happened between April 24, 2009 and today. In my memoir, Saving Second Base, I wrote:

I stood there staring at my own body but did not see me. I hated cancer. I hated the way I looked. I hated the way I felt. Mostly I hated that my life was not my own.

The truth is I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight cancer. Cancer was my way out of this world. If I died from cancer that wouldn’t be my fault. 

But yesterday I thought of something else I used to have written on pieces of paper all around me. It was not from cancer, but before cancer. I lived by the words and those words have taken me all over the world. I read the saying somewhere that I do not remember and I cannot remember the words exactly, but it went something like this: 

I don't think about what I would have missed if I had never left, I think about what I never would have known if I had stayed. 

In revising these words yesterday, I wrote: 

I don't think about what I would have missed if I did not fight cancer, I think of all the experiences I've had because I did. 

Here is a photographic journey of the past seven years. 

Celebration after finishing treatment, Dec 2009

Alaska Cruise for Bubbie's 80th b-day June 2010

Empire Mine with my nephew, Jack, Spring 2011

Florida Breast Cancer Marathon, Valentin'e Day, 2011

Teaching my niece, Haley, to ride a bike Spring 2012

2nd Denali attempt, 17,000-ft, 2012

Surfing, Costa Rica with Mom, January 2013

Ropes Course, Costa Rica January 2013

Oregon, Spring 2014

Theo's 2nd 14er, CO 2014

Making cookies for Santa, December 2015

Teaching Jack & Haley to Ski, 2016

 

Great Ski Race (checked off the to-do list), March 2016

Tulips in Nevada City with Julie April 2016

Statistics Don't Lie

...but they definitely don't tell the truth. On April 24, 2010 I shifted from cancer patient to survivor. I earned my "Year One" badge. And with that was set back into the world to be free. 

My treatment was far from over. I continued to have surgery after surgery. In 2011 I began testing for uterine cancer, First an ultrasound then D and C and finally in September 2011 a complete hysterectomy and oophorectomy. Then my life changed. For the first time weight piled on -- 40+ pounds of it. And I cannot get it off. I exercise, diet, exercise and diet and then I eat a cherry pie. 

The level of frustration grows every single day. 

In my recent 6-year "cancer-vesary" I told my oncologist that if this how it is, I don't want to live forever. She said I needed a psychiatrist. Since 2011 I've been screaming at the top of my lungs without a sound being heard. I don't need to see a psychiatrist. I just want everyone to know the truth. 

Cancer survivorship comes at a cost. Oncologists call it a New Normal. Others call it "at least you're alive". Well I have news for those that haven't walked a day in my shoes ... this is not alive.

Take a look at the girl in the pink dress. Would you go out with her? When you look at her, what do you think? 

Now take a look at the girl in the blue tank top. What do you think of her? When she tells you she's a climber, what do you think? Yeah, really? 

It's OK. People judge. I judge. When I look at the girl in the pink dress I think she can do anything. And when I look at the girl in the blue tank top I think she should go on a diet. 

The pink dress girl was running in the Hood to Coast relay. The blue tank top girl was hiking the traverse from Peak 1 to Peak 10. The girl in the pink dress swam in the ocean after the team crossed the finish line. The girl in the blue tank top didn't get to Peak 4. What is the judgement now? I really think the girl in the blue tank top needs to go on a diet.  

How about when diets really don't work, then what? One of the doctors I saw said to me it's a matter of calories in, calories out. So I stopped eating. I have yogurt and granola for breakfast a tangerine for lunch, maybe a bowl of soup. Sometimes an egg. I'm done eating for the day. Only for a nutritionist to tell me I don't eat enough and that's why I'm fat. Anorexics don't eat at all. They are not fat. 

Another oncologist said I should accept the new me - the fat me. A primary care doc said I was fat because I don't sleep. A registered dietitian put me on "magic soup". It didn't taste great and I gained 2 lbs. She said I didn't do it right.

Recently I went to an endocrinologist. A specialist in hormones and metabolism. He asked me why I cared whether I lost the weight. I told him because I can't do the things I used to do. People judge me. He said so it was for vanity. 

It has nothing to do with vanity. About a year and a half ago I was working on a filming project. I was told that a consultant reviewed the footage and requested that I do a video to explain why I was fat. I actually had an interviewee ask me why I was fat and I answered her. The girl in the pink dress would have told her to fuck off!

Somewhere in this thing called survivorship I lost. In less than 60 days I will receive my "Seven Year" badge. Every day that goes by I keep going. I cling to something called hope. Somewhere inside of me is that girl in the pink dress. 

Statistics don't lie, but they are far from the truth. 

Side note: The endocrinologist is the first doctor I've seen since 2011 that actually believes there is something metabolically out of whack since my ovaries were removed. Under his care I will undergo testing over the next month to find replacement therapy. I asked him if I should have hope and he said yes.

"My first friend in America"

We live in a world of instant: Instagram, Instant Message, Twitter, Text, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest.

And in an instant I was reminded how simple it used to be when I received a text with this attached photo. A whole lot of life has been lived since these photos were taken.

Yet, I just want to find a way to crawl back into the skin of the girl smiling in the photo booth hanging out with her best friend.

Loss? Or just giving up?

There's loss of innocence like trying desperately to be 21 when I was only 15. Loss of the ability to do something I used to be able to do like back walkovers into the splits. There's real loss, like when my boyfriend fell 240 feet in a fatal climbing accident.

Then there's two days after his death when I was climbing with Nettle, wailing and pounding my fists into the rock barely able to mutter words when Nettle said to me "time has a wonderful way of healing and I know you don't think this now, but you will love again."

Years later cancer stole from me. I've lost my insides - every part that makes me female from my breasts to my cervix. I write "droid" on forms where I should check either male or female.

When I stand at the bottom of a climb I look up. Many times I've already given up in my head. It's a long climb. The ice is brittle. What if I don't have the gear I need. I'm done before a single ice ax is swung.

Loss is real, it makes life go round. My brother desperately tried to have kids for more than a decade. My niece was born almost exactly 1 year after my grandmother died, She's my grandmother in a beautiful new way. My brother never gave up. And after our other grandmother died, his son was born.

What will happen next when I'm standing at the bottom of a climb - figuratively or for real? How will I write the ending to the story? Will I blame loss as I give up?

I bought myself a greeting card a week before I started chemotherapy. Today it still hangs on my fridge and some days it is the reason I put one font in front of the other. I changed "you" to "me". On the outside it reads: Believe. On the inside it reads: Because I Believe in Me.

I'm not even close to the top of the mountain, but I show up and I climb.

Every New Begining Comes from A Beginning's End...

I just didn't understand that song. I do now. I purchased a camper trailer in May. The plan was to live in the camper trailer while my significant other and I built a house. But that's not exactly what happened.

I purchased the camper from a man in the middle of a divorce. He had some remaining items in the camper. Jeff and I followed as he drove the camper from storage to his house to empty what remained of a life he once had. A life with his daughters and wife as a family. Kites they flew into the sky at the beach. S'mores sticks to roast marshmallows over the campfire. Sleeping bags the kids curled up in at night. It was his beginning's end.

Once the camper was officially ours, we cleaned the camper and added our own touch to make it ours. Dog bowls and beds, a painting my mom painted of our trip to the Grand Canyon, clothes, dishes and finishing touches. Our camper was moved onto the back half of our property. We were ready for construction. Our beginning.


Four months into construction and our house was moving forward, rapidly. The exterior was done, roof on, windows in.

On August 23rd we went to Rocklin for my brother's birthday and stayed the night. Monday morning we returned home.

Theodore stopped dead in his tracks about 10 feet from the front door of the trailer barking his little head off. The windows were busted. The door was wide open and a shredded bag of dog food was strewn on the ground before us. Walking through the battered front door was quite a sight. The refrigerator door was open, eggs smashed all over the floor, chocolate pudding decorated the walls along with mashed avocado. Bear blood was on the walls at the windows and doors and glass was everywhere.


We cleaned for the next 8 hours. Picked up the trash, swept the glass. We kept the dogs safe. Loaded the cat into a kennel and drove her to be boarded, where she still is today.

Eventually all of the windows were taped shut, the door locked for the final time and the camper was moved off of our lot.

Insurance would make the repairs.

In the meantime, the man I bought the camper from wanted to buy it back from us. He wanted to rebuild his memories in the camper. We were happy for a buyer and awaited the return of the camper to live in to finish construction and then sell back to the very person we bought it from.

For the next six weeks we camped, lived out of our cars, the cat in the kennel and the dogs at my folks. We jammed everything else into our already over-stuffed storage unit. We ate out breakfast, lunch, dinner (we still do this!) Every waking moment hanging sheetrock or working our jobs for money. Working until exhaustion so that we can get out of our cars and into our house. Understanding and appreciating the feeling of displacement. And very thankful that this would be temporary. Our house was nearing temporary move-in condition.

The first week of October, my insurance agent called to tell me the camper was considered a "total loss." A few days later I went to claim the final items that remained. As I stood in the camper at the wrecking yard I couldn't help but be a bit nostalgic. Standing in the "living room" was once a dream that seemed like a lifetime ago. A few odds and ends remained and one final art piece I had tucked away from my nephew. This was my beginnings end.

Welcome Home

I choose very little in my life. While I've done a lot, the choices have not all been mind. This revelation came recently as I was telling someone how I graduated from college as a Conservation Biologist. I did not go to school to become a biologist. I just took classes that seemed fun. About my junior year, my adviser called me into her office to talk about graduating. After careful examination of my transcripts it was decided that I would be a conservation biologist. Graduation: BS in Conservation Biology 1990-something. 

My first job was a fluke. I spent most of my 20's and 30's chasing adventure and my body felt it (especially now, but that's a different BLOG). I returned from 3 or 4 months in Europe kite skiing, hiking, climbing, and traveling with one achy back due to an accident years earlier skiing in Tuolemne Meadows where I slipped a disc. With a ton of skiing while carrying heavy packs it was time to sign up for back surgery. I left my job driving a Zamboni at the Squaw Ice Rink and headed to personal for "light duty". That is where I met Nancy Cushing, wife to the owner of Squaw Valley. I told her I was a conservation biologist (whatever that was) and she said "you're hired" and I was thrust into the throngs of Squaw Valley Ski Corporation! If you were around in the late 90's you would understand and perhaps that makes for another BLOG another time. I loved my job-out-of-college. I was actually working as a biologist! But things changed fast and my dream job became a nightmare when the EPA raided the valley, prosecuting Squaw for violations of the Clean Water Act (not a good time to be the only staff biologist at Squaw). My life was about to change. 

I did a brief stay in Orlando. I thought if I moved all the way across the country I could dump my boyfriend. Imagine my surprise when he showed up at my door a few weeks later with a car full of stuff! A year later he stayed in Florida (got married had kids) and I went home -- back to Tahoe (1st return). One of my friends asked what I was going to do next so I told her: I'm going to rent out my house plants and plant flowers. I did. For two years. I met the most amazing man. He died. And I ran away to Bozeman, Montana. (A side note: you can still see the planters I created and had built hanging in Mama Sake's at Squaw Valley from over 10 years ago.) 

I did not choose Bozeman. I fell in love with a flower garden, bought the house attached to it and stayed. I was asked again what I was going to do with my life. I looked around Bozeman at all of the lawns and thought I'm not mowing lawns so Botanika (my landscaping company in Tahoe) is out of the question! But real estate was booming. So after a 60-hr online class WHAM I was real estate agent. Money grew on trees (it is true, 2004-2006 money did grow on trees). My guy at the time kept saying: it's smoking mirrors. He was right and in 2008 the trees fell and all the money went away, along with my house (a hail storm in August 2008 claimed the flower garden). I climbed into my Subaru with an exercise ball riding shotgun and Sampson holding down camp in the back and hit the road. Everything I owned shoved into a shed at a friend of mine's except what fit in the rocket box on top of my car. Someone said I'd like New Zealand or Colorado. Colorado was simply easier to get to. 

And then I got cancer. I was required to stay within hospital's distance. I never cared for Colorado. It was pretty, but pretty only goes so far. I missed my home, my family and my friends. I felt alone in Colorado and I hated cancer for making me stay. In 2012 I left for Tahoe (the 2nd time I returned). I stayed a month and a month Costa Rica surfing and zip lining with my mom before returning to Colorado to see if things would work with the guy I left there. From 2012 to 2014 I made a choice - to learn everything I could about oncology massage and working with people who are in treatment for cancer, had cancer, or are living with cancer. I absolutely love working with those touched by cancer. I love my patients. I love learning about oncology care, lymphedema, I love working with those getting ready to leave this world. This work makes my heart sing. 

On August 20, 2014 I called my brother to wish him Happy Birthday. He was with his kids and our folks. I got off the phone and cried. I knew that day I could no longer stay in Colorado. When my guy got home that night, I told him I was leaving (and he decided to come too). This year ends with my final return to Tahoe (3rd time's a charm) and my commitment to well being. 

On January 19th I begin grad school where I will get a Master's Degree in Health & Wellness. I have plans and goals and I can see exactly where I want to go from here. I can picture the house I live in, the flowers planted in the yard. I can see my niece and nephew playing in the woods and learning to ski. I see my mom and I romping through the Sierra's talking about how my dad and her met, how my great grandfather sold pencil-drawn portraits during the depression to put food on the table. We will talk about our next great adventure and lament about new aches and pains. My dad and I will talk about my mom and my brother. And my brother and I will talk about my dad.

Life seems so simple and so pure. It has been a long road back, paved with heartache, but grouted in wonderful memories. I would not change my life and the wind I've floated on. But I will say, it sure is great to be home. Welcome home me!

View from my parent's deck.