A Day In The Life Of A Cancer Surviving Millennial

I woke up this morning knowing that I absolutely HAD to update you all on my life here in Portland. Especially since my last post was pretty heavy and negative. I was seeing everything through "eclipse colored glasses". Let me start off by saying that I am 100% happy right now. I woke up today smiling with every part of my body. My mouth was smiling, my eyes were smiling, my heart was smiling, even my little toe was feeling the smile. My alarm may have gone off this morning but what really woke me up was energetic jumps and kisses from Cody Joe. What an amazing way to wake up! Now I understand all my dog people. When I would wake up to my kitties all I wanted to do was snuggle up next to them and sleep the rest of the day. Nothing like pupper kisses to start your day off right! I have been reflecting on my life a lot lately. You can ask Lucy, she gets to witness my weird pauses where I stop in a random place in my apartment and zone out for five minutes at a time. The truth i...

Guys...  Portland is AMAZING. I am so obsessed with this city. I have the most amazing home and I love living with Lucy and Cody. Our apartment has become our little nest in the city. It feels kind of odd that I am already at home. I'm not going to lie it has been kind of an adjustment. At first everything was new and exciting! I mean it still is but now that I'm less busy I have time to do things and I find myself wishing I had all my friends with me so that we could explore together. I could see myself going to Powell's City of Books with Brooke and spending the day there. Cadie and I could find the best Pho in portland. Debz and I could go out and look for accessible walks and hikes. And there is no doubt in my mind that Evangeline and I would hit up some dispensaries and try out the goods on the roof. If Shirese were here we could do a beer tour! I know it's still early in the move and I need to make new friends but my anxiety is ever present and that does make i...

I MADE IT!! Here I am in my new apartment typing on a desk that I spent 5 hours building yesterday (without help). This week has been a mix between excitment, stress, boredom, anxiety and extreme happiness. And those are in no particular order! I'm not sure it has actually sunk in yet that I live here. Or if it has I am already super at home. I have always been a nester. I love to be surrounded by memories and art. My main goal is to make my place super homey and cozy. Lucy has not moved in yet but tomrrow she's going to start bringing her things over! That's where the boredom comes in. I haven't lived alone in a long time and not having someone to talk to 24/7 is really odd. I noticed that I when I am alone I talk to myself. Somehting both my mom and grandmother do on the regular. Out of all the things that I thought were going to be passed on to me I did not think talking to myself would be one..  "Of course I talk to myself, sometimes I need expert advic...

     6 Years ago I was at Primary Children's Hospital. One of my parent's was with me (I can't remember which one). If it was my mom she was probably laying with me in my bed watching a funny chick flick. If it was my dad he was probably giving me a foot a rub while we watched either Pranormal Lockdown or Say Yes To The Dress. They would start to make their bed on this little arm chair that would unfold into the hardest most uncomfortable excuse for a bed. I was usually super doped up and as soon as I wanted to sleep I would ask for my 50mg of I.V. benadryl so that I could bypass all the nightmares and just zonk out. This wasn't just a normal night. This was the eve of my bone marrow transplant. As I closed my eyes my new bone marrow was making its flight from germany to the U.S. Just hours before a very selfless and loving woman named Jana had a brutally painful procedure just to give me, a stranger, another chance at life. I can't realy remember how I slept that n...

So it's 12:33am, of course I need to write right now.. Something about the night just brings me to life. I could sleep all day but once I watch that sunset I wake up. In other words I'm nocturnal. I just finished watching 5+ episodes of sex and the city with my neighbor, co-worker, and newest amazing friend, Evangeline (rhymes with wine). Since she lives in the apartment below me, we work together, we share the same love for giant bottles of wine, and could live off of pizza, it was inevitable that we would become fast friends. I am so thankful for where I am in my life today. Sometimes I can't even believe this is my life! I have job that makes me happy, friends who I adore, and my health is finally in a stable place. Yes I still have my disabilities but there are worse things and I have managed to accept them into my life rather than hate myself for them. Somehow in this very moment I feel untouchable. There is nothing standing in my way!! No doctors appointments no pa...

Guilt has been the theme of the day.  Family guilt, spending guilt, sexual guilt, spiritual guilt, alcohol guilt and above all food guilt. What a strange little word that holds so much power... It started last night.  Who am I kidding? It started the day I was born!  I could get really into the meaning of guilt and the background of guilt and where it stems from and who was the first person in the world who felt guilt.. but that would literally need its own book. So I will just start with myself.  Last night it was late and I was with my girlfriends. We decided to watch a movie while drinking wine and crafting. (each of us in a different art medium) We went for the animated kids movie Home. Its adorable really, all about this little alien who finds his way aroud earth. Anyway, that's not important. After having a glass or two of wine my tummy started doing that 'I'm hungry but its almost midnight' kind of gurgle. I had a very late lunch after work so I t...

I am not often anxious. Let me rephrase that... I dont often let people see how anxious I really am. I've never really talked about my anxiety with anyone. Not even with the many therapists that I have seen over other years. My list of problems was so vast that I would tell myself "I've got 99 problems but anxiety ain't one!" As a kid and a young teen I remember being pretty fearless. I had all the confidence in the world. I had no problem being alone, and talking to people was easy. I thrived off of big groups and crowds. But somehow over the years this has changed a lot. Along with telling myself I wasn't anxious I would tell myself that I was an extrovert and outgoing. My mom always  preached that your thoughts are realized. So if you tell yourself you are happy then you are happy if you think you're fat, you're gonna be fat! Naturally I adopted this mentality when thinking about my mental health. For the longest time I tried to will away my d...

No more than five minutes ago I posted a status on facebook about how I really want to go to burning man. As soon as I began to scroll again through my feed I saw a picture of a thin and frail boy bracing himself on the bathroom sink. He stood there in nothing but a pull up. His hair was gone and on his face he showed defeat. Seeing this photo immediately threw me into a deep flashback of myself...       I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub fully naked and bald. My eyebrows and eyelashes were gone. My cheekbones sharply stuck out of my face. My eyes seemed to have sunk into my skull. The only thing covering my bones was skin. I could see every detail of my spine.  As I sat there waiting for my parents to lower me into the tub I watched myself in the bathroom mirror that covered the entire wall above the sink. I made eye contact with myself and my chin quivered as I choked back tears. In that moment that was my reality. In that moment I was not taking things day ...

I have been stuck in a pensive state. Everything I do flows at a glacial pace. Waking up in the morning takes an hour longer than usual. I lay in bed drawing in long breaths. I slowly trace all of the curvatures and scars of my body. This is time I spend learning about new bumps, freckles, and wrinkles on my skin. No matter how much I think I know about my body, I seem to learn something new about myself every time. My senses take more time to take in information. I react a lot slower to the phone ringing or a knock at the door. Every step I take is carefully meditated. I plan exactly where each toe will land on the cold ground. Randomly I will pause and take in my surroundings. Sometimes I will look at something that I see every day and see it with new eyes. I overthink what I am going to say. I plan conversations in my head, making sure that I have a response to any variety of directions the conversation may go. Every now and then I will think about my future. I get l...

This year went by so freaking fast. It was a whirlwind of events and emotions. I am thankful for 2016, but in all the ways you wouldn't think. Don't get me wrong 2016 was fucked in a lot of ways! However, I might just be in a place where I can reflect on it and grow.. Thank you 2016 for showing me how ready I was to leave school. After failing so many times at something that I thought I really wanted, I finally saw that school isn't for everyone. Especially not for me. (at least for now) With that decision I made it to the Utah Pride Center. I had a new amount of time on my hands and I chose to spend it volunteering. That one choice eventually landed me a job. In april I was finally hired at UPC and I found my dream job. Yes it is a non-profit. Yes it is hard to support myself (especially at the end of the year). Yes I learn every time I set foot in that building. AND YES I feel like I am making a small difference. Thank you 2016 for fucking me over both times I applied...

     Today I had an appointment with my fertility doctor. I scheduled the appointment about a month ago just to check in and make sure I'm doing everything I can to replace the hormones that my body no longer creates due to all of my treatment. The idea is to replace the hormones to improve my bone density. It is known that once a woman goes through menopause and stops creating estrogen, there is an increased risk of osteoporosis. Since I went through a similar experience with the loss of my estrogen, we are trying to improve the damage that is already done. I already have osteoporosis and osteonecrosis and I have my whole life ahead of me. Hopefully in about 18 months we will be able to see if my bone density has improved with a Dexascan. Another side effect of the chemo and prednisone was ovarian failure. A while back I met with my doctor to do a final test to see if I had any eggs that could be salvaged or if I had any left at all. The results were not surprising...

If I close my eyes and go back to exactly 8 years ago I find myself lying in a hospital bed surrounded by all of my closest friends from high school. I see flowers on every surface in my small Primary Children's hospital room. I am attatched to all kinds of monitors and IV's. There is a nurse who comes in to check on me and asks me how my pain is and if I need anything. There are so many questions. My questions, my friends' questions, and my parents' questions. Nobody really knows what is happening. We just know that right here right now we are at a hospital waiting for some test results. We know that last night I was at dance and my femur snapped. We know that it takes extreme impact for a femur to just 'snap'. We know that I have had horrible pain in my leg for the last year. We think we ruled out a tumor just because we saw an orthopedic specialist only a month ago, and he said everything looked fine and I was just having growing pains. Most importantly we kn...

What is this four letter word?  Why does it exist? How can four little letters hold so much weight?  Why can the same word mean extreme happiness and extreme sadness all at once?  How do these four letters have the power to shape our lives and change the directions in which we are traveling?  How come everyone experiences this word in completely different ways?  How do we make it last?  Some people have it forever and others never get to experience it in its truest form.  art by: Agnes Cecil 

Hello fellow humans. Just so I don't jump into some serious news right away, I will update you on what I am thankful for in this very moment.. I thankful for my family. I am thankful for my loving and generous friends. I am thankful for the roof over my head. (wether it be in PC or SLC) I am thankful for my four-legged loves, both pokey and soft. (Frankie and Lottie) I am thankful for my education. I am thankful for my dream job. (I love you UPC) I am thankful for an amazing land lady whom I get along with VERY well. I am thankful for my sisters. (biological) I am thankful for my sisters. (kappa kappa gamma) I am thankful for my survival. I am thankful for my medical team. I am thankful for my residency. I am thankful for my nationality.                and... I am thankful to be in stable place in my life where I can confidently conquer the current obstacle I am facing.      The last month has been...

Hello and welcome to one of my very good days! I woke up to one of my best friends and my kitty. Does that not merit the biggest thank you to the universe?? Last night I got to spend time with one of my favorite Kappas, Deborah (also known as lil' Debz) She made an amazing healthy dinner and we sat outside soaking up the sumer evening. After that we went to my new place and watched the movie JOY. It was an alright movie, nothing to brag about. The best part was sprawling out with a box of blueberries, a huge fan, my crack-head kitty, and my debz. Even though poor Deborah had to patiently help my up the stairs to my apartment, it was the most independent I have felt in very long time. For once I felt like I was pushing myself to do the little things I usually ask for help with. It might just be the kick of my early iced, soy, latte, with two raw sugars, but I am happier than I have been in a very long time. After I dropped Debz off at home t...

Have you ever experienced something so horrible that you block it out for good? Something so traumatizing that you put the memory in a little box, inside of a bigger box, inside of an even bigger box, lock it with every mental deadbolt you can find and then light it on fire? Something so damaging that just a familiar smell or sound will throw you into a panic stricken, anxiety attack? Have you ever had a dream of your horrible trauma, that in your sleep manages to paralyze you into a world of remembrance? A world where there is no escaping the horror that you have already once lived? Have you ever lied to yourself profoundly, so that one day you will believe your own lies? Do you ever have flashbacks strong enough to relive a moment for several days in a row that drives you into a dark hole that is nearly impossible to climb out of?                                   ...

Jeeze! Talk about writers block, I have just spent 15 minutes staring at the screen not knowing how to even start this post. I stopped writing for a bit. Not for any particular reason, I just never pushed myself to write. For a while I figured no one was really reading any of this anyway, so why write? WRONGO! Although I have been keeping up on actual paper, I feel like it's still important for me to write on my blog. If not for someone to read it, for my sanity. Since the last time I posted I have been going through a good patch. Life has been good to me, my body has been behaving and so have my legs (for the most part). After the new year I moved back into my little Hobbit House. No matter how hard it is to live on my own, it is so worth it. I love being in my own private space where I can do anything that I like, whenever I want. Don't get me wrong being home for the holidays was nice and I had fun. It's just too much sometimes and I loose a lot of my Independence. Livin...

This morning I woke up in a funk. I woke up too early to actually do anything and too late to fall back asleep. I couldn't pinpoint my what I was feeling and thinking. Part of me was thinking about the horrors in Paris and around the world and the othr part of me was scolding myself for doing nothing productive since I got out of the hospital. Today I have spent a lot of time thinking about my struggles and pains and weighing them, trying to compare to other's suffering and hardships. When I think in small terms I feel as though I have been through the hardest thing in the world. Not just once but twice. Although when I visualize the larger picture, my suffering is very insegnificant compared to some of the obstacles of my neighbors'. I have no Idea why this world works the way it does but you have to admit there are some really shitty things going on. The truth is you cannot measure hardships. What I deal with may seem impossible to someone else but it might seem impos...

Clearly I have had a lot of ups and downs since my last post because I am not really on that same exact path anymore. I'm definitley "on the map," but things have changed a bit. Today I relieved myself from one of my biggest burdens. It is a burden because it looks inviting and necessary in order to have a future, but it turns out paralyzing me with anxiety and stress. As someone who has defeated the grim reaper more than once, I have learned how to decide what is good for me and what isn't. In this case what isn't good for me is school. I have wanted to graduate college for five years now. It has been a goal that has consumed me. As much as I value education, it has slowly torn away at my sanity. Not only because my mind won't let me concentrate but also because every time I try to succeed in school I end up in the hospital with with some kind of surgery. Literally every semester. Since the beginning of the semseter I have woken up with extreme anxiety ab...