Due to my good fortune in life, I have always thought of anniversaries as celebrations of happy moments. Birthdays, the day Hale and I met, siblings’ wedding anniversaries, etc. I don’t turn the sad things into anniversaries – I refuse to remember what day my dad died and instead hold his memories extra close on his birthday and father’s day. So does it fit with my ethos to recognize the yearly milestone of when we learned I had cancer?
I say yes, because a year ago I didn’t know if I would make it to today. And not only have we made it here, I am healthy and strong, and for the moment, cancer is only minimally controlling our lives.
In September, I had another “all good for now” set of bloodwork, scans and physical exam with my oncologist. In October, I had a complete heart workup, also with good results. In fact, I scored high marks on my stress test 🙂
I need to return to Portland every 3 months for a visit with Dr S, bloodwork and scans, but in between I am clear to travel internationally in easy to reach countries that provide access to modern medical facilities and English speaking oncologists.
Do I go weeks without thinking about cancer now? Ha, that’s funny. Not even a whole day, but certainly hours on end pass me by without it crossing my mind. Nine months ago I couldn’t make it minutes.
Do I believe that it’s all over? That taking out the tumor was the same as removing an appendix? No, although there are people close to me who choose to think that way – whether out of stoicism or self-defense, I can’t say…I can only say that is definitely not my reality.
Over the course of this year, I have slowly progressed from:
abject fear that I would be dead before my next birthday,
to relief when the surgery revealed that things weren’t nearly as dire as expected,
to lack of any faith in the optimistic pathology when so many strange post-op complications kept occurring for months,
to gradual trust that they had indeed gotten all the cancerous material out but that it was already re-growing,
to confidence that all is clear currently but also absolute certainty that it will return in a more virulent form,
and finally to cautious optimism that a recurrence is not inevitable, paired with realism that if it does come back, it will be very difficult to fight due to the type of cancer I have.
My overarching state of mind is acceptance that all we know for certain is that today I am healthy. And some level of acceptance that we can’t know what next month will bring.
I have an amazing partner that is 100% supportive in every way. (Plus he never makes me feel that my doctor’s schedule is impeding on our unique life.) I am virtually embraced by the loving arms of family and friends. I have good health insurance. I have the best oncologist in the world. I have the confidence that every three months I will receive a thorough check and if I do have a recurrence, it will be caught quickly. I have the time and capacity to work hard to stay fit so I can be strong if I need further treatment. In short, I have everything going for me.
So we carry on and get back to enjoying live life while mostly ignoring the scary monster that may or may not be hiding under the bed.
Right now we’re kicking around the northwest corner of Washington State awaiting my early December oncology visit. Then we are off to Europe. We’ll be spending our next three month stint in Portugal and Andalucia, Spain, before returning in March to see Dr S.
I’ve not been timely in updating this blog so I will pre-emptively say that if you don’t see a post from us, assume that we are too busy enjoying life to write. In other words, assume no news is good news.
Spending time in the fall walking around the gateway to the San Juan Islands brings plenty of rain, but also brings the glorious smells of a damp forest, the deep feeling of being enveloped by green, and an endless array of varied mushrooms…with new ones popping up each day making the forest an autumn version of spring wildflower season.
Less than one month into our nomadic year calendar, we had to throw all our plans for the year over the rail, completely change course, and ultimately accept a much shorter horizon for looking ahead.
We’ve again been on the move, but not with the seemingly limitless options or in the same carefree way as before.
Even with a year full of challenges we could not have envisioned, we’re still overflowing with gratitude for all the benefits this lifestyle provides us. Indeed, we have learnt the lessons of gratitude all over again, starting with the enormous appreciation we have for our health.
When we left you at the end of our Year 3 post, we were heading north from Wanaka to our beloved Whangarei Heads. A long trip from bottom to top of beautiful Aotearoa, but soon enough we were settled back into our favorite apartment hosted by the delightful Lil. We fell back into our routine of water fun, bushwalks, kiwi hunting (still no luck!) and embracing all the awe of Mt Manaia.
Then I finally went to see a doctor about my swollen belly and within a week, we knew I had cancer. Within just two weeks, we learned it was likely at least stage 3. A day later, the kind oncologist surgeon in Auckland told us that I should return to the US immediately for surgery and likely clinical trial level treatment.
The next day, we flew to Portland and alongside our tornado of emotions about cancer, I felt a deep grief and sadness flying out of this country which had captured our hearts. I cried during the AirNZ safety briefing and teared up at every kia ora from the flight crew.
Luckily(?) I didn’t have much time to mourn the end of our kiwi dream since I went straight into scans and test and had major surgery 8 days later with my miracle oncologist.
As of right now, I am healthy and mostly physically healed, yet still dealing with the emotional trauma and ongoing fear, which is balanced by our feelings of extreme gratitude for all the love, support, medical care, and ongoing good luck we have experienced.
You can read all about it here, so I won’t go into detail in this yearly review. I’ll summarize by saying that we went through all the emotions you can imagine and currently exist in a state of tentative.
Tentative optimism tinged with reality, tentative caution to believe we can look forward, and tentative planning, as for now all plans are (at the very most) three months at a time.
Once I had my surgery and the immediate post-op complications and initial healing underway, we made the best of our forced sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, where we needed to stay close to my hospital and oncologist.
We started 2023 with a move from Portland out to sleepy Manzanita on the north Oregon coast – less than two hours to all the medical offices and we certainly burned some petrol going back and forth. It was ever so worth it for the peace of the ocean beaches and the progressively longer walks as I returned to health.
For February, we jumped just 30 minutes up the coast to Cannon Beach, where I relished getting my hill legs back under me in the ever mysterious and awe inspiring Ecola state park. The great bonus here for me was a sisters weekend with my amazing two big sisters who came to shower me with love, care and laughter.
Hale started his new sport of dock starting on his foil and as always, had a blast learning and crashing and learning some more.
March was back to the Portland area for doctors investigations and a housesit with a sweet little old pup in a great part of the city, where I proved to myself that I could pick back up Pilates and Hale kept progressing on the foil.
Then, as the doctors reports turned better and better, in April we headed to Bend in Central Oregon for a two week housesit. The upside was the beauty of the high desert and my dear friend coming for a visit.
The downside was that it plunged us right back into winter – full on with snow and all. While there we had to admit two things to ourselves – three dogs is too many for us (no matter how cute and cuddly they are) and Hale was well and truly done with the never-ending winter that we’d now been in for over a year thanks to our hemisphere jump following our winter experiment in the southern lakes.
By the end of April we were up in the San Juan Islands/Anacortes Washington area for three weeks. We spent a week in charming Bellingham and then Anacortes Washington for three weeks, with the best cat sit ever.
With warmer weather, so many trails and much better water conditions for Hale, plus a quick trip to see family in the Midwest for me, our time flew by. It was wonderful to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mom and my siblings rearranged their schedules to join too.
We then finished out May with two weeks in Vancouver BC, with a not so great cat but a city we always love to visit.
Although all this slow travel was intermixed with visits to Portland for doctor stuff, I am very glad we didn’t just sit still waiting for appointments. I know other cancer patients have to sit still waiting for the next exams, tests and results, but being able to distract myself with travel certainly helped me cope. I wrote a whole post on the benefits of being financially and location independent if you are interested in reading my thoughts on that aspect of this year.
At the start of June, we landed back in Vancouver, WA for 3.5 months – actually back in the above garage apartment where we lived the year the last year we were working. We booked this in January when we knew we needed to stay local and Hale was ready to not move for a while. Perfect for me if I needed treatment and perfect for him to get out on the Columbia River every day wing foiling in the fabulous Gorge summer wind machine.
We settled into our tiny apartment as if we’d never left (except without those pesky jobs) and laughed every time we opened a cabinet and saw something of ours that we had contributed when we took off in 2019.
At my June appointment, my oncologist cleared me to travel internationally between my three month visits.
By the end of June, I took off for some solo travel to escape the heat. I spent 2.5 months in Tasmania where I had a great time hiking every day and exploring the “natural state” or “holiday island” (depending on which license plate you read) at the southern edge of Australia. With a stunningly diverse set of landscapes and a plethora of walking tracks, the little state roughly the size of West Virginia really does punch above its weight for someone like me.
It was also great fun to reacquaint myself with traveling on my own – the pleasure of doing whatever I wanted (and proving to myself that I could) paired with missing sharing the adventure with Hale.
With my heart still aching for Aotearoa, I didn’t ‘fall in love’ with Tassie, but I really liked it and found comfort in experiencing the joy of “discovery” again, in another natural playground sparsely populated with welcoming and interesting people. (They do colloquially call it the “West Island” in a nod to Tas having more in common with NZ than with mainland Aus, so it’s not a surprise that I would feel at home there.)
Meanwhile back in the Gorge, Hale was so happy on the water that I am sure that he barely noticed I was gone. Seriously, two daily sessions of wing foiling in the hot summer sun was exactly what he needed after the year of cold and stress. It’s amazing to see his progress with so much dedicated practice time – fun practice of course! He’s signed up for another summer of the same for 2024.
Hale also popped up to the San Juans to join his brother’s family for a week of the good life chartering a boat, eating fresh caught crab and strolling the islands.
September brought time in Portland for a round of oncology checks with all good outcomes. We are finally able to start being optimistic and allow ourselves to flirt with the idea that our extreme good fortune may yet extend to my cancer as well.
Then we were off to upstate NY, OH and IN for a round of family and friend visits culminating in the first family wedding of the next generation. Unfortunately we both caught COVID (for the first time!) on this trip and had to cancel several plans and visits.
Hale even missed the wedding, but happily I was testing negative by then and had a wonderful time celebrating my niece and her delightful husband. We enjoyed the time we did have with our loved ones but it was such a disappointment to miss so much.
Back to Portland in October for more doctor fun, the remnants of COVID for me and sadly still full blown COVID for Hale. And suddenly that’s a wrap on the year!
Clearly not our favorite year of nomading, but one in which we gained another new lens through which to be grateful for our ability to travel and for our privilege of not currently having to work. Health and life may be fleeting, and we are so fortunate to be able to enjoy what we have every day.
Most of all, we end the year filled with gratitude for what really matters – our health, each other, friends, family and love.
