Revealing Grace

I am currently sitting on my couch drinking a cup of love. What is a cup of love, you ask? It is first comprised of Costa Rican coffee, fresh from the source. The coffee was brought to me by a volunteer at the Incarnation House youth center. I met her a few weeks ago when she dropped off some snacks. She is a flight attendant and recently had a layover in Costa Rica, so she came to the center last week with a gift. She had picked me up a bag of the most delicious coffee, knowing that chemo makes me extra tired and fatigued and I often need an extra boost.  Then you mix that coffee with some milk. But not just any milk. This is homogenized milk that you don't have to strain. Because I, in my infinite lack-of-wisdom, bought non-homogenized milk that I've had to strain for the past week. Today, I also noticed it was expired, realizing that perhaps I was drinking curdled milk. Feeling worn out, I really didn't want to drive across the street to the store. So my friend i...

I'm going to get real here, and it is probably going to make my mom sad (hi mom), but that's ok. We are going to talk about it. We are going to talk about babies. I am a 29-year-old woman who is almost one year divorced (officially) and 3 months into cancer treatment. This is not where I thought I would be at 29. As you can imagine, a majority of friends my age have babies, are pregnant with babies, or are working on their plan for when babies enter the picture. I, on the other hand, have a really high chance of never being able to have babies. Chemo itself can destroy my chances, or the five years of hormone therapy I will have to have (my cancer was hormone positive) might. And if by some incredible miracle I come out of this and my chances haven't been shot, I may not find a partner for life and get married again. (I know, this is getting depressing. Sorry 'bout that). While my friends are in hospitals getting ultrasounds of their baby's heartbeat, I...

It is almost strange how quickly I go from joyful to angry, when the steroids hit my body and I sit beneath that freezing cold, incredibly tight cap. It is unnerving how the anxiety and fear sway in and out of my heart like a pendulum. Fine one moment, heart beating too quickly the next. It is beautiful, the connection you make with other patients in the chemotherapy room. As we sit, suffering similar ailments, helping one another to feel calm on the first time, giving advice about how to keep our hair and exchanging phone numbers so we don't feel quite so alone. People always comment on how young I am. You don't have any idea what I've been through, I usually say. And I let them know I am 29, not 19. I guess I don't mind looking younger than I am. I guess I don't mind the extra compassion they extend. I get back home and I feel like I am waiting- waiting for the stomach aches to hit, for my brain to turn to a sieve, for everything to get awful again. And ...

Long before I knew I would have to do chemo (or even major surgery), I planned to go visit my brother in Colorado. When the oncologist told me about chemo, she said she wouldn't recommend the trip. My friends told me not to go. But the truth was, I needed it. Everything about my life in Texas is related to cancer (since this is where that journey started) and I knew I needed a break. So I packed up my hand sanitizer and my hiking boots and I hopped on a plane. I wasn't sure, in the time leading up to the trip, that I would be able to hike at all. Fatigue is crazy with chemo and I was just cleared for exercise 2 days before the trip. But over the course of the weekend, my brother and I hiked 13 miles. We stayed in the mountains at almost 13,000 feet and we conquered mountains like it was our job. I was amazed at the power still present in my legs. I was surprised by the stamina of my lungs.  Being in the mountains felt like I was alive again. There were moments on...