Accepting the tilt

Me on NYE!



On New Year’s Eve a Tour de Pink rider died. She was 25, and had been battling breast cancer since she was 22. She was on Team Why We Ride and although she attended this year’s Tour de Pink East Coast, she didn’t ride because she wasn’t able to. She was there, however, and cheered on her team and the rest of the riders. I saw her but never got to meet her. She was standing behind a group of people on Day 2 as I rode into the hotel parking lot, just after finishing the 90 miles. Remember, I was crying and hugging Sean and people were cheering for me? She was there. I didn’t know her, but she was also there for me. I never got to say hello or thank you.

Kayla Falcon. I don’t know how many years she’s been involved in Tour de Pink, nor do I know much else about her except that she was loved by so, so many in the Tour de Pink Community. I also knew she was a mother. I also knew she was way too young to die. I also now know, just months before her passing, she was there at Tour de Pink cheering on her teammates.

Sean and I are lucky and blessed to receive SO many holiday cards from friends and family, especially this year! The beautiful collages of husbands and wives and dogs and cats and children. Wedding pictures and vacation pictures and pictures in the house in front of the fireplace or the Christmas tree or the menorah. I love them all. This year we got a card from Ishiuan and her family, which includes two gorgeous young sons. We met her and husband Adam at Tour de Pink. (I wrote a lot about her in my Tour de Pink blog posts, and I actually had been emailing her before Tour de Pink, asking about training advice, etc.) At the hotel the night before Tour de Pink started, the first time I actually met Ishiuan, the first thing she did was come up and hug me. And then she brought me around to meet her teammates and Lisa Frank, one of the founders of the Young Survival Coalition. She immediately welcomed me into the TdP family. And that whole weekend her brightness enveloped me: she encouraged me and cheered for me and inspired me.

Her holiday card was beautiful. On the back was a paragraph about the family’s 2013 – the travels and the fun. Ishiuan attended a breast cancer conference in South Africa, and their family went on a Disney Cruise. And of course, Tour de Pink was mentioned. The card also said Ishiuan has resigned from her job to focus on her breast cancer treatments, and that her cancer has spread and she is on “indefinite chemo.” She has metastatic breast cancer.

I knew that already.

It also says, “However, that does not stop her from doing what she loves.”

I knew her cancer was metastatic. I knew she got permission from her doctors to stop her chemo so she could ride in Tour de Pink. And ride SHE DID! I knew. But reading it hit me all over again.

Her life is so incredibly full. Her husband, her boys. Her travels, her projects, her accomplishments, her passion, her drive. She lives with such fullness. Despite “indefinite chemo,” she lives and loves and lives and loves.

It’s really hard to describe how I feel right now, actually using words. My heart is broken over Kayla. My heart is broken over Ishiuan, but I know she’s a fighter and one of the strongest women I know. I know she has the world behind her and will continue to live her life as fully as humanly possible. Without knowing Kayla personally, I have gathered she lived the same way.

And my heart breaks.

Little pieces of Tour de Pink permeate my life. And larger pieces of breast cancer ARE my life.

Which is both a joy and a tragedy. It can be hard to live that way, but I can’t imagine another way to live.

I CHOOSE every day, to share my story and to be involved in the breast cancer community. I write in this blog. I have another speaking engagement in February. I’m attending the Pink Zone game again this year. I read about breast cancer every day. And it’s my choice to do so. And I rally, rally, rally for support.  I CHOSE Tour de Pink and I continue to CHOOSE to follow it, to keep up with it, to promote it, to reach out to the community every single day. It is my choice. Being involved in the breast cancer community, both locally and nationally, is, simply, MY FUEL. One of my reasons for being, for living. You all know this cause is so incredibly important to me, and as a young survivor, this cause is rooted in my soul. It makes me happy. It breaks my heart. It makes me tick. It is part of who I am.

Most of what I do, I do because of breast cancer.

I am a proud survivor, and everyone who knows me knows that.

Most of what I do, I do because of breast cancer.

It’s hard, actually impossible, for me to picture how I would be had I never gotten breast cancer. I am such a different person. And I both hate and love that I’ve been through and am surrounded by so many hardships at a young age. I both love and hate that I had breast cancer. I hate what it took from me and what it put me through. But I love the person I became because of it. And I love the new strengths my relationships reached because of it. I love the difference I am now making because of it. But to have this knowledge about breast cancer, and at the same time almost feeling like I know nothing at all, is frustrating.

It’s hard for me to find a comfortable place in the now, which is after breast cancer and physically healthy. Just because I may not be “comfortable” doesn’t mean I haven’t been surviving and thriving, which clearly I am doing. Life is great. That’s apparent. I am lucky and blessed and loved and love. That is apparent.

However,

 I think I may ignore or minimize the difficulty of getting used to a new body. Still. (I keep saying “still” like it’s a bad thing. But it hasn’t even been three years.)

I do love my implants but they are new and different. And I think I forget to acknowledge every time I run or do yoga or sleep on my side or stomach or do the Shake Weight (Sean!) that it’s different. I’ve worked for the past two and a half years to regain the strength in my chest enough to do a plank during yoga. And I’m always reminded. I’m reminded every day, all the time, that I had breast cancer. Especially during yoga. Especially while running. While doing the things I love I am reminded of why I’m doing them.

I think I may ignore or minimize the difficulty of realizing I’m not going to have a biological baby. I know it’s my choice and I know I’m going to be a mother, but everyone talks about “holding their baby for the first time right after it comes out” or “I can’t believe we/I created this” or “you can’t deny the mother-baby biological connection.”

I get it. I’m smart. I know I’m going to be a mother and I know it’s not going to be the conventional way and I know adoption is our choice and it’s best for us and best for the baby.

But with all my convincing myself to “love” my new boobs and feel blessed and passionate about the adoption, I think I forget to address the real pain. There’s real pain in being reminded every day you have silicone under your chest and you’ll never be pregnant or have “pregnancy brain” and your baby probably won’t look like you (unless the birth parents are short, Jewish and have dark hair … little bit of humor there).

That’s not to say I don’t love my new boobs or am not blessed and passionate about adopting. You already know I feel that way. But for the sake of starting off 2014 right, I think I need to address pain I threw under the rug. I think that’s the only way to work on healing. I think a lot of things still hurt, and why shouldn’t they? They’re allowed to.

I think I need to address them.

Just because I don’t WANT to be pregnant doesn’t mean I’m not sad about it. Just because my plastic surgeon did a phenomenal job and I absolutely adore my perfectly even and perky C-cups, it doesn’t mean I’m not sad about it.

I’ve actually said this before and I still 100 percent agree with it, but where I am now in life and after what I’ve been through, I PREFER to have fake boobs. I wouldn’t want my real ones back if they were the last boobs on the earth. Silly, but I really, truly feel that way. Still, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me sad that it hurts to do yoga sometimes.  

I’m definitely a work in progress.  

I think this may be the first time I’m living in my new body with all these experiences behind me, and the breast cancer medically behind me (but still very much at the forefront of my life). It’s hard to find myself after all this. Because I’m this and I’m that and sometimes I’m all over the place.

And I feel my dosha is completely out of balance. I’m moody and irritable, despite my longer runs (5.9 miles last Saturday!) and yoga. And despite my healthy eating (although my birthday and New Year’s were a bit “indulgent!”) my skin and stomach are having so many issues. I think it’s partially the winter and partially the stuff going on in my life, which is all REALLY amazing stuff. But that doesn’t mean it’s not without its stresses. Adoption is wonderful and beautiful, but maybe it’s affecting me more than I thought. I’m so comfortable feeling happy and blessed, but sometimes I need to let myself feel whatever sadness I’m feeling.

I’m so incredibly immersed in my exercise routines and my finding peace within my body and mind, but clearly my mind-body connection is missing a link. Something is missing. It’s hard to know what it is. And in keeping with the theme of many similar blog posts, my task will not be to figure it out. Because I’ve learned sometimes I just have these moments. And sometimes they last days or weeks or months. This one, in particular, has been ongoing since late fall. The feeling of out of balance.

A work in progress.

And I’m still healing. I’ve been through a lot. And it’s really not that far behind me. And on our plate is a lot more.

I keep forgetting that just because I’m blessed doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be sad. Just because I’m lucky doesn’t mean I can’t be angry. Just because I work hard on my health doesn’t mean I’m completely balanced.

Between the news about Kayla and the craziness of the holidays in my rear view mirror (enough with the cookies and the cheer, for goodness sake), and the endless snow and darkness, things are a little foggy for me and I’m feeling a little tilted.

A little moody. A little irritated. A little frustrated. I’m doing what I can but sometimes I just want to hibernate. I don’t do well in the winter. I don’t do well without sun. I need my bright, I need my light.

It’s just really cold and I need to wrap myself in the promise of spring.