I’d like to equate my life’s journey to a sailing yacht on a great sea.  I charted my course and set sail a long time ago.  I have run into rough seas on occasion and adjusted my sails or altered my course to find calmer waters.  My sailing yacht was 57 years old.  It was a little battered from being tossed around by life but overall, it was a good yacht.  Then in February 2018 I felt an undercurrent that I thought should be reviewed by my yacht crew.  The waters got choppier and my yacht felt threatened.  Then it was hit by a rogue wave – CANCER.  The horizon grew dim, I struggled to keep my yacht afloat.  In short, it was chaos.   My care team plotted a new course.  I shared control of my yacht with them. I still looked for the horizon, but it was harder to see.   This new course was rough and unknown.  I was hit by waves I had never experienced before.  I wasn’t sure how to adjust my sails or if I should plot a new course.  The pandemonium was not going to change, so I had to look for the calm.  The calm was found in the simple things, a nice chat with an old friend, hugs from loved ones, a day spent thinking and doing everything and anything unrelated to cancer. 

In the calm, I found strength within myself to adjust my sails, look towards new horizons and plan for a calmer sea.   We all wait for that calmer sea.  The day when your treatment plan is complete, and your oncologist says NED (No Evidence of Disease).  In retrospect, I think NED stands for Navigational Echo Device.  

When you reach the NED stage, you expect your life to go back to normal and so does everyone else.  Your sailing is smoother, most definitely, but there is always an undercurrent of cancer.  Sometimes you want to shout, “I had cancer”.   Your yacht is bruised and battered from chemo, radiation and surgery. There will continue to be issues with your yacht.   At each juncture that Navigational Echo Device issues warnings and your yacht is threatened.  This is when you need to enjoy the calm.  Take that adventure, spend extra time with loved ones and enjoy the view along the way.   

You hit the 5-year mark, and you think I’m free!  And hopefully with continued research we can say that one day.  I hope and pray that you will be free.   

My journey during that time was like hurricane season.  I knew that I could be hit by a storm again but hopefully I was better prepared this time.  Then in January 2024, one month after my 5-year NED milestone, there was a tropical storm off the coast.  It started out as Covid in December 2023, and I continued to feel the storm.  They did a CT scan and found abnormalities.  It moved to a Category 1 storm, then there was a lung biopsy, a PET scan, brain MRI and it was moving to a Category 3 storm.  The chaos returned and it was determined to be Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.  It had appeared in the lymph nodes around my aorta and under my left shoulder blade.  I clung onto my yacht with everything I had.  Again, my care team mapped a new course and treatment began.   

This time was different, I had found my place of refuge in the calm.  I knew I was going to continue to weather the storm and adjust my sails.  The treatment seems to be keeping the cancer at bay, but I now know this is a lifelong journey.  Is it frightening? ABSOLUTELY!  Do I think about my own mortality even more than the first time?  MOST DEFINITELY!  In all the chaos I try to focus on the calm.  The little things in life that really make the difference.  The beauty in the sunrises and sunsets, the kind words of a loved one and always looking towards the horizon.  I don’t know where this course is taking me, but do any of us?  Yes, my journey may now be shorter than I had envisioned but its still a beautiful world.  When I reach the golden shores, whenever that may be, I hope that the words I hear are “Hope Always, job well done!”