Coin Toss

Surprisingly, I have taken the path of least resistance. I have not made my decision through emotion. I am not the warrior fully loading all my weapons. I am not exhausting all options. It's seldom that I surprise myself, but in this case, I have...I've left my own jaw dropped to the floor.

In sport, I have always done whatever it takes. If oatmeal and bananas are the best race day fuel, then, that's what I am eating on race day. If taking non-gmo protein after an intense workout will help me recover quicker, I am on it. I have been drinking watercress, kale and spinach shakes long before various media outlets deemed them super foods. I even have creatine supplement drinks for pre-workouts so that I can arm myself with every bit of energy I need to get faster, stronger, unstoppable.

I remember that fateful Monday clearly before I even got the news...I was out on a run, one week after running Boston, and I was feeling phenomenal...no post marathon fatigue for me. I was unstoppable. I remember thinking, "Geez, today's Monday...I wonder if I'll get the results?" And then, my mind went everywhere....as all distance runners know...I began to imagine, okay if it's is cancer? Screw, cancer...I've got this. I'll be the poster girl for cancer...for Melanoma...the cancer that people don't know enough about. I'll lead the war, arm myself with all possible aggressive weapons....and like Braveheart....I would hold, hold, hold....until I had my full army ready to conquer.

And hour later, I would be diagnosed with what my doctor guessed to be later stage Melanoma. I would go through the first surgery so naive, sure that I would be all set..."Oh, you mean it might be in my lymph nodes? It can do that?"

After the first surgery and the second set of bad news, yes, it's in the sentinel lymph node...we would move my care down to Boston. Let's break out the big guns, and take this monster down full force. I agreed to an experimental surgery (2nd one in the hospital), that was successful...and is the only reason why I was able to start jogging 6 weeks post surgery (I may have cheated a smidge).

We talked on several visits with my oncologist about the drug treament...my only option after the surgery. The thing is I thought I'd be all on that...fire it up, let's do it....arm my army with everything you've got. I am a warrior...I am an athlete...I am gritty, I will do whatever it takes.

And then, I found myself reacting logically...instead of with emotion, heart, and kick-ass attitude.  So you're telling me my only option is a 30 year old drug that was not made for Melanoma...offers nothing in terms of survival rate...and if it works, it would lower my recurrence rate by 4% but if it worked, I would have permanent arthritis, no thyroid function, osteoprosis....and a whole other list of other side effects. Then factor in daily lifestyle, being on this drug for one year, injecting myself after the 1st 30 days of daily intravenous...basically, chemo effects minus the hair loss for an entire year.... Oh, and statistically, it works for 3 out of 100 people....

In normal circumstances, I'd say let's do it...if sucking back beet juice will take one minute off my marathon time, I am in. If eating oats and greens will hold onto 1% of lean muscle, I am in. Instead, my husband and I talked numbers, logic...and it always came back full circle to quality of life. And what if I am in that percent it does not show up somewhere else? What if I win the coin toss?

With the flip of a coin, we chose to play defense. I go every 6 weeks right now for bloodwork. I am scanned every 3 months. I am under the watch and wait. Somedays, I am surprised that I didn't arm myself and start firing away. When people tell me how strong and brave I am...I chuckle in my head...I didn't have it in me to arm myself and attack. I chose a role I never would have imagined myself in sport or life.

I do sometimes wonder...but I always circle back and know, for me this was the right decision. I focus on the fact that I am on the other side of 50% that it may never come back...not that it could come back. I do have to remind myself that every single day. But today, I am here...I am out there on the field making big plays every day with my family, at work, with my running...with the flip of a coin, I become one with logic instead of reacting emotionally. I am less kick-ass, less brave...but more conscientious, listening, taking in all the facts...and for today, I have won the coin toss.

The Family Diagnosis: A piece written exclusively for Curetoday.com

http://www.curetoday.com/community/kate-beland/2015/10/the-family-diagnosis-of-cancer

Take Another Step

  Take another step...I wish I came up with those words myself. They were my mantra training all winter for Boston in what were often unbearable conditions...and for myself and my life schedule, often unbearable.  It's funny how 5:45am seemed early this morning for me, when for 16 weeks I would be running by 4:30am on Fridays. Take another step....

  I am a big believer in ongoing growth and self improvement...as a mother/spouse/friend, an athlete, and a professional...good is not enough for me. I don't have to be perfect, hell, I make mistakes all the time, but my daily goal is to be a better person than I was yesterday.  I may be a little too honest, too gritty for some people's liking....but I am as loyal as they come....and always open, open to learn, open to improve...open to taking another step.

  I've used social media to find those same people...striving to be better, better than they were yesterday. The people I gravitate most to are the ones that have lived through darkness and understand what that's like....To me, they exude light in a way the average cooky cutter, picket fence, picture of perfection does not. They've lived...they've had to take another step.

  I found one of these people on social media....a runner...an ultra marathoner...who beat cancer...and his words and shares, and motivation...always made me think, reflect, learn...and force me to keep moving.

  Never in a million years would I have thought I would truly understand where he was coming from. I've had plenty of dark, imperfect times myself...growing up with an alcoholic parent as a child/tween, having a mother fighting breast cancer in college....disordered eating habits when things got really dark....as a grown woman, financial times when the world crashed in 2008. I know what it is like to be in the dark, I appreciate the light...

  I started following Jim Willet and The Optimist Revolution for so many reasons...mostly because I am a runner...and running is just plain hard and when you are out there and you hit that dark mile, you need light to keep you from quitting...you need to take another step.

  And then, I was diagnosed with late stage Melamona...cancer...just like Jim, who has taken another step...many, many steps since his diagnosis...including many crazy beyond what I can wrap my head around 100+mile runs...but I get it.

  When you are stuck in this shitty world of cancer, all you want to do is take another step...literally and figuratively. Jim says it best in a verbal piece of art...that I've played over and over again...ironically, I found it right after my diagnosis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyjM2S6MGPU

  Where I am today...I've taken several steps forward. On September 11, 2015, I sat in Boston traffic and sobbed because for the first time since my initial diagnosis, I had just left an optimistic appointment with my oncologist. The spot on the lung they've been watching is gone. My bloodwork is "perfect" as he put it. Nothing to indicate any sign of disease...of cancer. Granted, I'll be back in 6 weeks....but for now, one more step in the "training" log....

  Running wise, I've just started to feel my speed start to pick up...I might even be ready to charge up the Garmin and start holding myself accountable. I'm nowhere near where I was before my diagnosis...but I've taken another step...many, many steps in miles to get there.

  I've traveled where I hope people I love never have to go...in fact, I wouldn't wish this on anyone...but with it, I am learning every single day...that no matter what happens with this disease...no matter where I end up in my running...I am doing just fine...as long as I continue to take another step...

  "You shoot me down, But I won't fall"...

Partly Cloudy

  I've abruptly been yanked out of normal living today. You see, I went the entire month of August without one doctor's appointment...not one blood draw, cat scan, skin check...I didn't come near Mass General Hospital or any of their cancer care affiliates. I wasn't weighed, poked, prodded...I ran, worked, spent time with family, ate too much Mexican and drank one too many summer treats.  For one month, I almost forgot (minus the left over battle field scars and lymphedema)...but superficially, I lived a near normal life for one month.

  I have never considered myself a complete optimist or pessimist....more so, I have always coveted myself as a realist. Some may take this as being a pessimist....it is quite different actually than a pessimist...I see things as they are. I look for facts and logic. In certain aspects of my life, I do strive to do what might be seen as the impossible like in sport...and I do dream, but I am aware. I have to be, it's just how I'm built.

  Today I had the "routine" cat scan of my chest...in another three months (pending this scan is clean), I will have a full pet scan...and 3 months from then, another brain mri...and so on and so on. This is my actual normal living. This is a part of the plan when you've been diagnosed with cancer.  Just in case we forgot...the reminder that we have no guarantee...the black cloud that chases the sun....

  

  In July, I was still having a hard time walking...I worried that I may never run again. It was the hardest month of recovery. And it still has been an uphill battle...but I keep plodding along. I am out there, and it's not pretty...but I've finally gotten to the point that I am consistently running about 20 miles a week (far cry from what I was doing in the spring)...but I will take it. I'm starting to feel better on my runs. I have even recently had a few good ones where I could feel I am finally getting stronger and making progress to getting myself back into shape.

No clouds stealing this sunshine....

  I wish I could say the same when it comes to cancer. This is probably the part of the disease that I hate most. I know too many people that have been taken by cancer...their families are now left to bear the burden of that cloud alone. It makes me so angry when I start to count the number of families I know who are currently living this "normal" life of cancer treatments, surgeries, scans...this battle that is just another part of their life. It takes my breath away when I think of my own family and how they have seen me at my utmost weakest...not the vision of normal they were accustomed to seeing, and when they see I am off back to Boston for another scan & appointment instead of a marathon....the clouds come rushing in....

But, it is what it is. I have to continue on this new "normal living", trying to appreciate each day, each moment.  I am okay that they are not always mostly sunny which leads me to wonder...Perhaps being an optimist is not about seeing things half full or mostly sunny...maybe it is about appreciating a partly cloudy day...because it is still a day, one more day in my life where I take another step forward....perhaps I am the optimist after all....

Fear....Less

It's funny how being a washed up athlete makes people think you are fearless...like somehow, you automatically seek out dare devil adventures and are always pushing to the extreme. Tied with this comes your mental toughness, bravery and courage in the face of hardship....in the face of having to kick someone or something's ass...in this case, cancer.

Every week there seems to be a new story of some athlete to the extreme...running a 100  mile race after cancer...running 3,000 miles to raise money for cancer as a cancer survivor...they all appear so fearless, strong, brave...I am willing to bet they are just like me...except they are running from their fears, appearing to be brave and fearless.

I am not fearless, I never was, and I sure as hell am even further from it now. 

Cancer is not all pretty ribbons and race for a cure events. You don't always come out a better person with perspective on life...or see pretty rainbows and unicorns at sunrise. Cancer steals. It steals people's lives, their loved ones, their sense of normalcy...it drains bank accounts, and pisses insurance companies off. It has one goal only, defeat. 

All over the internet, we can find motivational quotes...many to the effect of, "those whom have seen dark, truly appreciate the light"...and how "after the storm, we come out a better person"...etc, etc...I am just as guilty of looking towards some of these quotes to somehow try to cope with this thief.

Here's the truth...and I won't apologize for calling it like it is...cancer has stolen my sense of living in the moment. Think about this carefully...if you are truly living in the moment, you are not thinking about what lies in your future...you are in the now. If you are eating ice cream, you are thinking, man...this moose tracks is insane...your deepest thought beyond that might be: going to have to run extra tomorrow...or if you are running in the 90 degree heat  & humidity, you might be thinking, crap, I should have gotten up with the alarm...this is brutal. If you are yelling at your kids for doing god knows what, you are thinking, those little s**ts! Why don't they ever listen?! You are not having all kinds of lollypops and daisies kind of perspective...you are in that very moment as it stands. 

Cancer stole my in the moment...this is some of what I am left with. 

I am afraid all the time, I only just recently stopped planning my funeral, that's the truth.  I fear that I won't have time to ever see my house completely finished. I fear that my poor girls will end up without me when they need me most. I am afraid that I will never write that book I said I would write. I fear that I will never finally break down my emotional walls that I put up because I am that person, trying not to expose how emotional & sensitive I really am. I am really, really afraid of heights....jumping off things or falling off things is a recurrent nightmare I have. I wonder if I will ever run another marathon in the time I feel I am capable of. I fear that all the work I did to make myself believe I am beautiful looking in the mirror was stolen when I was left with my shark bites and potentially permanent thigh swelling. I am afraid that somehow that will pass on to my girls, my newer sense of insecurity...and that really pisses me off. I am afraid to put myself first, even though deep down, I know I have to. I hate that my husband has more than once checked if I was okay when he heard some loud bang in the house. I hate that he's afraid, even if he doesn't speak about it. I fear that I am never going to fully adjust to this new normal. 

I hate this disease. I fear that this disease might eat me alive...this lifelong subscription to a club I never wanted any part of. 

I am not fearless. But, despite all that this disease has taken from me...I will fight to take something back...I will fight to fear...less. I will look past all my scars, swelling, and try to see that I am still strong and healthy and still beautiful, only with depth and maybe a good story behind it. I will openly pipe up and speak my mind. I will sometimes just say, no. I might jump off something before fall ends. I will take some ski lessons so that maybe I can run the gates with my girls this winter. I will tell my husband to go suck an egg because he and I both know, I can still kick his butt in a race. I will love a little louder and laugh even harder. 

I will fear...less. 

50 Shades of Fine

  You just never know when out on a run, who you might come across and what they might teach you if you just open your eyes...unplug from your electronic devices, unplug from your own being and look around....

  At the time, it was one of the funniest moments I had out on a run in recent weeks. This past month while in recovery from two major surgeries, for some reason, I remembered this moment. I didn't get it at the time, but having been to the black abyss of pain, sorrow, and anger...I finally got it.

   I was on the corner waiting for the pedestrian light to flash.  Yes, most days, I am that runner that ignores the lights...but today, I was running from downtown and just enjoying my run, my life, my city...life was good, I paused at the corner to take it all in and wait for the light.

   A moment later, an older woman joins me, and in my happy, running through daisies, sing-song tune, I turn to her and say, "Hi, how are you today?"

  "I'm f*%#ing terrible. The rain makes my back hurt"......

  I was stunned.  I didn't know what to say so I muttered a "I'm sorry...I think it might clear up for tomorrow" and then, quickly jogged across the street to continue on my way.

  That week, I told this story a dozen times...to my colleagues, to my running buddies...we all laughed...we couldn't stop...the shock of a complete stranger telling the truth so raw and open.
  In retrospect, what else could she say...that she was fine?  And what was it that made me so uncomfortable with the truth?

  A story that made me laugh so hard one day... could literally make me cry today. I am queen of the "everything's fine." The past three months, I have lived it. I'm tired of saying that I'm fine...that I'm myself...that I feel good....normal....when I am nowhere close to fine or normal.

  It has been a hard transition at work for me. I manage a health club...I am the face there to help people feel better, look better. I pick them up when they come in, and hopefully, send them off feeling even better when they leave. They ask me endless questions about what classes or workouts I do...how did I qualify for Boston, what do I eat to keep my energy?

  Now, I walk across the parking lot into my club, and I want to hide in the back, because I'm afraid one of my beloved members is going to ask me how I'm doing, and I'm not going to be able to pull of the "I'm fine." I might turn and tell them about the chronic pain and inflammation I have during the day, whenever it feels like rearing it's ugly head. How I am still battling infection in one of my 5 incisions. How I can barely pull my left leg up in any kind of position without using my hands. How sometimes I can't feel an entire part of my leg, and I'm not sure if that's permanent. That I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but it is exhausting trying to keep everybody else positive about my progress...when really, I am not fine. 50 shades of nowhere close to f***ing fine...

  To the general public, I probably do look just that... fine. And to many cancer survivors, newly diagnosed, and current fighters...I am doing fine...there are people in much worse scenarios.  I do, however, fight my own battles on a daily basis...physically and emotionally.

  If I was fine, I would get up at 5am...go bang out 7 miles, shower without using the antibacterial soap and have to re-bandage everything post shower. I would throw on anything I felt like wearing...my cute cuffed jean shorts, or my orange ones, or whatever called to me that day. I wouldn't put the dreadful hospital grade nude sleeve on my leg. I wouldn't have to wear a dress or skirt in case the swelling hits while I'm at work. If I was fine, I wouldn't be thinking about my odds of recurrence and statistics of life expectancy.

  I haven't quite figured out my "new" fine...Right now, physically, I am watching for signs of lymphodema, draining from one of my five incisions, and just scheduling all my appointments, scans, mri's...trying to move forward in this new fine.  Emotionally, I am praying before brain mri's, blood work, and everything else...praying that my family will have me for as long as they need me...

  I think back to that woman on the corner and wish I had been more aware and less self absorbed. Maybe I would have noticed her in visible pain...maybe I could have offered her an arm across the street? I don't know...maybe she just needed someone to hear her. Maybe the next time someone says fine to me, I will look them in the eyes and see which kind of fine they really mean.

Tough like Ty

  "I'm bullet-proof, nothing to lose...fire away, fire away...."

  How do you thank someone who is no longer here...someone who no matter what happens with your outcome of this vicious and conniving disease, saved your life...saved your family's...gave you time, precious time...time that could be generous or brief...but time none the less, well-spent.

  I don't have the words to articulate what I want to say about Ty and his story. I don't even know his whole story...but I know he was the son of a man I admired greatly when I was a young teacher and coach. I know he made his father proud. I remember stories of him when I was teaching 7th grade, and Ty was in 7th grade at another school.

  Ty is the reason I made that appointment for a biopsy. As fate would have it, I heard his story...brief details...but the kind of story that you cannot get out of your head.  As it would turn out, I was diagnosed with the same primary cancer. I, later, found out that we share the same oncologist...someone who is making some ground with this disease that has had no real cure or treatment the past 30 years...someone who is making a difference.

  Today is Ty's one year anniversary. Cancer sucks. Cancer takes the tough ones too...it's not always mind over matter...sometimes, the disease just beats the toughest and most positive...cancer does not discriminate.

  I want to yell at the top of my lungs...this cancer that has long been ignored...no progress, no race for a cure, no ribbons on people's jackets....
A cancer that's finally on the brink on making some progress in treatment...that's great news right, but I sit on the sideline...unwilling to participate in the 30 year old treatment option that doesn't work. I flip the coin, willing to take the risk..... and I wait, wait to qualify at Stage 3a for a clinical study....if it comes back some place else, if, if, if....

Melanoma is as sneaky as they come. A shadow...my lifetime shadow....like a stealth and quick footed ninja, it comes, disappears & reappears with only one goal, victory.  But I will keep yelling, telling my story...sharing, educating and telling others what "skin cancer"  is capable of.

Ty, I can only hope I am as strong and tough like you so that I can continue to spread the word, and hope that I can help people the way you helped me.

Tough like Ty,

Kate