One thing I'll say, dang I feel svelte and I have never gotten so many compliments. But for the record, this musing is about my well-intentioned, self-loving quest to be healthy and happy and finally feeling fabulous being twisted into a tale curdled by cancer and stress.  Before the first photo below was taken, I had made very intentional life changes. I wanted to be in the best shape of my life by the time I was 50. I could do that in a year, I thought. The biggest change I made? I had given up a lifetime of drinking alcohol, which was an unfortunate coping mechanism that followed me my entire adult life like a false ally.  It promised to mend my sunken roots as a child and to make survival easier, however all it gave me was a compilation of embarrassing moments, excess weight gain, high blood pressure, too many hangovers to count, and I'm fairly certain my Hashimoto's.

Eventually my body started to reject it, and the forever loop of anxiety was enough to throw my hands up and declare there must be a better way. I did well, actually I did great, and I continued on my quest I was feeling like the person I was always meant to be. I got a Pilates machine, started running again, and reclaimed my life. It felt great to experience every feeling and be completely present for every moment. And today I would never choose to have it any other way. I have to say I have never felt so resilient, empowered, and validated in my life. That false ally had finally left for good--quietly dissolving and leaving me standing in the truth of my own strength. I was feeling fit and healthy, despite having been running on fumes for over a year. 

Dropping the alcohol and then cutting mostly carbs and sugar, weight started to come off. It's hard to know now how much was intentional and how much wasn't, because by the time I got to this second vacation in October, I was feeling good. I was down about 25-30 lbs and felt great. I starting not caring if I had pizza and snacks, I didn't work out as much. However, as I allowed myself to ease up and enjoy what I wanted for a while, I kept steadily losing weight. 

My busy job often left me hungry and dehydrated most days, and my stress was piling up. My brain began its own story to ease the undercurrent of worry caused by my now prominent bones in my shoulders, ribs, and hips. I had never been boney in my life, perhaps as a child, but as an adult I had typically owned the more Baroque female form.

​My body started to feel like a tree stripped to its bare branches from the fire—more sharp lines where fullness used to be. You're just burnt out; this is from stress, I'd say staring at the scale. You're dehydrated, drink more water.  By the time I had gotten to my first oncology appointment a year after that first photo, I was down close to 50 pounds. Technically I was still 5 lbs away from my ideal weight, but having gotten here the way I did was now starting to feel icky. 

​Today in hindsight I now sit and wonder if a new malignant passenger had hitched a ride where my former ally had gotten off, and that's not fair. Or was my stress finally getting the better of me?

The month leading up to my diagnosis didn't help and kicked my stress into massive overdrive. I could barely keep my hands on the wheel, and I fought for weeks during bloodwork and biopsies to keep from going off the rails.

After my diagnosis it was hard to accept the compliments, everyone asking how ever did I loose all of the weight...and I was angry that my hard work and dedication had been taken away from me. But I took them anyway knowing I worked hard to be healthy and can still claim part of that victory. But my clothes no longer fit. I felt like a toddler in their dad's suit at work, my regular clothes falling off of my shoulders, ass baggy and waist loose. I needed to buy all new pants and discovered I had gone down another whole size. I haven't worked out in over two months, eating whatever I wanted, and I was still losing weight. I was now the smallest I've been in over 15 years, smaller than I was when I owned my studio and did yoga every day. I'd look down at my legs in yoga pants now and felt they belonged to someone else, that boney stranger showing up again to mess with my head.

But will I ever know? Stress? Leukemia? A lovely combination of both? Weight loss and fatigue are common symptoms of leukemia, but also of stress and burn out. If it is the leukemia cells affecting my digestive tract and absorption of nutrients, or those little fuckers are literally sucking up all of the energy my body is producing and then some and causing metabolic insufficiency.... if it is them, I can't help but feel betrayed by my own body. I tried to love you so much... to make amends, to fill the cracks I've created over the years with gold. Perhaps my collapsed Kintsugi failed at reinforcing those cracks to honor my healing and instead had fallen short; my body now suffering a malignant short circuit and was slowly destroying itself. 

Don't worry, I haven't sunken into the pits of despair. We can't go mad seeking answers we'll never get. Plus, I have no time left for insanity, I now have more work to do. I love my body, I love myself. I have made huge strides in making my life everything I want it to be, and I will still get there. Life just has a few more roadblocks and detours planned than I did. I will continue to nourish my body, mind and spirit. I will replenish my roots and have faith I will flourish once again. I will feel all of the feels along this journey, bust through whatever gets thrown at me and keep my eye on the prize, getting my life back.

These cracks will fill not only with gold but with light, and they will be so bright you won't be able to dim my fucking shine ever again. 

So, here I was. I was in this new phase of my life, swimming in the 'in between'. I was newly diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, a slow growing blood and bone marrow cancer, waiting to start treatment, and getting partially ghosted by my medical team. I had taken my med class for my oncologist's recommended treatment and just needed to hear from the pharmacy once my insurance went through. It was taking a long time, and my nerves were getting frazzled more and more each day. Time was moving like bated breath, and it was getting stretched thin, uncomfortable, and needing to release. 

I was in a holding pattern and didn't know where to turn. A friend who had come with me the day of my diagnosis had fought and won her own battles, and some of her first advice was 'join Gilda's as soon as you can.' 

Gilda's Club as in the nonprofit in memory of Gilda Radner. These clubs offer a home-like environments that are supportive spaces where those impacted by cancer can connect, share, get emotional support, programming and workshops, and help to break down barriers to care. 

Really? I thought. Isn't that too soon? That's not really for me, is it?  But I'm not in chemo. You think I should?  I was reluctant, but I needed to turn somewhere and felt like a spinning top, trying to keep upright while everything around me blurred. I needed something to focus on.

Without even having started treatment yet I felt like a phony scheduling my new member orientation and tour online. But I'm not sick, was all I could think. I looked at the schedules and local locations online and started to feel the pressure of time release ever so slightly. Yoga, Reiki, art therapy, and tai chi on the water. Oh yes, I could really benefit from that right now. Blood cancer support group, oh, ok...I suppose that applies to me. 

Cancer-fighting smoothies, living with cancer group, farm to table dinners, fundraisers, so much community and support. Since having to close my yoga studio during Covid I had desperately been missing something so important in my life, community. I missed the deep-rootedness I felt in a circle of strong women. Holding space as I taught connectedness, sitting in a circle sharing stories and magic, falling deep into a meditative, group Shamanic journey. I have been uprooted for too long, and now my roots felt fully exposed and untethered. But I was willing to learn to grow in unfamiliar soil. 

It would be amazing to have a community again, although I had never thought I would be a part of this one, then again, who does? Although now I felt like an imposter in my own story, would I walk into this new world like a character in the wrong costume....would I not fit and wait for someone to tell me I was in the wrong play?

The visit to the Clubhouse was lovely. The old, Victorian house was nestled on a corner down a main road, quietly held in the trees that surrounded it.  Walking in I was comforted by the warm wood, architecture, and smiling faces. I met privately with the social worker, we sat on big, comfy couches, and she gave me the history of Gilda's. It included Gilda Radner' story and how Gene Wilder and her friends starting Gilda's Club in her memory based on her own experience with ovarian cancer. Gilda described cancer as being an elite member of a club she'd rather not be a member of, and to that end, everyone needs a place. So, Gilda's Club offered a haven of support, resilience, and community for those navigating similar challenges.

The tour offered insights and inspiration with large meeting and yoga rooms, a quaint library with resources and poetry, and a beautiful kitchen stocked with snacks, coffee and tea readily available. The old floors creaked with the sweet support it's offered hundreds of others over the years. I felt the thousands of fingertips along the worn, wooden banisters that were there before me. A tiny corner shelf held donations including homemade beanies and cooling pads, bookmarks, and art for anyone to take. But I still wasn't sure if I belonged there. 

A beautiful children's area painted floor to ceiling with a magical mural showed how one could easily be whisked away to another land. And Gilda was everywhere. Huge paintings of her and Gene, her and the cast of SNL, life-size cut outs and Gilda art. Her spirit was alive and well, serving millions of people love, support, and hope each and every day.

It was all beautiful, and it was the warm hug I didn't know I needed. It wasn't a club I wanted to be a member of, but I was glad that I was. 

I left with a list of classes suggested by the social worker, and felt like I had a good start. Later that day, I thumbed through a magazine I'd taken home called The Emotions of Cancer (I still feel weird saying that word, by the way); it had articles and poetry written by individuals with leukemia and blood cancers, reading them I immediately heard some of my own story, even this early in the journey. Ok, yes and yes again, I'm listening. I guess this is for me after all. I am in the play, but I still need to practice my lines, I'm not ready for the stage just yet. As I wrap my head around this new normal, I'm slow to start, but I know I'll ease into it more and more. 

I have already taken a self-care course where I met some other members, they all seemed nice and connected. We sat in the garden, created some therapeutic art, and I got some good tools and reminders of self-care to support me during this in between. I signed up for the blood cancer support group. I'm nervous about that first meeting (3 days away as I write), and later next week an Anxiety and Cancer class. The following week I'll start the wellness classes and utilize Gilda's as my haven pitstop either on my way home from work or as a retreat on a needed day off.

​But I'll just be in rehearsal for now.....and I look forward to meeting my new community. I know the connections and support with be monumental, and I can go to the clubhouse to sit in the library with some tea, hang out in the garden and find solace and peace or connection and a village. I'm sure in time I'll be a true player in my own right. 

I look forward to finding strength and courage to meet the challenges I'm already having so early on, navigating treatment, possible side effects, juggling appointments, work, and life, the fears, the unknown, as well as the uplifting and inspirational moments that will make me forget about myself for a while.

This is not the final chapter of my story, but merely a turning point. I don't know how the story will end, or what twists and turns it will take along the way. All I know is that I am going to do my best to build the most amazing plot with all of the supportive characters I need to help me laugh, cry, rest and fight. We are all searching for our place, and for now, I am happy this is part of mine. 

Learns more about Gilda's Club at ​Gilda's Club Detroit | Metro Detroit

Well shit... A year had gone by and I had been working my butt off to make money, pad my savings, save for retirement and whatever else we do because we are supposed to. I was fighting to keep a job that I love, knowing if I just stayed the course it would be better and everything I wanted it to be. So, I stayed and I worked hard, not because I had to but because I cared. I cared more about others than I did for myself, and the effect was real. 

​My job had been a lot for a long time--rewarding but a struggle, long hours, high stress, chaotic and fast-paced days that barely gave time for a break let alone food or water. I was as burnt out. I was feeling like a pile of ashes where a fire used to be, and I was tired. I was looking up ways to take a short-term leave due to stress and burn out because I just needed a break. I planned on talking to my doctor about on my annual visit in January, but instead the conversation was directed at my bloodwork. 

It was wonky, specifically my white blood cells were significantly elevated. I had just finished a round on anti-biotics for a sinus infection, so doc said to come back in 6 weeks to make sure my numbers were trending down. You guessed it, they were trending up. I mentioned the fatigue and unintentional weight loss I blamed on stress, and that led to a referral to a hematologist. The following week I found myself going to my first visit to the Cancer Center.

It began with getting 9 vials of blood drawn for extensive testing, I felt as though I was sitting on an island under a darkened sky, watching a storm gather on the horizon. I was unable to know whether its would peacefully pass, or if a storm would gather and uproot my entire life. I sat in a busy waiting room that had an air of coldness and indifference. It was a lack of empathy a clinical setting brings when it lacks the components required to make someone feel human and seen for what they were going through. In other words, there weren't too many 'warm and fuzzies'. 

This didn't get much better when I met my oncologist for the first time. He walked in with this look on his face. No smile, all business. He didn't want to look me in the eye, but he attempted pleasantries the best someone without good bedside manner could, I suppose. He sighed and said. "Based on your blood results today, I am pretty sure you have what is called CML, or Chronic Myeloid Leukemia." He continued to speak, offering reassurances as my eyes welled and stomach bottomed out, I heard him jump into stats, talking about life expectancies and prognoses. When I told him I thought I had just been burnt out, being fatigued and unintentionally losing 15-20 lbs the past few months he then said, "well, I think this must have been cooking for about six months then." Cooking, what a vulgar term. Shut your mouth sir. 

'I'm sorry, but who the fuck are you?' was all I could think at the time. Who the fuck is this guy who just walked in here and avoided my eyes like they would turn him to stone and just radically changed my life story. 'You don't get to tell me I could live years to decades, I'm sorry sir.'  He gave me a quick physical exam, warmed up a bit more, and told me not to worry, that I will most likely live a very full and long life and I needed to just take one day at a time for now. Ok great. That first encounter lasted roughly 10-15 minutes tops, and 7 weeks would go by without seeing him again, nor would I ever see him again, in fact. But more on that later.

So, the plan was to do more tests to confirm his diagnosis. Oh, but he did give me a glimmer of hope stating there was a slight chance it could be from stress. Fantastic! I could just quit my job, rest, and move on. Let's go! Three days later I got a call. Based on more results from my bloodwork coming in, I needed to move forward with the bone marrow biopsy while we waited for the genetic testing results. Two days later I was getting prepped in the hospital.

The biopsy was better than I expected. I opted to get knocked out, because who wants to be any level of awake as someone pounds a large, hallow needed into the back of your hip bone to extract bone marrow and bone fragments from your body? Not this girl. I left the hospital feeling like Alice, only my rabbit hole had led me to an entirely different and frightening place. All I wanted was for someone to shake me awake and I'd find myself laying on the riverbank, realizing it was all just a dream. 

As the days went by, more and more results kept uploading to MyChart online. I could see results, graphs, numbers, and measures, and I had no idea what most of them meant. Biopsy results were in. I could tell the results would not be leaning in stresses favor, and no word from anyone for a week. Then the genetic testing came back, the header reading HEMOTOLOGY MALIGNANCY in bold print. I was positive for the Philadelphia chromosome, which is the hallmark, telltale sign for CML. Two of my genes has translocated, split in half and swapped places with one another, creating this funky gene that is now producing a protein that is making my bone marrow spit out white blood cells like a system trapped in catastrophic overdrive. 

And yet, no one was calling me, and I sat on this information....just waiting. And waiting, and waiting. I finally called and demanded some insight from someone, and my doc called me back shortly after. He spoke of TKIs, the targeted drug therapy I would be starting, what the course of treatment may look like, and gave me hope that I could reach 'undetectable' in six months to a year. I was in an early, chronic stage of the disease process. CML has three phases: chronic (more manageable), accelerated (harder to manage) and blast phase (bad new bears & hard to manage). My next steps were to come in for my med class and get set up with my specialty pharmacy, who would deliver my meds directly to my house. 

My new normal turned into increased ADHD; scrolling between tasks, in traffic, in bed--researching, ordering books, looking up nutrition, support groups, joining Facebook groups named 'CML Hope' and 'Living with CML'. I was consuming information like ants swarming over spilled sugar. 'Sugar, that feeds cancer cells, I need to watch my sugar'. 'Can I go to Hawaii in August?' 'Could I keep running and doing Pilates?' Analogies, comparisons, labels, unknown scenarios, fear of treatment side effects, telling my family and friends, what my future would look like. The yoga and meditation teacher in me wept and fought to keep me in balance. 

Would treatment work? Would I be sick all of the time? Would I get worse and move to a more accelerated phase that's harder to manage? Would I suffer more mutations and my condition changes? Would I be ok? Sleep was hard to come by, and I was desperately trying to reignite that spark from the pile of ashes that would give me energy and focus to get through each day. I still had to work. My Goddess, I needed my insurance now more than ever. I was now thanking my luck stars I had a good job with good benefits, an HSA, and oh yeah.....I might need FMLA.....and a therapist......

​So, I meditated, forced myself into quiet spaces and yoga poses, lit candles, did magic, and pulled oracle cards to receive messages on how to move forward. I was trying to quiet my mind and gain back a sense of control, desperately trying to be the eye of the storm spiraling around me. I can keep it together, I can keep it positive, and I can manage this stress the healthy way. Then you find those moments where you are distracted, in the flow with work, into a tv show or movie, or waking up in the morning and you had forgotten for just a while....then you remember. Well shit. Alice is still down the hole.

Frozen in anticipation and sick with uncertainty, I was in the space between who I used to be, who I was, and who I was about to become, was everything about to change forever, or would this too pass and I find myself on the other side years from now in treatment-free remission? The last oracle card I pulled read 'Enjoy the In-Between'........well I'm going to do my best. Here's to embracing the moment you're in.

​Cheers, with a capital C.