Not This Year
This Year Was Mine
A year ago yesterday, I was lying on an operating table while surgeons carved away more than 80% of my stomach. I had done everything in my power to prepare—written letters, recorded videos, tucked away journals and keepsakes. If the worst happened, I wanted the people I loved to have pieces of me to hold onto. I never believed that surgery was going to be the end of my story.
However, I’m always aware of the risks. With a heart condition caused by COVID and rheumatoid arthritis that leaves me both immunocompromised and on immunosuppressants, surgery was especially dangerous, doctors warned. Still, I went in with a stubborn kind of courage. Fear wasn’t going to save me. Determination might. Preparation was all I could control, and I had done all that I reasonably could.
The Brutal Months of Recovery
In the recovery room, my mom’s face said everything—she had never seen me look so bad. That alone says something, because she’s seen me look like hell before. The fear in her eyes had me wondering if I was teetering. The first three months were some of the hardest of my life. My nausea was relentless—so constant it felt like a second heartbeat. I was fighting just to keep down water.
I couldn’t sit up or lie down without help. Janelle had to physically move me in and out of bed and the chair. She had to help me reposition like I was made of glass. I could only lie flat on my back, never on my side. For months, I felt more trapped in my own body than I ever had before. I was utterly dependent, which for a time stripped me of any illusion of strength—but what filled the hollow was the raw, unshakable strength of being fully seen.
I wasn’t brave in those moments, nor did I have the strength to pretend to be. I was surviving second by second, breath by breath, sometimes fighting a despair that whispered this might last forever.
Slowly, as time moved forward—unyielding as it always is—the small victories appeared, just as reason insisted they would, even when despair swore otherwise.
By four months into recovery, I could sit up and down on my own. I could sleep on my side again—a moment so exciting I posted about it on Facebook like it was breaking news. I could go out for short visits with people. That progress felt like breathing air again after being underwater too long.
The Genes I Carry
Long before this surgery, I knew I carried two gene mutations: CHK2 and TP53.
- CHK2’s job is to act like an alarm system—it senses DNA damage and signals cells to stop dividing or repair themselves. My CHK2 is broken, which is why tumors have been able to grow unchecked in different parts of my body.
- TP53’s job is even bigger—it’s called the “guardian of the genome.” When TP53 is active, it decides whether a cell gets repaired or destroyed before it can become cancer.
Right now, my TP53 mutation is still dormant. It’s there, written into my DNA, but it isn’t expressing yet. My doctors told me it will not stay dormant forever. Over time, repeated cancers and stress on the body will “wake it up.” When that happens, both of my strongest defenses will be gone—the alarm system (CHK2) and the guardian (TP53).
The CHK2 mutation alone is why my doctors gave me the ten-year prognosis they did—most people with just this mutation and my health history live about ten years after diagnosis. Not as a countdown, but as the statistical reality of living with one defense already broken. Another waiting in the wings?
When I first learned this, I was terrified. I thought about the people I loved, how to tell them, how to prepare them. Even then, I decided: cancer may shape the odds, but it will not dictate the story.
Legacy and Living
It’s not just about legacy for me—it’s about life right now. Legacy is both what you leave behind and what you give while you’re here.
I steadily work on keepsakes: a book for Kyla, a book for Karter, a recording of me reading for my mom, videos for Janelle, a fingerprint necklace. I’ve also tried to live more present—to let go of what won’t matter in five minutes or five years. I make more memories instead of obsessing over fears.
Janelle, my mom, Kendra, and even her kids have carried me through. My dogs carry me too—they give me reasons to get up even on days when the bed feels like the safest place. My marriage has only grown stronger. Love looks different when someone has to lift your body for you, long before old age—and knowing how unlikely it is you will see old age together as you had planned. When all you have to give in return is your love and gratitude.
What One Year Means
When I picture “one year cancer free” written in bold letters, the feeling that comes is defiance.
Defiance in the face of all odds.
Defiance knowing cancer will likely return.
Defiance because I know I will probably lose my life to this disease—but not today, not this year.
This year, I got to grow. This year I got to laugh and to love. This year I got to give.
Marking the Milestone
I’m celebrating this milestone in small, meaningful ways: going to Ramseyer Farms with my cousister and her kids, breakfast with my mom, visiting Holden Arboretum with Janelle. Next week, I’ll get my hair and nails done, and then Janelle will take pictures of me—because life is worth capturing, worth marking.
I don’t control the length of this life, but every day I get to shape its depth. Today, I get to say the words that felt impossible a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago:
ONE YEAR CANCER FREE.
