Hello people! Just checking in and hoping you all had a great Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for this year… although I caught myself doing a lot of looking back and looking forward to different (and arguably) better times. I guess that is just how it goes sometimes. But moving forward while constantly looking back can make you trip over things. True I think.

On the really bright side for me, Seattle’s Fall has been going off, rad colors and weathery weather. I have been spending my time surrounded by rad friends: bouldering, snowboarding, seeing good music and getting my creative on. There have been lots of experiences recently that I am filing away under Good Shit That Has Happened During This Shitty Shit. Opening weekend at Mt. Baker, having my family come to Seattle to hang, chatting daily with my Doug Friends, making miniature model lands come to life, jogging through fall colors, bouldering in Yosemite… there have been lots of things to put into The Good Shit folder. I love that.

The most recent chemotherapy treatments are hitting me hard right after I get them, but then I kind of bounce back… not feeling totally normal then, but at least better. I hit the bouldering gym a couple times a week (outdoor season is a bit dampened) and have been running a couple times a week, too. Stoked about that stuff, always. Anyhow, tomorrow (Friday) is my second-to-last treatment, so that is progress.

Friends all around: you are ridiculously rad in all ways. Just one very visible example… thank you to our friend Holly for taking some bald photos of Charlie and me.  It is virtually impossible to ask me to like a picture of myself in the state I am in… but your pictures did it. What a fun (and cold) evening that was at Discovery! File that away under Good Shit That Has Happened. For sure.

Check out her site for some photo inspiration: http://hollyannephoto.com/

A couple weeks ago I got the chance to head down to California with my friend Luke and my new friend Jason. We winged on down to Yosemite to jam with the Stones… (click: Fast Times reference) Our friend Adam, future-doctor-extraordinaire, stole us away from OAK to the land of climber dirtbags and elderly sight-seers. I swear, I pretty much laughed the entire time. It was rad. We climbed 4 days on until our skin was raw… ate camp food… hung out at the fire for hours… and slept in tent city. It was heaven.

The simplicity of things when you are camping is so cathartic. There is something so occupying about being outside day and night that stops a person from running away with the other thoughts they might be dealing with. I always like to think of it as simplistic over-stimulation. There is so much… yet so little going on… that you can just revel in it. I am so thankful for that.

While we were there, a few old Tahoe friends came through to say hello. Thank you so much for making the effort! Meant the world. Also, having a bit of my Seattle world merge with a bit of my Tahoe world was so ideal… I scheme about how to get the two locations together, but unfortunately earth-moving is not my forté. Before the trip, I was stupidly worried that I was going to a place where people wouldn’t understand my situation and that I wouldn’t feel secure… that I would be a burden to those around me. But I was perfectly secure… and I felt wonderfully far away from the everyday that I have had going on since August. My ass was definitely covered. Thanks to Luke, Adam, Jason, Jesse, Emily, Jay and Katie. Funnest evahhhh. My face is still coming back into shape from all of the laughing.

For a short video of our trip courtesy of one Luke Simmons, click here.

Um, sure. But that intro seemed a little, well… let’s say, ridiculous… just to ask if we can go get some more coffee.

Truth.

Yap, well… sorry for the long silence. I think that is the longest that I have gone between posts since I started the blog before the Francey Pantz trip. I have been… well… busy, to say the least.

I kind of fell down a messed up rabbit hole of sorts. In short, I found out about a month ago that I have breast cancer. Do I capitalize that? No, I don’t think that I want to give it that much distinction. It is stage 1 and I feel too young to have it. But am thankful that, via many many many other tests, the cancer doesn’t seem to be anywhere else. That wasn’t stressful or anything: waiting for those tests to come back. Good grief.

It has taken me many weeks to get to this point. To get to the point of writing something down. But here I am. Already I have a changed perspective on how I want to live and the things that I will and am making priorities. Similar to when I was in Europe and then just back, things seem clearer to me now. Realization. But that is really where the similarity to this situation and being in Europe for 4 months stops. I kind of wish I was in Fontainebleau again instead. Damn.

My situation is as good as a bad situation can be. I am so thankful everyday for that. It is treatable. I live 4 blocks from a Top 10 In The Nation Cancer Center. I caught it early. I have a ridiculously good support network of ridiculously rad friends. Other than ‘it’, I am really healthy right now… and I have just torn through my first 2 out of 8 chemotheraphy treatments. Whoa, that is messed up to write that. Only 6 more to go… each separated by 2 weeks. Then I will need surgery, which will probably happen sometime after the first of the year. Then radiation. I am looking forward to sometime in March to be when I come out of the proverbial weeds.

But you know, I won’t just talk about all of this for months. It is a component to my life now, but I am going to be doing and seeing lots of things in the midst of this. Climbing, creating, traveling. I am determined to. It’s weird. Now I have just seen into this other life… the life of a lot of people. The life of so many, you would scarcely believe it. I am being treated at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (part of University of Washington)… a building I have run and walked passed countless times and have just now seen the inside of its walls. For two years I have barely even noticed it. You are on the outside and then you are on the inside, so quickly. It is nutz.

And I did go see a man about a wig. One made of my own hair, no less. Totally one of the most bizarre days of my life, I think. Anyhow, I am sitting here bald as bald can be right now. My head is a bit cold. But that also means Fall is here, good bouldering temps. So there’s that.