Ride the wave of being alive today

Posted on January 9, 2026 by sheraaaa

In the last week, I had a PET Scan that surveyed my neck down for cancer, a Brain MRI to look for changes from my last scan, and lab work. And they were clear! Clear of cancer I mean. There are still tumors (masses of dead cells), there is still damage to my spine, and there is still abnormal labwork, but it’s abnormal in the ways it has been abnormal for the last year, so in essence, normal for me.

Am I relieved? Of course! So relieved!

Am I back to my optimistic, positive, pollyanna self? Well…I seem to need to sit with this news for a while, and it’s not like you just bounce back from thinking the cancer is growing again…there is the whole “well, why has my pain been increasing” question. And I have to accept that there will always be pain, that managing it is my new reality, and that some of it could have been stress-related from the PTSD over the last year.

So friends, all this means I have another 6-month lease on life!

So, I pulled the trigger on some more trips. In fact, there are still a few openings for a yoga and writing retreat in March with Anish if any of you are interested.

I had intended to write this post yesterday after all the test results had come in, but it turns out I needed a day.

I woke up like normal, drank my coffee with mushroom powders, and picked up and finished The Word for the World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin. When looking for the next book to read, I surveyed the shelves filled with cancer-related books, and just had to stop.

So if I’m not going to die yet of cancer yet, I’m going to go read about cancer and dying? No. Not today.

Cancer just hijacks your life. Especially with the chronic pain I’m experiencing now, well into remission. There is not a day that I’m not reminded that I could die soon, or not. Could be 1 year, maybe 5, maybe even 15! Good luck NOT thinking about that every day.

I needed a day to marinate in it, and I gave myself a 100% unstructured, uncommitted day yesterday, where I only tried to ride the wave of existence, knowing I don’t have an active cancer, and If that doesn’t elicit joy, then what are we even doing here?

I took a walk. This week I haven’t been doing yoga, in fact, I haven’t done yoga in about a month…the fears and all, but I have been going on walks: early morning walks before the sun is even up. I talk walks in the icy morning, stepping gingerly down the road with my yak tracks on, knowing my spine is like a pretzel stick, brittle and prone to breaking when it falls to the floor.

Yesterday I went walking just after sunrise and was rewarded with light and color. It was one of the first days in Bend with a dusting of snow on the ground, and even though the paths were treacherous with ice, it was so worth it to have those views and that reframe. The day before, darkness; today, I was walking out of the dark.

Can I surf the roller coaster of emotions instead of sink into them?

Ride the wave of being alive today.

Ride the wave of being alive today. Became my mantra as I gingerly walked the world awake.

Ride the wave of being alive today.

What will 2026 look like now? I have decided I need some more structure to my days, and the many groups that I’ve joined will help in that: writing groups, book clubs, creative freelancing groups, and cancer survivor groups. A renewed commitment to adding more structure to my days may help erect some scaffolding and assist in giving me a way to pull myself out of the listlessness that was December. Periods of time where I explore deep ideas and read a lot. And I’ll continue taking walks, lots of walks. Reading, walking, thinking, writing; I’m kind of designing the perfect life. I can’t adventure as much, but I’m living a version of my life that’s pretty good right now. I know challenging and scary things are around the corner, ready to jump out at me and knock me down. (That goes for all of us. The world is just plain SCARY right now!) But today I’m standing and walking in the light.

I’ll leave you today with the announcement of one of my first events of the year, of the post-illness year, a presentation I’m giving in April for the Empowering Women Through Adventure series: Adventuring is Different Now: How To Find a Path Forward when Your Body Changes.

For our final 2026 Speaker Series we welcome back a previous speaker, local triple crown thru-hiker Renee “She-ra” Patrick. In late 2024, Renee was diagnosed with advanced cancer that left her in a wheelchair and unable to carry a backpack due to extensive neck and spine damage. Now in remission and walking again, Renee is exploring how to continue hiking and adventuring in a body that has dramatically changed. She successfully completed a 170-mile hike of the Portuguese Camino by using a luggage transport service, and continues to investigate alternative forms of travel so she can continue to find solace and connection in the outdoors.

Join us to re-connect with Renee and explore a topic that so many of us can relate to in our own way, what it looks like to adventure when our body changes.

PET Scan Eve-Eve

Posted on December 31, 2025 by sheraaaa

How am I doing? Let’s see. It’s the last day of 2025. It’s the eve-eve of my next PET scan, or the first PET scan since my cancer has been in remission. I’m not doing well. In a way, my remission has been haunting me, especially fiercely the past month or so.

I’ve been dismal and down in this season of laughter and joy, but I’ve been high too…these emotions rollercoaster through me, sometimes on an hourly basis, where I can be delighted and hopeful, followed by a deep sorrow that drips off me and weighs my body in heaviness.

Ask me to my face, and yes, I’m doing fine, “Grateful to be here!” I reply cheerfully. To a few, I’ll say, “I’m struggling,” like when Kirk comes home to find me in tears and just enfolds me in a big hug. To myself, I say, “What is the point?” I’m finding this listlessness is manifesting in me forgetting to take my meds. I’ll have breakfast or lunch and then realize two hours later that my pillbox is still full. I hurriedly eat a handful of nuts or a spoonful of peanut butter to soften the landing of the gel caps on my stomach lining.

I am haunted. Haunted by what these next few scans will reveal.

If the scans show there are no new growths, then I have to accept that the increasing pain and discomfort I’ve been feeling over the last month is either in my imagination or my body still coming to terms with being irreparably damaged.

If the scans show there are new growths, maybe it’s a relief? Then these next months will be a series of appointments, and I don’t need to think too much. I will just need to go with it and renew my low-sugar, low-processed food habits.

It’s like I’m just now figuring out how to live with this disease, and it’s not going smoothly. I know all the tricks and tools: go for a walk, get coffee with a friend, read a book, go to yoga, tell Kirk and my closest friends the truth, take a bath. And it all works, for a short while. It pulls me up and out of the funk, but now it seems my default state is in the muck when before it was in the air, floating on thermals above the fray.

And there has been joy….really, there has been – islands of happiness, or just plain contentedness.

Christmas with my mom and brother.
Dan and I walking along the Lake Martin swamp where we saw a huge gator sunning himself on a log.
Brooke and Adryon meeting us for dinner and my first sip of a Red Chair beer in a few years.
Carrie giving me a make-over.
Marina having us over for quiche and cheesecake.
Cross country skiing again.

Kirk bought me new cross-country skis with metal edges for Christmas. They are quite a luxury as I have only ever owned garage-sale skis from decades past. We took them out to our favorite snow park the day after I got home from Louisiana; the sun on my face, and the quiet swooshing of the skis in the tracks were a balm to my overthinking brain.

Before we left the parking lot, I couldn’t seem to remember how my ski boots worked. It had only been two years since I had skied last, but it was like I had never worn these boots before. Turns out I had grabbed Kirk’s boots, which I had in fact, never worn before. Ha! I can still laugh at myself. The skiing was good, until it wasn’t. It turns out that I can’t use my left pole, and I can’t go uphill. The pressure of the poles, especially when trying to climb anything, hurts my left shoulder too much. In fact, four days after the last ski, my neck and shoulders are so sore that I’m taking daily pain meds again. Is this cancer? Or is this skiing for the first time in two years?

Keep going. I just have to tell myself to keep going.

Maybe the pressure valve that is questioning my damaged body will be released after these next scans, and then I can keep going. I have a number of things I want to do in the new year, but am waiting for these scans to make any plans… I want to be grateful, but I am not sure how to feel most days. Sometimes my morning walk will be enough to trick my brain into being hopeful, and I come home and make my smoothie of broccoli sprouts, spinach, ginger root, flax, chia, hemp seeds, nuts, and strawberries, but sometimes the hope masks itself in feeling normal and takes me to the bakery where I stand in line for something sweet.

I investigate other hiking options: llamas! I could hike with llamas! Or do a car-supported hike, as many people do on long trails when they meet friends or family at road crossings, the car filled with camping gear, water, and food. Or I could do another Camino – I’ve already started outlining what the Camino Ingles would look like. Or tap the friends who said the would sherpa for me. Oh, and then there are the carts. I asked Reddit about hiking with carts, and after a lot of “you’re stupid for asking that question,” I got a few helpful replies, but ultimately I think carts work best on pavement, and that’s not the kind of hiking I’m hoping to do right now.

Is this clinging to hiking an unwillingness to give up the last 24 years of my life when hiking was my all and everything? Probably. I was one of those lucky few who found what lit them up inside, who found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, who found true freedom and purpose in a life lived on trail. I’m not quite willing to give that up, which may be, or probably is, at the root of my despair.

There are many disabled folks who continue to hike: Bill Irwin hiked blind. Wheelchair Bob is out on the PCT all the time, and a local friend, Geoff Babb, even invented the Advenchair, an all-terrain wheelchair, so he could still get around after his stroke. Hiking with a disability takes more time and more effort, but it’s possible. It’s possible. It’s possible.

Oh, the effort though. I’m getting caught up in the effort of doing all the “right” things to help mitigate my body feeling like a 500-pound elephant sinking into the sea. A part of me knows I will get through this, and may even return to my resting disposition in the clouds. A part of me knows letting myself feel the feelings may be the only way through, and a part of me needs to keep finding the effort that leads to small joys.

This isn’t a cry for help, I’ve done that already. This is an effort to be real with you about those “How am I doing?” questions.

I guess the next update will be in the aftermath of my PET scan, brain MRI, and labs. I’ll be a completely different person then.

Some happiness lately:

Life Update 8/21

Posted on August 21, 2025 by sheraaaa

I returned to PCT Days last weekend….things started going wrong just after PCT Days last year…I’m still chairing the Oregon Trails Coalition, so was helping to spread the **Fund Trails** message with my friend Matt Ruddy from Trailkeepers of Oregon. Speaking of…we are collecting trail stories from people all across Oregon as part of a campaign to celebrate the many ways trails show up in our lives—and why they deserve ongoing public funding and support. **What’s your trail story?**

I know I’ll be feeling the echoes of my Dad’s passing for quite a while, and paired with my healing journey, it’s even more of an imperative to get out on the camino to walk out a lot of these emotions. Walking is the way I process the world, walking and writing together are the ultimate…so I’m excited that I have both on the horizon.

Back to the world of cancer stuff, I’m on the maintenance schedule now that includes monthly labs and meetings with my oncologist. I got my labs done this week and it still shows low white blood cell counts and low platelets…these are side effects of my daily cancer med, so it’s to be expected, but it also means that my immune system isn’t as robust in defending my system from infection, but I started a new treatment regimine this week, prescribed by my naturopath oncologist: Mistletoe!

Yep, it’s the christmas kissing plant, or in my case, an immune cell super-power upgrade. Here is what mistletoe will do for me:

Help my immune system to recognize and destroy tumor cells by activating tumor-killing cells such as macrophages, dendritic cells and natural killer cells. As cancer progresses, cancer cells mask themselves from the immune system by hiding their cell markers. Mistletoe helps to reverse this progress, exposing cancer cells to the immune system.
Blocks the ability of cancer cells to build new blood vessels
Repairs DNA of cancer cells, making them less aggressive
Damages cancer cells’ cell membranes and structure
Promotes immune destruction of cancer cells
Blocks production of proteins that promote growth in cancer cells
Blocks ability of cancer cells to invade new tissues
Anti-inflammatory, modulates pain response

The fun part? Giving myself shots. The treatment comes in self-administered injections several times a week, and since the medication doesn’t have to be refrigerated, it should be all good to take to Europe with me in a few weeks.

So I have this new med, and when I return from Portugal, I’ll start another new med, Zometa, which is an infusion that I’ll get every three months to strengthen my bones. The internet tells me that Zometa is a bisphosphonate medicine that alters bone formation and breakdown in the body. This can slow bone loss and may help prevent bone fractures. So this will help me recover from the swiss cheese effect of the cancer growth on my bones, and it will be doubly useful because I am hovering around menopause, which also can lead to osteoporosis. I’ve been advised to avoid high-impact activities because of my increased fracture risk, and not that I’m going to suddenly start racing motocross or anything, but I’m hopeful this will lessen the risk if I do try things this winter like cross-country skiing. I’m probably still going to avoid downhill skiing for now (sob).

So even though I don’t have any active cancer, I’m still seeing doctors like it’s my job. Maybe this will lessen with time? Maybe? Because I’m on monthly labs and periodic scans and my medication is delivered by timed doses each month, this means I really can’t be away from home for more than a few weeks for the foreseeable future, and when I come off my anti-seizure drug this winter, I won’t be able to drive for three months! It’s hard to see a return to normal; this is a new normal.

Speaking of the new normal, I’ve been having trouble wrapping my head around how to live my life now and how to make decisions now. I am in that in-between place where I don’t know what going forward looks like. In my immediate future, I have Portugal, but after that???

I had started accepting that this may be the end, that it may be my last year or so, so I decided to live hard right now and do all the things. But when I got the scan this summer showing me that I didn’t have any active cancer at the moment, suddenly I could see a longer life… a future longer than a year at least, so does that mean I start saving for retirement again? Can I even entertain the possibility of retiring? All the while, I still need to make it to 5 years…and the odds aren’t quite in my favor, but then again, I’ve always excelled at exceeding the odds and have had good luck trusting the world. Do I stop planning and live now? Or plan just the next year and go big?? Or do I plan to be alive in 10 years? 5 years? 3 years? Do I start my business again? But I’ve also always wanted to write a book, so why not give that a shot when I have time (or maybe not)?

I don’t know friends. I guess I’ll start by going on a long walk.

Life Update July 18

Posted on July 18, 2025 by sheraaaa

I’m officially changing the name of these updates from “Cancer update” to “Life update.”

Why?

Well, it’s more forward thinking, I’m not giving cancer the spotlight anymore, and because my last scan showed NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE!!!!!

You heard that right, I don’t have any active cancer at the moment!

Lets take a moment to feel it.

This news is almost as sudden of a change as it was to get the diagnosis seven long months ago; I’ve needed a beat to process it all. But at the same time things haven’t changed all that much. I still have the tumors (at least some of them), although now they are masses of dead cells that my body will eventually process and show them the exit.

I still have pain and stiffness. In fact wasn’t expecting to have a clear scan because I still have quite a bit of soreness and ache in my ribs. My neck and shoulders get incredibly sore after a long walk…Kirk and I walked 4.5 miles on a trail the other day and I was locked up for the rest of the afternoon.

But it’s not cancer. I will now be healing from injuries that were caused by the cancer.

I don’t have cancer! Right now…

That’s the other sobering thing about a NED “no evidence of disease” result of a PET scan, there is always the chance of recurrence. 🙁 A pretty good chance in fact. So in a way, this is when the real hard work starts! Eat right, exercise, stay positive, and live as hard as I can.

I’ve had a few friends this week send me tidbits from Andrea Gibson, a well-known poet who just passed away from ovarian cancer. Their words are beautiful, and it’s also heartbreaking because they had a recurrence of cancer a year after the original diagnosis. So, I’ve got to pull out all the stops to keep this body’s immune system up so there is no cozy place for the cancer to take root again.

In fact, I learned that the PET scan, while it detects active cancer in the body, can’t detect the smallest tumors under a centimeter. A PET scan uses radioactive sugar to make a map of how much energy the cells and organs of the body are using; the idea being that cancer will use more energy and therefore be picked up on a PET scan. So, 24 hours before my scan, I had to avoid any strenuous activity and abstain from sugar. I fasted six hours before the test, and when I arrived, was injected with the radioactive sugar and napped for 45 minutes while my body absorbed the stuff…all the places the sugar was consumed would show up in the scan.

And none of my tumors ate the sugar which means they aren’t active cancer tumors anymore, just dead cells.

Hooray!

I keep coming back to the fact that I will never be cured from this cancer. There will never be a guarentee that I won’t get it again. If I can make it 5 years my chances of not getting it again will be better, but that’s a LONG TIME! When it spreads the way it did in my body, its tentacles are deep. We we don’t get cured.

My white blood cells and platlets are also still really low. That can be a side effect from the Tegresso, my targeted cancer med (which I’ll be taking for the rest of my life), so my oncologist will have me take monthly labs to monitor that. Low white blood cells mean I can’t fight infections very well, so I’ve been told to take precautions there. I’ll also need to get scans every 3-4 months, and I’m starting a bone-strengthing IV soon because the numerous lesions on my bones means they are a fracture risk…and I’m almost 50, so osteoporosis is a knocking!

So it’s with mixed feelings that I share this news with you. It’s good, it’s great in fact! But I still have so much to do, and there won’t probably ever be a “return to normal.” It’s going to be finding my new normal…and that changes all the time as I try to get stronger and recover some of the muscle loss.

I’ll leave you today with this morning dance party I went to recently. It was the first time I had danced in almost a year. It’s definitely time to dance.