Although I was lucky enough to become cancer-free three years ago, my luck apparently has run out.

It’s back… my cancer is back, and has returned with a vengeance. I feel so many things right now - angry, scared, tired, uncertain, and desperately trying to hold on to gratitude for those helping and supporting me so far, and digging deep down to try and find the hope and strength within myself for the really big, scary fight ahead.

It’s been almost exactly three years since I was first diagnosed with Endometrial/Uterine Cancer and had my complete hysterectomy and radiation treatment. But with the massive upheaval of losing our home a year and a half ago, and being forced to travel up and down the East Coast doing dog/house sitting and staying in hotels to keep some kind of roof over our heads, I had no way of keeping up with medical check ups as needed.

So, it grew back.

I’ve had back pain forever, and having to do the physically demanding job of DoorDashing in my fifties this past year and a half to just stay afloat, I figured my physical pains and fatigue were normal. They weren’t. And when I recently had a situation that aggravated my sciatic nerve I thought my usual treatment of chiropractics would fix it. It didn’t.

After three weeks of struggling with the worst back pain in my life, making simple things like putting on my pants or sitting upright in a chair excruciating and often impossible, something changed. When I woke in the middle of the night on Friday, December 22nd the pain wasn’t just in my back, it was also in my belly. I knew something was really wrong, so early Saturday morning the paramedics were called and my week-long stay in the hospital began. After CT Scans, a painful two-hour-long MRI, and more heavy pain meds than I’ve ever used in my life as a whole to desperately bring me back from 10-on-a-scale-of-10 pain about half a dozen times, the situation became clear. The cancer had returned four-fold.

I currently have a 10cm mass the size of a grapefruit in my pelvis, legions on my diaphragm and liver, and a legion on my spine that’s wrapping around and pressing on my sciatic nerve, which is not only constantly painful, even with meds, but has the potential to paralyze my left leg. I’m already noticing increased loss of feeling and numbness in addition to the shooting pain.

I’ve begun the process radiation therapy for the legion on my spine lasting through the next three weeks to try and alleviate the pressure on my sciatic nerve and restore some mobility. I’ll be meeting with my surgeon/oncologist soon where I’ll get the results of the biopsy of the legion on my liver, and we can then employ the proper course of chemotherapy to fight all the cancer. That will likely begin within the next two weeks. Given the extent of spread and size of my mass, it’s expected to be an aggressive and lengthy course of treatment.

I need your help.

Because I haven’t worked in almost a month now, and won’t be able to for several months to come, money is a HUGE worry. Immediately we need help catching up from being almost a month behind on bills, loans, and regular day to day expenses, addition to having money to help us navigate the months of treatment to come. As everyone knows, the only thing that generally matches (and sometimes exceeds) the stress of chronic health issues is money issues. To get help in minimizing this stressor will allow me to focus fully on everything I need to do to fight this cancer. I also know I’m going to have good days, bad days, and days where I just can’t do anything. I’ll try my best to update regularly throughout this battle, but it may get spotty at times.

There are still aspects of this situation that I don’t know, but as scared as I am, and as hard as I know in my bones this will be, I’m going to do everything I can to try and beat this. I lost my brother to this disease earlier this year. I’ve known many who’ve lost spouses and dear family members to it. I’ve watched some of the finest people I know lose their battle with cancer. But, like them all, I’m not going down without a fight. One of the most inspiring, compassionate, funny, and enthusiastic persons I’ve ever had the honor to know fought cancer for years well beyond what any of the experts expected. Although he ultimately did succumb to his cancer, he had a mantra that I’m going to carry with me every day of this fight. One word that sums it all up… Onward. There’s no way out but through, there’s no choice but to fight. Onward.