I’m a scientist, a single parent, yoga instructor, and a writer, now navigating high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma. I’m raising funds to support treatment, travel, and time to focus on healing.

When I was diagnosed with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma, I thought the hardest part would be the diagnosis.

It wasn’t.

The hardest part was what came next: no clear answer about what to do.

Most of my life, I’ve worked in uncertainty. As a scientist, I study complex systems where outcomes are rarely predictable.

But this kind of uncertainty is different.

This is the kind where:

experts disagree

data is incomplete

the stakes are high (your life)

and the decision is yours anyway

When my oncologist told me that the “right” way to treat smoldering myeloma is still debated, I did what I know how to do: I researched everything.

For months, I digested endless journal articles, webinars, clinical trial protocols, probabilities, and competing expert opinions.

And I realized something unsettling: Science wasn’t going to give me a clear answer in time for me to need one.

Then, unexpectedly, at a shorebird conservation meeting, I heard a talk on structured decision-making.

Not about medicine—about conservation. But it applied perfectly.

It offered a way forward: not by eliminating uncertainty, but by moving through it with intention, making the most of what was known and aligning it with what mattered most to me -- as long a life as possible, even with an incurable cancer, and time with my kids. And treating it early. Beating it, before it beat me.

Now I'm in treatment that offers me the best chance at that -- traveling from Virginia to Miami -- first weekly and now monthly....for two years. And then quarterly for five years after that. The travel costs for the next two years will be about $20-25,000/year.

I've hesitated to ask for financial help, concerned that there are so many worthy causes for people in need. But I’ve come to see this differently due to numerous requests from friends to set up a gofund me.

Just as science is collaborative, getting through something like this is not meant to be done alone.

If you feel moved to support me—whether financially or by sharing this—I’m deeply grateful. Or, just follow along with my cathartic writing at my blog: https://ashleydayer.substack.com

I’m learning, in real time, what it means to live between effort and ease—

to act without certainty,

to move forward without guarantees,

and to trust that a path can be meaningful even when it’s unclear.

Thank you for being part of this with me.