MDS- Myelodyscpastic Syndrome- Blood Cancer

In 2019, a spider became the catalyst of my fate. I woke to a spider bite the day after Labor Day and my cancer journey began. I was hospitalized, underwent two major surgeries, which included two skin grafts, and a bone marrow transplant. My body received 4 different types of chemotherapy, radiation, and total body irradiation to prepare me for a bone marrow transplant in 2020. I lived at the hospital for 4 1/2 months in isolation, to protect my immune system. Everyone who entered my hospital room had to glove up and robe up to enter. I spent time in Oncology, but most of my time was spent in the Burn Unit. The medical staff was gracious, and I was given the room with a view of the Rocky Mountains. The mountains became my focal point, my mediation. I stared at them all day, every day. Being in the burn unit, meant I experienced wound care daily; it was painful, scary, and traumatic.

I wasn’t the easiest patient, yet the medical staff continued to show up for me. No matter my mood, my words, or attitude, they kept coming back. I am beyond grateful to the medical staff who worked tirelessly to save my life and taught me how to receive love. Three years after my transplant, I realized the person hospitalized no longer existed, she had gone through a transformation, and emerged stronger, wiser, and anew.

I spent my time in isolation and social distancing, focusing on my healing. Using mediation, yoga, and my clinical knowledge around trauma to my benefit. I received my Bone Marrow Transplant weeks prior to the Covid-19 shut down. About a month after my transplant, I was in recovery when the world shut down. As I emerged from my engrafting and recovery, I was learning to walk again, how to be in my new body, while navigating a new world. The Universe launched me overseas, returning to serve the military and their families. At the time, it presented a financial opportunity to recover from my experiences and I was saying yes to life…. while questioning my purpose. I experienced survivor’s guilt, and I didn’t understand why my life was saved. On a quest for answers and understanding, I discovered my diagnosis’s is not hereditary. I was given the same diagnosis of the Atomic Bomb Survivors. I had worked and lived, where the Atomic Bomb was created. There is no doubt I was exposed to something environmental, that caused and contributed to my Blood Cancer. I also discovered and learned much about the relationships in my life, about myself, and how I want to be in the world. I had four years of spending time alone to protect my immune system and my health. I was taken to bare bones, mentally, physically, financially, and spiritually. I was at my death bed and emerged with gratitude and a deeper understanding of love.

“You are going to find out, it’s not your hair that makes you Beautiful”

Words spoken to me by a fellow bone marrow transplant recipient, while I was having blood drawn, and facing the reality of losing my hair due to chemotherapy.

- she was right- it was not my hair that made me or anyone else beautiful

I have been a cancer patient, burn patient, watched my caregiver struggle with my mortality, and witnessed the medical staff work endlessly to save my life. I spent 4 1/2 months in the hospital in Colorado, where I learned for the first time in my existence what it feels to receive unconditional love.