Good Scans, Big Changes, and the Reminder That I Am Not Done Yet

It has been a while.

My last blog post was July 10th, and when I realized that, I immediately felt a little guilty. So much has happened over the last few months. I kept thinking I needed to sit down and write about it, but life kept moving.

And maybe that is actually the story.

For so long, my life revolved around brain cancer.

Appointments. Treatments. Medications. MRIs. Waiting rooms. Bloodwork. Side effects. Statistics. Fear.

And then there was the waiting.

Waiting for the next scan.

Waiting for somebody to tell me whether I could continue planning my life or whether everything was about to change again.

When you are diagnosed with glioblastoma, especially in the beginning, the future becomes very small. You stop thinking years ahead. Sometimes you stop thinking months ahead. You learn to live from appointment to appointment and scan to scan.

Almost three years ago, I did not know what my future was going to look like.

There were moments when I honestly did not know if I would have one.

Today, I am still here.

And my scans continue to be good.

I do not think I will ever be able to explain what those words mean to somebody who has never had to wait for them.

A good scan does not just mean that nothing changed on an MRI.

It means I get more time.

More mornings with my husband.

More ridiculous moments with Max.

More trips to Disneyland.

More dinners.

More holidays.

More arguments about things that probably do not matter.

More bills.

More work meetings.

More chances to laugh.

More chances to get annoyed.

More chances to simply be alive.

And lately, life has been giving me plenty to be alive for.

One of the biggest changes happened when I decided to leave Yolo Federal Credit Union.

That decision was much more emotional than I expected it to be.

Yolo had been part of my life for years. I grew there. I became a leader there. I built relationships there. They knew me before brain cancer, they were there when my entire life suddenly changed, and they were still there when I came back and tried to figure out what my new normal looked like.

When I was sick, there were moments when that job felt like a lifeline.

And when the opportunity came for me to leave, something unexpected happened.

I felt guilty.

Really guilty.

I actually found myself wondering if I was being ungrateful.

I thought about God, or my higher power, or whatever force in this universe helped carry me through the darkest period of my life.

I wondered if I had been given this lifeline and was somehow throwing it away.

I remember thinking, what if I am taking all of this for granted?

What if I am supposed to just be grateful for what I already have?

After everything that happened, who was I to ask for more?

That thought stayed with me for a while.

Then something changed.

I started looking at the opportunity differently.

Maybe this was not me walking away from something I had been given.

Maybe this was another door opening.

Maybe the message was not, “You should stay where you are because you are lucky to be alive.”

Maybe the message was:

Dude. You are not done.

That thought hit me hard.

Because somewhere along this journey, I think I had quietly started believing that surviving meant I should be satisfied simply existing.

Do not push too hard.

Do not dream too big.

Do not make too many plans.

Do not tempt fate.

Just be grateful.

And I am grateful.

I am unbelievably grateful.

But gratitude and ambition do not have to be enemies.

Being thankful that I survived does not mean I have to stop growing.

So I took the chance.

I left the place where I was comfortable and started a new position at Golden 1.

And if I am being completely transparent, it has been overwhelming at times.

This organization is much larger than what I came from. There are meetings everywhere. New systems. New people. New acronyms. New expectations.

There have absolutely been moments where I have sat there thinking, “What the hell am I doing?”

I went from knowing almost everything about my environment to being the new guy again.

That is humbling.

But something else occurred to me recently.

For the first time in a long time, I am uncomfortable for a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with cancer.

I am uncomfortable because I am growing.

There is something incredibly beautiful about that.

Cancer made my world incredibly small for a while.

Now life is becoming big again.

And big can be scary.

Big can be messy.

Big can be exhausting.

But big also means there are possibilities again.

That does not mean glioblastoma disappeared from my life.

It never really leaves.

There will always be another MRI on the calendar.

There will always be that moment before I open a result when my stomach drops.

There will always be the little voice somewhere in the back of my head reminding me that everything could change.

I have learned that survivorship is not the finish line people sometimes imagine it to be.

You do not ring a bell, get a good scan, and suddenly return to being the person you were before cancer.

That person is gone.

I do not necessarily mean that in a sad way.

I am different now.

I think about time differently.

I think about people differently.

I think about what deserves my energy differently.

And I definitely think about opportunity differently.

Before glioblastoma, a new job might have simply been a career move.

Now it feels like evidence.

Evidence that my life is still moving.

Evidence that there are still chapters I have not written.

Evidence that there are people I have not met yet, things I have not learned yet, places I have not gone yet, and versions of myself I have not become yet.

I do not know how much time any of us have.

Brain cancer just removed the luxury of pretending otherwise.

There is fear in knowing that.

But there is also freedom.

I spent a long time fighting to stay alive.

Maybe this part is about learning how to actually live the life I fought for.

Not cautiously.

Not apologetically.

Not feeling guilty every time something good happens.

Just living it.

The funny thing is that life after cancer is not some inspirational movie.

Sometimes surviving looks like getting another clear MRI.

Sometimes it looks like sitting in a giant work meeting wondering what everybody is talking about.

Sometimes it looks like dealing with insurance companies, paperwork, bills, deadlines, family, responsibilities, and a dog who could not care less about any of it.

Life is still life.

It is complicated.

It is frustrating.

It is beautiful.

And right now, mine keeps moving.

Maybe that is why I did not write for the last couple of months.

I was busy living the story instead.

I used to pray for more time.

Now I am learning what to do with it.

And somewhere along the way, the message became pretty clear:

You survived something that was supposed to stop you.

Do not stop yourself now.

I am still here.

My scans are still good.

My life is changing.

And I am definitely not done yet.