The Beginning of a Journey

I ended up spending the summer of 2010 back home in Utah. Although I was disappointed not to be doing an internship or taking classes or doing something like that, I was excited to take advantage of living only moments away from my beloved Wasatch Mountains. Although a seven month long sinus infection followed by a very stressful spring semester had taken its toll on my physical conditioning, I resolved to get out and hike as much as possible. I did so. One of my first hikes of the year was up Mill B North on May 25, which was the day after the latest snow ever in the Salt Lake Valley. The view looking at the Cottonwood ridge line was great:



I also got a good look up the Mill B South drainage. You get a decent view of Sundial Peak:



A month later, I got a much closer view of Sundial Peak when I hiked Lake Blanche on the summer solstice:

I tried to make a Summer Solstice snow angel since opportunities to do so are few and far between, but I think it ended up looking more like a devil:



I also spent some time hiking up White Pine as well as camping in Southern Utah with and up Bell's Canyon, but if I posted all the pictures I want to I'll never get to then end of this post. Suffice it to say that I was hiking a few times a week and should have been getting stronger but I wasn't.

On July 2 I hiked up Mill D North, past Lake Desolation, and over the ridge line into Bear Trap Fork with a friend. Throughout the day I was much slower than she was and constantly found myself trying to catch up with her. At one point I shared the thought that kept crossing my mind: my weakness was a sign that my melanoma had come back. After the first surgery I had at the end of March, each time I felt weak or tired I wondered if it was a sign that the cancer was coming back. She did the right thing and tried her best to convince me otherwise, but unfortunately I was right. Two days later, on the 4th of July, I found a lump in my neck that would turn my life upside down.

This blog is the story of my ongoing struggle with melanoma and the ways in which I've done my best to hold on to at least part of my life. Much of it is personal, so you won't see me advertising this very much. But as I've gone through the process of dealing with cancer, I have frequently been inspired by the stories of other cancer patients and survivors. In turn, then, I feel like I should share my story in the hope that it might inspire someone else.