For Cure Today

Short paragraph for the Cure Today magazine on exercising and my crap cancer gig.

I am a three year survivor of metastatic breast cancer. In three years, I have had three courses of treatments and three acknowledgements of remission. I had always been an occassional exerciser. Just prior to my diagnoses, and three years after my last child was born, I announced I finally was at my pre-baby weight. Through out my first treatments, chemotherapy and Cyber Knife on my liver tumor, I walked. I walked everyday no matter how bad I felt. Okay, there were a few days I missed. I even walked a mile on the fifth day (worse day) of my sixth round of chemo near my home with my family during the Susan G. Korman Race for the cure since my oncologist said not to be in crowds yet. About three months later, I worked myself up to running a mile, then two miles, then three, and by six months post-chemo, 4 miles. I had never been a runner. I became an accidental runner. I lost the twenty pounds of chemo weight and strengthened my mental survivaltude...if that is a word. The pushing myself just a little further and little faster, I found the love of saying no to the my body when it wanted to give up on me and push to where I had no idea I could be. It was not just running that got me stronger mentally. I also started a hot yoga practice. I practice two to three times a week. Like running, I pushed myself to perfect poses, hold them longer, and balance better. The gift that yoga, as a practice, gave me allows me to relax through hour long radiation treatments, PET/CTs, and MRIs. I have the mental fortitude to not succumb to fear during scans and to use meditive visual therapy. My cancer mastetsized to my brain in 2010, eighteen months after diagnoses. Having brain tumors and getting through the scare of dying...again...twice more...was very trying. When I couldn't run after my whole brain radiation, I sweated in hot yoga. Sure, I had to lay in child's pose half the time. and I completely lost the ability to balance in tree pose, my favortie. But, I got something else from going to class twice a week even on my weekest days. I had meditation and drive to reclaim what was once mine. I never gave up. Today, five months after my WBR, I can run a mile non-stop and hold a tree pose in half lotus. Exercising gave me goals to run towards. It taught me to never give up. Cancer tried to take away my physical body three times. But, I kicked it in the behind and kept moving. The fact I am alive today, as my oncologist says, is remarkable. I truely believe the balance of yoga and running keeps this machine I call my body on this Earth to let my sould thrive.