Ahhh. Early birthday present.

My lease on life was renewed for another three months. :-) Which means in exactly three months, I'll also be about one year out of chemo and one year from my first all clear. Which is really exciting and I'm praying that the good news keeps up because I can never get enough of hearing "We don't see anything!"

Now onto those last ten pounds. I can only tackle one hurdle at a time.

One year. Your whole life can change in one year. I know that new parents say it takes nine months, but for me, it's been one year. And I wonder which is harder: to create life or to sustain it.

One year ago, I couldn't walk five steps. And then, over the weekend, I walked 13.1 miles with my best friends. They endured the blisters, the hurt ankles, the painful knees (and yes, we're only in our mid-twenties and former athletes) and a lot of wind, and sprinted with me across the finish line. It hurt. I kept thinking that maybe I should slow down, and then we'll make it. But everytime I started to slow down, something would happen that would make me want to speed up again, and then there we were. At the end. Done.

I had decided to walk the race last January once I finished with my steroids from Chemo and pneumonia. I figured a labor day race at the beach would be a great vacation mixed with a purpose, and somehow managed to convince my two best friends to come along. The race also benefited Leukemia-Lymphoma and I have to be honest, as corny as it sounds, there was so much positivity. People had the photos of loved ones on their shirts but there they were smiling and pumping fists, saying "I can do this" and I'm doing it for something. I mean, the Kenyans came in first, and they were like on mile 9 when we were on mile 2, and everyone was screaming and cheering them on from the other side of the track, amazed at how fast and determined and pretty incredible they all were. Everyone was just cheering on everyone else; those that were really good runners actually stayed along the course cheering on the walkers and not a snicker in the bunch. It was just the attitude of "You can do this" and finishing was more important than just finishing in a certain amount of time. And it was an amazing place to be. My body, ravaged by cancer and chemo and radiation, just kept on pushing and I was saying, this is for my friends who never stopped believing and my parents who needed me to believe, for the patients that are suffering setbacks and who are having a hard time, for everyone who ever wanted to tell me that I was facing a death sentence. For that doctor who informed me that I wouldn't be able to walk a marathon, ever again. I was buoyed up by my two friends (who let's face it are in much better shape and even at the end looked way better than my sweaty self did) who didn't complain, didn't whine and were just as happy to get to the finish line as I was because we did it together. I was still with them at the end of it; they didn't have to walk it in my memory.

And that's the point I guess. At this time last year, I was full of uncertainty. The tests were coming at me rapidly. I had gotten home from a friends' wedding and my mother was standing there telling me how horrible I looked. I couldn't understand the cough, the sweats, the itching, the unbelievable fatigue. This weekend I coughed from the cold air, was sweaty from the heat, itched from the sand and was only tired because we laughed too much, drank too much, ate too much and then walked for 3 hours straight.