One Year Later - September 22, 2026

The weather a year ago today was beautiful. It often is when the sun dares to shine on Cape Cod in September. The beauty of that crisp early fall day was reflective of where I thought my life was headed. I had finally lost over 100 pounds. I had a partner. I was interviewing for careers I was really excited about. I was finally feeling confident and strong and hopeful about the life I was building.

I’m very lucky my hands were cold while I was on the phone that night. And so I put my left hand under my right armpit to warm it up…then promptly wondered how long a baseball had been living rent-free in the side of my right breast.

Life imploded very quickly afterward. I couldn’t take an amazing job I had been offered. I had to freeze my eggs. I learned that sometimes the people close to you will show you who they are when the going gets tough. I had to plan surgery, get a port, and absolutely pray that the (ONE) treatment they outlined would work, even though none of us were sure it would. Suddenly, my life was no longer about building a future. It was about trying to make sure I had one.

I don’t want to get into specifics, but somehow I survived. Somehow, fate was working in my favor. Somehow, I survived the sepsis and the internal bleeding. Somehow, through all of it, I kept getting up and putting one foot in front of the other. And somehow, while all of this was happening, another, older battle was quietly unfolding in the background as it had been for 8 years: a mysterious neurological disorder that no one can quite explain, ravaging my entire right side and slowly stealing my mobility.

But I’m still here.

As we go through life, we hear about people going through things like this. We think, They don’t deserve this. We think, They’re so strong. I understand why we say these things. I’ve said them myself. But I’ve started to wonder about both. What does it actually mean to “deserve” something like this? If you won the lottery after buying one ticket, would you hand the money back because someone else deserved it more? Of course not. And yet we seem to have this strange instinct to look for some kind of cosmic accounting when something terrible happens to a person.

“She didn’t deserve this. She’s so strong.” Maybe saying those things is comforting because they make suffering feel more orderly than it really is. The sentiment suggests that there is a reason someone was selected for something terrible, or that they possess some extraordinary quality that allowed them to survive it. I truly don’t believe in either side of the coin anymore.

And I’ve learned that it may not even be about strength, really. Could it really be called strength when you don’t have another choice? When you’re backed into this corner, you don’t get to decide whether you’re brave enough to survive. When harsh treatment is the only option you’ve been given, you don’t get to demonstrate some extraordinary act of courage by accepting it. You just do it. When your life has been reduced to the next appointment, the next scan, the next blood draw, the next morning, you get very good at living in increments. But you keep going because the alternative isn’t a particularly useful option. And then one day, you look around and realize you’ve gone farther than you, your doctors, absolutely everyone—ever thought you could.

I also know I wouldn’t have gotten through this without the fierce, overwhelming, undying support of my friends, family, doctors, neighbors, and even total strangers. This was truly the definition of a team effort and for those players, I am eternally, disproportionately, incredibly lucky and blessed. 

So, I don’t think it makes me stronger than the people who didn’t survive. And I certainly don’t think I was somehow more deserving of another chance than anyone else. It just means that, for reasons I will probably never fully understand, I got one. In the last year I lost things…so many things. But I gained things. I became someone I didn’t recognize. For the first time in my life, I became someone I was actually proud of. 

Somehow, once again, I’m still here. I don’t know what to do with that sometimes. Maybe I don’t have to know yet. Maybe for now, being here is enough.

And please, dear God, DO YOUR SELF CHECKS!