Tag Archives: cancer

To be seen and to disappear

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I am behind on posting columns for the past two weeks, and so today you get a two-in-one post to get us back on the rails!

Hope it’s as pretty where you are as it is here with the colors changing and the rain falling and the weather cooling down.

Right Place, Right Time
September 19, 2026

Last week I played music in a little park by the lake about two hours from the ranch. I was supposed to bring a sound system with me, which I didn’t realize until I got there and there was no sound system. But I did bring along my dad and my steele guitar playing friend who, luckily, lived close enough to go grab his system from his house. And when I realized I also forgot my guitar strap and my capo on my kitchen counter, my dad came in clutch with extras and the two guys combined saved the day.

Forgetting something as pertinent to a gig as a sound system is not something I’ve ever done. The fact that I was so confident in my decision not to bring one sort of had me on edge. The fact that it all worked out in the end thanks to those around me that had exactly what we needed, got me thinking about all the times in life we find ourselves in predicaments that can only be solved by the good fortune of having access to the right people at the exact right time.

Like when I got stuck behind a wreck in traffic on my way to town to pick Edie up from kindergarten and it was clear not only was I going to be late, but I was going to be very, very late. I was able to dial my friend and within five minutes she was there, saving the day and the kindergarten tears from falling.

Or like when my husband’s pickup recently broke down on the way home from town and his business partner just happened to be driving by pulling Chad’s flatbed trailer.  

Or when my uncle was on his way to town to replace a broken toilet and stopped by the house to say hi first, only to discover that my husband had a brand new, extra toilet just hanging out in the garage.

Or when we were hosting a big, nationally touring country act in town and the stage management needed a drum stand in like five minutes and the local music teacher had just bought a new one–and she lived two blocks away from the stage–so she just walked it right over.

Hunter Hayes in Watford City

I’m writing this in the passenger seat of my car as my husband drives us back east to Rochester so I can get my first scan since treatment at Mayo Clinic. I’m confident we will find that the tumors are gone or shrinking nicely and we’ll head back home with good news, but I’m still annoyed we have to go at all. I mean, I’m missing Rosie’s fun run and Edie’s basketball game and Rosie’s field trip to the Dinosaur museum. And the girls aren’t happy about it either, a little residual panic from the last time I was there for so long. But this morning as we were packing up to leave, my husband looked at his phone and laughed. “You didn’t tell me it was a RUN!” my sister-in-law’s message read. She had enthusiastically said yes to Chad’s request to join Rosie on the track that morning (he could not handle her disappointed little face.) “She just LAPPED me!”

“Aunt of the year,” I wrote to a woman who found herself jogging with a hundred third graders at 8:30 in the morning in 40 degrees.

Day. Saved.

Rosie finished ten laps!

I am an independent person. Some could look at it as a strength in character, but often in my life it’s a quality that has been one of my biggest failings. As a kid, when someone would try to pick me up for a hug or to help me get more quickly from point A to point B, I would protest, “Put me down, I’m not a doll!” And then flee the scene.

My nature, when I’m sick, is to suffer in silence, away from people. If I were an animal, I would hole up and probably just die. And it’s a little bit that I hate to be a burden, and a little bit that I feel a need to regulate the room or the situation. If I’m uncomfortable or stressed, it could make you uncomfortable or stressed, and that stresses me out. And this is dumb, because this is not the way humans are supposed to exist in this world. And it’s not how I see it as someone on the other side of the help situation. One of my favorite things in the world is when someone needs a tissue or a wet wipe or a mint or a pocketknife and I am the woman who has all those things in her purse. My husband’s whole life thesis is being the guy ready for anything and willing to help in a crisis or inconvenience of any size and it’s the thing I love the most about him.

I walked into my office the other day and the chair that I ordered the week before had been put together for me when I was out. My coworker had her husband do it, because he loves that sort of thing, and as a person who hates to follow directions and also hates those tiny allen wrenches, it was as if he had hung the moon for me. And maybe this example isn’t as much about saving the day as it is about just doing something nice for someone. There are so many of you out there who operate like this, just going around making life easier for others intentionally or by being at the right place at the right time and willing to help.

Anyway, as we’re pulling off on the interstate I guess I just felt compelled to refect on the feeling of “phew,” and the sentiment of “thank you.”

See you back at the ranch!

To Disappear is Sometimes the Dream
September 26, 2026

“Do you think I could make it to the grain bins and back before it gets pitch black?” I asked my husband as I scooped the last of the rice and chicken off my plate an into my mouth. The rest of my family was lingering at the table, poking at a supper that was a little sub-par and reaching the limit of a long day. It was a little after 8 pm and supper was later than I wanted it to be, but the sun setting so quickly had me sort of shocked and frazzled.

In the summer and spring months a walk after supper was no problem. We could eat at 10 pm and I would still have time for an hour-long stroll to the fields. But it’s late September now and it was staring me down and ruining my plan to re-gain my sanity before bedtime.

“No,” my husband replied. “You’ll definitely be walking in the dark.”

I jumped up, put my dish in the sink and pulled on my shoes anyway. I’ve never been the kind of kid who’s afraid of the dark and so out I went, the three dogs jumping along in front of me, just as excited as I was to not skip this part of the day. We were a little past what the professionals like to call ‘Golden Hour,’ the time in the evening when the sinking sun casts a perfect golden hue on everything under its shine. We were well into the sunset portion of the evening, the time when the muskrats come out from wherever muskrats go, to swim in the stock dam. The time when the bats start to dive and swoop. The time when, if those dogs get too far ahead of you on the path, they will disappear entirely into the horizon.

To disappear entirely into the horizon. That’s nightfall in the country and it holds with it a certain type of feeling that’s hard to explain. It’s the feeling you get when you park your car after a long drive in the middle of the night and you shut the door behind you and look up at the sky and notice the quiet twinkling of the stars, or, maybe if you’re lucky, the northern lights. It’s 3 am and no one is out and you remember the times when you were a kid and you fell asleep in the backseat of your parents’ car, and you woke up when the engine cut, but you pretended to sleep anyway so your dad would carry you in. And you opened your eyes to see those same stars in the same type of quiet night and somehow, all these years later, you feel like that kid in the night under those stars again. I guess that’s how I would describe the feeling.

I was only out walking on the field trails for about fifteen minutes before the sun shifted entirely below that horizon and the dogs and I faded with it. Just a moment before I looked up and spotted a large mule deer on the skyline. His tall rack reached to the sky, and he was backlit by the last moment of yellow, a black dramatic silhouette staring right at something moving in the distance (that something was me) before bouncing off over the hill to disappear too.

Yesterday I got the news that my cancer is shrinking, has shrunk, will shrink more. We found out when we were in Mayo last week, but we needed one more confirmation to make it official. My husband sat next to me in the car as we were parked in the Walmart parking lot on our way through one town to get to the next for a meeting across the state. We video conferenced in for a quick confirmation. You look good. Things look good. Cancer is shrinking, has shrunk, will shrink more. See you in three months for another follow up, goodbye. We ended the call and continued driving east.

“It feels like maybe that news needed a bit more fanfare,” I said as we moved down the street a bit.

“Like, what do you mean?’ my husband asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. It was the same feeling I felt when I completed my last chemo treatment and I was alone with my little pin and too introverted to ask someone to take my picture. The moment felt at least selfie-worthy, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“Maybe a cake or something?” I laughed.

“Well, there’s Cashwise, want me to pull in?” he joked.

No. No I didn’t, I realized. I didn’t want a cake or a party or a fuss really. I just wanted to go about our day, make it to our meeting on time and home that night because we had work in the morning. I wanted to watch that moment, that tumor, that blip, shrink and disappear into the horizon of my life. To disappear is sometimes the dream.

The nights will be longer now as the sun sets sooner, but it’s ok. I’ve never been the kind of kid who’s afraid of the dark.

Fine and Grateful

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“How are you feeling?”

That’s been the question of the summer for me after spending the spring in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic for radiation and chemo treatment on two tumors that reappeared outside my esophagus after a good six-year cancer hiatus.

“Fine. I’m really feeling fine,” has been my reply to those in my community who have pulled me aside for a hug, or stopped to visit in the grocery store, or sent me a text or passed by me while leading goats and kids through the fairgrounds.

“Really?” Is a reply.

“Oh good!” Is another.

“Are you sure?” Is one too.

“Good to see you’re back at it.” Is also one.

“Thank you, thank you so much for asking,” is what I say. And it’s what I genuinely mean. Even I’m surprised that this gets to be my answer.

Because it turns out that the question is a strange one to navigate. Do I feel fine? Yes, really. The little ailments that plagued me during and shortly after treatment have wound down now—the mild heartburn and nausea, the weird bone pain—but it’s hard to describe. My confidence is shaken and I don’t really feel like myself in my own body. The thought of even being in public is a little unnerving, not because I don’t want to be around people, but because I don’t feel like me in the room.

Which brings me to the, “How are you feeling?” question again. I’m finding it’s also a strange question to navigate for the people who love and care about you. Because everyone who asks wants to hear the truth of it, and I certainly want to give it, that’s sort of my thing, for better or for worse. But there is a bit of an expectation (is that the right word?) of what a cancer patient looks like. When I say I’m fine, sometimes I get the sense that they don’t believe me. When I say I’m fine, sometimes I wonder myself.

Prior to my experience, I had the notion that the results of chemo and radiation and treatment in every patient meant they were to become frail and bald. Now I understand that every treatment is different and every dose, every plan, every zap and poke and pill is concocted a thousand different ways for the thousands of different phases, stages, places and varieties a tumor presents itself and spreads. (Isn’t that a fun little sentence to write? Ugh.) My cancer didn’t make me sick this time, and neither did the treatment really and for that I am as grateful as they come. Maybe that should be my new answer to the question. “Fine and grateful.”

Because cancer recovery on me looks like a woman who used to have long, dark, thick hair who cut it off and let the grays come in because it was coming out in handfuls. And as much as I thought I would be the type of woman who wouldn’t care about my hair, the kind of woman who would just be grateful to be alive, it turns out I am not that woman. I am mad and annoyed about my hair, despite knowing better and still hanging on to enough to pull off a fluffy bob. And I overexplain it to everyone for some reason, even though I should probably just shut up and say, “Fine and grateful.”  I become annoying to myself in those moments.

Cancer recovery on me also looks a little puffy and a little more sweaty (if that’s possible) and doing what I can fit into my jeans for an upcoming concert I have on the schedule next week. Should that be important to me? Probably not. Is it? Yes. Because I would like to be in control of my body again, thankyouverymuch.

Cancer recovery on me also looks like continuing to work and show up for my kids and take long walks and get on a horse and host family suppers because slowing all the way down doesn’t make me feel better, it makes me feel less like myself.

And maybe that’s it. That I don’t want cancer to define me the same way I didn’t want infertility to define me. Maybe that’s where the confidence thing comes in. I’ve been shifting the focus away from the treatments and back into my regular life now for a bit over a month, but the reality of my situation still lingers in the shower drain, in the supplements I’m buying that probably won’t help a thing, in the closet full of clothes that don’t fit, in the little moments of overwhelm and worry when I wake up at 3 am and in the question: “How are you feeling?”

And I thank you all, truly, for asking. I’ll happily answer the question a thousand times.

Ring the Bell

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Time’s moving at a different pace now that I’ve been home for almost two weeks. I dove right back in to the end-of-school-year hustle, graduation parties, goat wrangling, 4-H preparations, laundry, softball practice, office work and what’s for dinner. I have been feeling fine, with just a little less stamina for it all and a few reminders in my body and mind of the toll the past few months has taken on me. The girls are officially out of school, reminding me how fun it was to be eight and ten under the heat of the summer sun and that’s good medicine.

Below is last week’s column, a little repeat from what you heard from me last week, and a bit of a reflection on my treatment process and what it meant to ring that bell.

Here’s to less cancer talk in the future and more commentary on the wildflowers and cows.

Ring the Bell


I’m sitting at my kitchen counter after braiding hair and reminders to brush teeth and find shoes and get backpacks and hurry up now. The floors aren’t swept and I’ve cleared a space for myself among the crumbs, water bottles and art supplies to tell you I’m no longer counting my life in weeks, because I’m home now. 

After 33 proton radiation treatments and 6 chemo treatments over the course of 6 1/2 weeks, I rang the bell in the radiation department at Mayo Clinic on May 13th. This bell is the bell of hope, not necessarily indicating that one is cancer free, but a declaration that a course of treatment has been completed or endured with every confidence, prayer and medical advancement in the works for that outcome.

Every weekday for those six weeks I lay on the table in the radiation room and they put a  mask on me that went over my face and shoulders and strapped my head and upper body down nice and tight so I couldn’t move while I waited for the proton beam to be available to zap me and the tumors in three different places. The mask in radiation treatment is treated as a big thing, for lack of a better way to say it. It’s created as a cast over your face to fit perfectly and the care team worries about claustrophobia and takes comfort level seriously. Every day of the week they put that thing on me, and I lay still for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, closing my eyes, listening to music and waiting for the “we have the beam,” voice to come over the speakers in that big room. In the three adjacent, identical rooms, there were three other people at the same time doing the same thing—strapped to a table, waiting on a beam. And then dozens of others in the waiting room, or on their way there, or making plans for their first or last visit. There are only 48 active proton radiation therapy centers in the US, so the machine at Mayo Clinic runs from 8 am to 11 pm every weekday, like clockwork.

As I entered the radiation room for the final time a tech asked me if I wanted to take my mask home with me, which some people do, as a reminder of what they conquered or for a Halloween costume or something. I said no, you keep it.  Burn it. It’s over. But as I lay there getting my final zaps, I changed my mind, a little because I wanted to explain the process to my curious family and a lot because I wanted to burn it myself.

When I walked into the treatment room for the first time back in late March, I was about as annoyed as a person can get with my circumstances. Which was better than scared and better than angry. But I was sick of talking about how the process was going to make me feel, both physically and mentally. I was sick of the waiting and the explanations and all the tests and pre-appointments and answering the question, “Where are you from?” and “Where are you staying?” and “How are you today?” Me, the Queen of Small Talk and Chatter and Banter, didn’t find myself filling any awkward silence with my voice. I stepped in each elevator and just stood there, quietly, like a normal person. And when someone cracked a joke about sardines in a can or close quarters, I just wished they wouldn’t.  I sat to get my blood drawn,or followed a staff member out of the waiting room and I didn’t do the work I typically feel so compelled to do in trying to make people comfortable with conversation.  I just didn’t have it in me.

And when I read the long pamphlet laying out the schedule and expectations on how the treatment plan was going to go, complete with annoying side-effects and annoying appointments, finished off with a ringing of a bell, I couldn’t see myself participating in that ceremonious action. I wasn’t going to do it.

I know now I felt that way then because ringing the bell meant that this was happening, and at that time I was trying to hang on to every shred of normal I could hang on to like every strand of hair that has fallen out of my head since then. But as the weeks went on and I trudged down those hallways and stood in those elevators and sat in those waiting rooms and became a seasoned visitor to the radiation room, I softened to the experience.

Was it perspective, seeing those around me who are sick and fighting harder? Was it that I got more comfortable with my circumstance? Was it that I realized staying annoyed wasn’t going to make it easier?  Was it the routine of it all bringing me closer and closer to the finish line?  I’m not sure, but I became more myself in the process eventually, opening up, picking my favorite front desk lady and radiation therapist and giving people directions and smiling and sometimes even laughing in the elevator. When my husband joined me on my last trip through the parking garage and down the elevator and through the long hallways, I felt like grabbing his hand and skipping all the way.

So yeah, I changed my mind about that bell. There’s a reason it’s there.

Because this time has taken me away from my family for longer than anyone wants to be away, but I get to go home with shrinking tumors and bring with me what this time has given me:

Four new songs

Time to slow down and understand who I am in the quiet

An interest in watercolor painting

The Cher autobiography

Visits with my cousins, aunt and uncle and my far away friends

A little stress fracture in my foot from wandering to all the nearby pretty places and consequently, a better pair of walking shoes

An unreasonable annoyance with parking garages and construction

An appreciation for Kwik Trip Gas stations

More adoration for my husband and all he is

Appreciation for the messy and noisy parts of my life propelled by my daughters
A heart and body full of gratitude for my village

Heartburn and hair loss

Faith in the process

Hope

Thank you for all the love, notes, emails, calls, prayers and gifts along the way. If you need me, I’ll be making the preparations for the ‘burning of the mask’ celebration.

Things to Look Forward To

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I’m a little late in posting last week’s column. As I type this, I am officially HOME at the ranch as of Wednesday evening.

On Wednesday morning I rang the bell to celebrate the completion of 33 proton radiation treatments and 6 chemo treatments over the course of 6 1/2 weeks.


This time has taken me away from my family for far longer than anyone should be away from their family. But it has given me the following:

Four new songs

Time to slow down and understand who I am in the quiet moments

An interest in watercolor painting

The Cher autobiography

Visits with my cousins, aunts and uncles and my far away friends

A little stress fracture in my foot from wandering to all the nearby pretty places and consequently, a better pair of walking shoes

A heart and body full of gratitude for my village

An unreasonable annoyance with parking garages and construction

An appreciation for Kwik Trip Gas stations

More adoration for my husband and all he is

Appreciation for the messy and noisy parts of my life propelled by my daughters

Heartburn and hair loss

Faith in the process

Hope

Chad flew in on Tuesday to help me pack up and drive me home. As always, no matter what comes, we ride home together.

It feels good to be back in my life and making the regular plans for track meets and goat wrangling and end of the school year celebrations. I am trying to take it a bit easy, but it’s hard to do when we haven’t really built our life around that concept. I know Chad was happy to have his help back getting the kids out the door the past couple days, that guy needs a vacation in the woods after all of this.

Anyway, below is a column I wrote after he and the kids visited me a few weeks back. Those weekend plans with family and friends in any capacity really made the weeks go faster. And while I won’t know until August how things are looking in the cancer-shrinking department, I am feeling fairly confident that we have this under control.

Lots of love to all of you who have helped see us through this. I could not be more grateful.

Things to look forward to


“Are you coming to visit me this weekend?” I asked my husband over a Facetime call last week while our daughters popped in and out to show me the kittens, or make funny faces to the camera, hair wrapped up in a towel after a bedtime shower. During our nightly visits while I’m at treatment in Rochester, at least one, or sometimes both of my girls, takes the phone into her room to have a private conversation with me, their mom, a little video square. Usually, the chat is about what they’re playing at recess, or news of a crush and then the “I wish you were home,” portion of the evening. Mostly Rosie, my eight-year-old, just turns herself into every cartoon animal in the rolodex of options and I have to see how she’d look if she were an octopus or a fox and so on until we both run out of steam and I wind up saying something motherly like, “when’s the last time you cleaned your hamsters cage?” or “have you been practicing your spelling words?” and she quickly hands the phone over to another family member.

I am not good on the phone, so being a phone-only mom for the past six weeks has sucked.

“No, I don’t think so actually. We just have so much going on here,” my husband replied, suspiciously.

And I say suspiciously, not because he’s not a good actor, but because I know him. He planned to make the trip last week and there’s no way this man wasn’t coming to see me.

“No, Mom. We can’t come” Edie chimed in from across the room and then the phone panned to her, a terrible liar.

“Quit messing with me people,” I demanded. “I need to know how to mentally prepare for my weekend.”

Turns out my husband was attempting a surprise visit with the girls, one where they would take a flight and show up at my door unannounced and I would be shocked and delighted after being sad and lonely. It was a sweet thought, but I made him confess. “The last thing I need in my life right now is any more surprises. I need something to look forward to!”

And so, on a Wednesday night during week five of my treatment schedule, he gave me just that, and I went to the store and shopped for the groceries the girls liked and made a little mental list of all the little trails I wanted to show them when they arrived. Turns out that along with their cute little suitcases, Rosie brought a little bug with her, so we spent most of our time together snuggling, coloring and watching movies from the 90s.

We did get a little rollerblading in on the endless sidewalks, which is a big deal for kids who live on gravel roads

But on Sunday afternoon I left my husband and youngest to nap in the basement and took my ten-year-old out to enjoy the beautiful, seventy-degree day, just the two of us. She sat in the front seat of the Jeep singing to the music she chose on my phone and somehow looking taller and more grown up with every passing minute. I asked her if she wanted to go shopping or try one of those electric scooters they have hanging out all over town, but the girl indulged me and so we headed to one of my favorite nature trails on the edge of town.

The sun was warm on our pale limbs and made the trees and blooms look neon against the blue sky. Everything in town was waking up with that sunshine and we strolled along the paved path holding hands and noticing the baby geese swimming with their momma in the pond, and the turtle sunning himself on a log, and a really ugly dog hanging with his family and all the babies in strollers and cute kids skipping and running and fishing, just happy to be out and together, like us. After getting the initial lay of the land, I found myself letting my ten-year-old lead the way in this big park with dozens of trails and things to explore. It wasn’t premeditated, I just followed behind her as she stopped to pick up a rock, or put her nose in a blossom, chattering and singing and trying out her favorite Texas accent, reminding me what it was like to be ten and outside and completely myself. And because she’s a country kid she found her way off the paved path to the dirt trails along the running water where she sat down on a rock and I sat beside her, watching the water run.

When Edie was a baby, I would take her with me every day on a walk like this. I would put her in her little pack and face her toward the world, and we would trudge through the hills together. When she got older, I’d pull her in a wagon out of the driveway and down to the barnyard or on the dirt trail up to the fields. And then she could walk on her own and, with her little sister strapped to my chest, I would just follow her outside on the road and into the grass or trees, to keep her safe while she splashed in a puddle or pulled up a flower or jumped off a rock.

Now, at ten, she doesn’t need me to wander with her anymore, and so it occurred to me that it’s been a while since we’ve done the thing we used to do together every day that the sun was warm enough.

I watched her make a little boat with a stick and two leaves and throw it in the creek, laughing as it drowned in the water. I followed her up to a mural on an old building foundation, and then we found ourselves in an old cemetery reading  the names on the headstones and wondering about what life was like one hundred years ago before finding the trail back to the car and stopping for ice cream on the way home.

“It was so nice to spend that time with just Edie,” I said to my husband who was snuggled on the couch for a much-needed break with our youngest. “I know she loved it too. She needed her mom, in person.”

 The next day I drove my family back to the airport and hugged them goodbye while I stayed back for another week-and-a-half of cancer zapping. I cried alone in my empty Jeep on a new but now familiar highway,  anxious to have my life back soon, anxious to be an in-person mom again, anxious to get to all the things to look forward to soon… 

Villages everywhere

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When I heard the news about a six-week stay in Rochester, the turnover needed to be quick to make the arrangements to get things rolling. And first and foremost, I needed a place to stay. There’s an option here for free housing for cancer patients undergoing treatments, and there are apartments and  Airbnbs and long-term hotels and so I set to looking into what was available. And then I set into being overwhelmed. And then I got a message in my inbox.

“Thinking and praying for you. We own a townhome in Rochester and we don’t have a tenant now. If you’d like to stay there, we’d be honored to have you.”

It was a column reader, a concert attender, a fellow North Dakotan who had nothing to gain from the offer but to show kindness. Her family, unfortunately, knows what it’s like to be displaced by cancer. She was paying it forward.

I took a quick breath and tears came to my eyes. I messaged back to take her up on it and a wave of relief washed over in her response.

This is that village they’re talking about, only sometimes they take care of you while taking care of their own ailing loved-ones hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

I’m writing this now from their little back deck facing a small field on the edge of town under a blanket my friends put in a care package full of carefully researched gifts: throat spray, notebooks, crossword puzzles, cough drops, tea, a nail kit, candy, a thermos and more all in a bag I load up with me on days I head to chemo treatments. And what was so touching about the gift is that the givers seemed to have researched more than I had about the symptoms that I may encounter and the things that I may need to send me on my way as ready as can be.

My little sister did the same thing, the master of Google, asking me questions that I didn’t know the answers to, she found out for me. And she sent me groceries for the first night we arrived at the townhome. And because I am who I am, I accidentally gave her the address to the Post Office instead of the house, which sent Chad on a little field-trip at 8 am, but we got them and were stocked up for the first week.

My little sister is the queen of my village, living right over the hill and working in our daughters’ school as the guidance counselor, I couldn’t have picked a better woman to take it from here. I mean, as my daughter said, “Can we just stay at Alex’s? She’s just like mom.”  I’m comforted knowing that with her my kids feel safe to be themselves, even when it’s ugly and messy and emotional. They can misbehave and not feel ashamed. She will get after them the same way I do, hold them to the same standards, and force my youngest into group hugs when she needs it and won’t admit it.

And she’ll let them try to catch the chickens and make sure they have fun.

Meanwhile, friends are sending spaghetti and roast beef suppers home with my husband a couple days a week so he doesn’t have to worry about meals every night. And they’re taking the girls on play dates and making sure they get their 4H presentation done. The lemons-to-lemonade theory is in full effect as they’ve spent special time with their other aunts, uncles and cousins and of course, they’re grandparents.

Turns out the best thing in the world you can do for your kids is to set up that village. I’m seeing first-hand, again, what it means.

A fun gift basket for the girls sent with a meal from a friend

But I’m here to tell you that I know I am fortunate to have placed our lives in the middle of family and friends I have known for decades. It was a choice my husband and I made when we knew we wanted to have a family, and there are some sacrifices that come with that, but they have never outweighed the rewards. I understand fully that being surrounded by family is not a reality for everyone and I know the struggles that come with that. And I know it’s so hard to find those friends who you can rely on to be fully vulnerable in a community that hasn’t always been yours. I’d like to give some sort of profound advice here, but I don’t have any. I just have examples of how people showing up for us has informed my life and made me realize that existing in the village means paying attention not only to your own needs but to the needs of others. I’m here to tell you it is as simple as a text, a card dropped in the mail, an actual phone call without the expectation that they will pick up or call back. I am the first to admit I am not so good at that. But you all are teaching me every day during this blip in my life what it means to be cared for and I thank you for that. I thank you for being my village at home and from hundreds of miles away.

Who are we without one another?

Visiting Home

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After I completed the second week of my six week cancer treatment at Mayo Clinic, I was able to get back to the ranch for the weekend. I spent Saturday morning helping coach Edie’s first soccer game

and Saturday night dancing with my husband and celebrating with family and friends at a gala we host to raise money for arts and parks and recreation programming in our community.

Screenshot

My treatment schedule allowed me to stay home all day on Sunday to spend time with my family.  It turned out the first calf of the year waited for me to get home to be born and so I got to be part of the start of the season. Calving on our place always coincides with crocus season, so my sister and I packed the girls into or side-by-side (which is harder to do these days now that they’re growing up so fast) and popped up to the hilltops to collect a hat full and deliver them to grandmas in exchange for ice cream. I got to see the new kittens that were just born and meet my sister’s new little chickens, sit in the sun on my parents’ deck, visit with my in-laws who came down to watch the girls for our night out, scratch the dogs’ ears, shoot a million hoops with the girls and eat my husband’s grilled hamburgers before packing my bags and getting back on a plane. All of these things that are part of the regular programming held extra shine for me, of course.

Up until this point I have been able to see the girls every weekend, but I’m not sure now exactly when I’ll be back before the end of this. I guess it all depends on how I feel, but it will be at least two more weeks. I fought back tears the whole trip.  

It’s a strange thing to be a weekend visitor of your own home, especially when you consider yourself the Co-CEO of the operation. In some ways the visit reminds you of the ways you’re needed, like the un-swept floors, the girls’ rooms that noticeably haven’t had a mom’s reminder and the Christmas lights that still need to come down off the house. These are the things I pay attention to, but they aren’t that important. The important things are handled just fine without me—getting to and from school, cooking and the meal-train that my friends set up to help Chad, after-school activities, bedtime snuggles, playing at the cousins’, homework—to know that I can step away and leave our lives generally unscathed, except for maybe the matters of the heart, is a gift.

But then that leaves me here, in this duplex, hundreds of miles from that life, with only myself to take care of for the first time since we got married nearly 20 years ago.

Now, I travel quite a bit with my music, so it’s not uncommon for me to be on my own and away from the family for a week at a time, maybe twice a year or so. It seems like this has helped prepare the girls and myself for this weird blip better than if I was a full-time stay at home mom. So that’s a blessing. But people have been asking me how I’m doing in terms of my energy-level, and to be honest, I haven’t been as rested since before Edie was born.

I went grocery shopping the other day and had to ask myself, what do I eat? What do I cook if it’s just for me? I picked up a box of macaroons and raspberries and just sort-of wandered around because well, I had time to do that–time to wander the grocery store without little people trailing behind me or a rush to get to the next meeting or event.

In every community I visit when I am traveling for music or work, I always picture what my life would be like if I lived there. If I have time, I like to walk their parks or neighborhoods or visit their cute cafes and shops and get to know the place and how I feel in it a bit. Here in Rochester, I imagine I would be a bike rider using their pretty paths along the river every night. And I would have a little dog for my lap on the couch and a big dog to come with on those bike rides and walks. I would have a nice lawn to mow and pretty flowers out front that the deer would eat. I would have a job in marketing or run a little shop or, maybe something like I do now, and my kids would play soccer in that cute park I walked past last night. There was a time I thought a community like this was where I would wind up, before moving home to the ranch was an option. If it did become my fate, I will tell you, there would have been a scooter era.

In preparing my mind for my time here away from my family I lined up some goals for myself, like get outside every day so I don’t go crazy, play my guitar more, do some sit-ups and pushups, read a book, start work on my new book and doodle–all the things working parents wish they had time for when we’re in the thick of parenting things. As it turns out, trying to morph back into a single, child-free woman for a few weeks at a time after a twenty-year hiatus is weird. To be honest, I’m spending most of my time working. And there’s a nice blessing in that too.

But I’m also eating avocado toast for breakfast and those macaroons whenever I want without judgement. And doing some sit-ups and always getting outside. I’ve considered knocking on my neighbor’s door to see if she needs me to walk her dog, but I probably won’t. That might be weird too.

Thank you for all the love and support you’ve sent my way during this journey. I read every card and every email and, by the time you read this, well, I’ll be half way done!

Onward!  

Firefighters Everywhere

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I stood in line with my husband at the pharmacy in the Subway level of Mayo Clinic. It was Tuesday, which means we survived a week of worry and wondering if our insurance was going to cooperate so that I could continue the doctor’s recommended path for proton radiation to treat the cancer that has grown back outside of my esophagus. I could spend some time here describing how derailing and mentally defeating it was to get news that puts you completely out of control of your healthcare plan even though you’ve done all the right things to be prepared by way of paying plenty of our paycheck for insurance, but I don’t want to dwell and you can about imagine. It was awful and frustrating and distracting. But when I got the call on Thursday that the third appeal was the charm, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that my definition of a reason to celebrate has come down to getting the radiation treatment I wanted. It’s like I won the lottery. Everyone in the room with me at work had to be interrupted to hear the news, and they all cheered too. 

Life is weird. 

All the things I think I’ll need

And so anyway, there I was in line at the pharmacy after we packed up that Jeep again, made the mental preparations and care preparations for our daughters, again, and drove the eleven hours to Rochester to start the process. The first dose of radiation went easier than I thought, despite the fact I made it awkward by having them play a podcast over the system that turned inappropriate for mixed company. But the radiation team didn’t seem phased at all by the detailed conversation about prostate checks coming through the loudspeakers, and in hindsight I was so focused on my poor entertainment choice and my sweaty armpits that maybe it was a good distraction. And so, we moved on to the next day’s appointments of blood draws and MRIs and a long conversation about chemo treatment that I wasn’t prepared for. By the time I was in line to pick up a second round of medication that included three different prescriptions for anti-nausea medication before my first round of weekly chemo started, I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for myself.

But among the many life lessons and gifts that time spent at the Mayo Clinic gives you, maybe the most important one is to put your circumstances in context—or to put you in your place, so to speak. Which is exactly what happened when a mom pulled in line behind us pushing her seven-year-old son in a wheelchair with a little chicken fuzz of blond, balding hair coming out of his beanie, holding a stuffed cat, wearing a mask. My throat tightened for him instead of me as I walked up to the counter to get my lesson in nausea care, which I’m glad to report, I haven’t needed to be implemented thus far. 

So that’s where we are on the details of it all. I wanted to catch you up, so many of you have expressed so much kindness and concern. But this brings me to the sentiment I really wanted to share, and I’m not sure if I’m going to articulate it the way it deserves to be articulated, but I’ll try. 

My husband drove me eleven hours to Rochester and back, and Rochester again. He made arrangements for his business and to be home for the kids when I’m gone and kept his duties as soccer coach and goat wrangler so the girls don’t have to miss out on a thing. He sat with me in every waiting room so far, which in just these last two days totaled nearly twenty hours. He makes sure we have a plan for our meals and navigates construction and parking garages and helps me stay out of my head by annoying me just the right amount on purpose. And he has never complained once, only that he wishes it was happening to him instead (And also at our GPS).  But all around us in one of the best clinics in the country, thousands and thousands of people are caring for the ones they love in similar ways, day in and day out. They push a wheelchair, they hold a hand, they write down questions and listen for the answers, they read the maps and park the cars and ask for a blanket and push the call buttons and worry but try not to show it. They buy the lunch and deliver the lunch and don’t get frustrated if only a few bites are taken. They tell jokes and read things out loud that they find funny. They say, “It’s ok. You’re going to be ok,” and “What can I do for you?” and “I’ll get this.”   I’ve heard kind and soothing words spoken in every corner of this facility, except for that one lady in the surgery waiting room who told her husband to shut up, but that was fair. He was talking on speaker phone and everyone agreed, quietly chuckling to themselves in total understanding. 

We’re all so vulnerable here, in varying states of worry, panic, grief and relief. To be surrounded by it every day is a lesson in humanity and humility, and I want to declare that I notice it. Your world is on fire the same as the hundreds of other fires sitting with you in the waiting room, passing you by in the halls, pushing the elevator button…standing in line for medication with their baby.

I dropped my husband off at the airport this morning. He’s flying home to drive the girls back to me for Easter, so for a couple days I’ll be alone in a house that a generous couple offered me as a place to stay during my treatment. There are fire-fighters everywhere. 

Thank you for reading and tending to this flame. If you need me, I’ll be here setting up a more appropriate listening choice for my treatment tonight.

The Swimming Part

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Before I share last week’s column, I want to say I wrote this a week ago after a great vacation in Florida with the looming plan that I was leaving for Mayo Clinic immediately after we returned for six weeks of proton radiation treatment and once a week chemo to treat a reoccurring cancer in two places that has grown outside my esophagus. And so we prepared the girls and ourselves mentally, had all the arrangements made for their care while Chad drove me and got me settled in, packed all the things I thought I would need for that length of stay in a house that has been a blessing offered up to us from a very thoughtful and generous couple, and we hit the road. But as soon as we got to the highway, not even ten miles out, I got the call that our insurance did not want to cover the cost of my proton radiation, and after an appeal, that decision stood firm. And with that, they said they were going to try for one more appeal, because my doctors believed firmly that proton radiation (which is a newer form of radiation treatment that can pinpoint the cancer that needs to be radiated within millimeters, creating less damage to surrounding organs, which reduces the risks of creating subsequent cancers down the road) was the best course of action for me given my history and age.

Insurance disagreed, reinforcing what I think we can all agree can be a pretty brutal system we have here. Cue the angry and frustrated and worried week that followed as I unloaded my things, went back to work and prayed they changed their minds.

Which I’m happy to report they did, thanks to the relentlessness of my advocates at Mayo Clinic. So here I am now, settled into the house with two long days of tests and treatments under my belt. Two rounds of radiation went well and my first round of chemo was very well tolerated with no negative reactions. I just dropped Chad off at the airport so he can get back home and he will bring the girls to spend Easter with me here, and so there is something to look forward to and I’m not letting myself feel lonesome yet. All of the calls, texts, gifts and well wishes have been so heartwarming and helpful and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. And thanks mom and dad for letting me use your Jeep so I don’t have to drive the giant mom-mobile into these parking garages and also I look way cooler in it, which is important.

Ok, so now you’re all caught up, which I think was necessary given the space I was in when I wrote last week’s column. Love you, I’m gonna be alright.

The Swimming Part

Several years ago, my in-laws took the family to Florida to experience a Disney vacation. This was a time in our lives when Chad and I were not parents yet, but we took our roles as aunt and uncle to our young nieces and nephew very seriously. On this trip that meant that we moved ahead of the group, made plans and schedules for the next rides, secured fast passes and kept everyone as hyped as seven and nine-year-olds and their haggered parents could possibly be after the initial wow factor wears off and everyone’s hot, hungry and overwhelmed in a sea of people. Despite the unseasonably cold Florida weather and a theme-park sold out of sweatshirts and getting stuck in a tiny boat in the broke-down “It’s a Small World” ride for longer than any human being should have to listen to that song on repeat in German, and the look of terror in my nephew’s eyes while he screamed “Get me outta here!” on the jungle safari cruise when the fake hippo came launching out of the water looking too real –oh, and the one incident I’ll never live down where I used my five-year-old niece as a shield to Shamo’s wave in front of all of my in-laws and Jesus—the family trip lives in my memory as one of my favorites

You know what the kids remember all these years later now that they are teenagers and grown adults with jobs? Swimming in the backyard pool at the Airbnb in sixty-degree weather. Which is typical, and also a bit of a relief knowing that Shamo, the hippo and the animatronic dancing people didn’t scar anyone for life.

Last week I watched my daughters flip and splash and jump and chatter in a similar pool in Florida with their cousins. The sun had gone down, lighting the water up dramatic and perfect for the dolphin, whale, narwhal and squid show they were putting on for everyone after supper.My parents treated the entire family to a spring break trip to the beach in Florida and it was our last night of six days spent watching these kids swim in the warm pool, despite, again, the unseasonably cool temperatures that had us all shivering on the beach in double sweatshirts. A few days before we wandered around an aquarium and watched a dolphin show, and so they were recreating what they learned to much applause. That week we offered up arcade trips and go carts, beach walks, shopping and ice cream outings, but when the sun came up, before breakfast or the first pour of coffee, those kids were in the pool and that’s where they stayed. It’s all they wanted to do. They swam so much their skin turned raw and I had to slather them in Aquafor and coax them out for a sandwich and a drink of water before they turned around and cannonballed back in.

This trip had a sort of heaviness to it as we tried to forget that waiting for us on the other side was weeks of disruption to our lives as I relocate for cancer treatments in Rochester. Despite my best efforts to pretend that it wasn’t inevitable, that sort of thing sits lodged in your chest until it’s over. And it was on my daughters’ minds too as they would grab me in passing and say quietly “I don’t want you to leave.” I’d give them a squeeze and then they’d be off. Turns out a 90-degree pool is good medicine for lingering dread.

I type this at my kitchen table back in the real world. My packed bags are all splayed out open on the floor of my room after our first plan to leave was suddenly delayed by insurance issues we’re scrambling to resolve. Turns out even the best laid plans for the worst reasons aren’t set in stone and I’m left feeling like my nephew on that safari ride screaming “Get me outta here!”  Or my niece stunned and shivering after a big whale’s splash, unprotected. Treatment will happen soon, one way or another. Hopefully, in time, I’ll only remember the swimming part.  

I close my eyes and think of my ten-year-old daughter, the last to leave the pool on the last night of our vacation. She asked her dad if she could stay in a little longer to spin and dive and sing on her own while the younger girls got ready for bed and the adults packed up to go home. She wanted a little more time to play, a little more time before facing the thing coming that will be hard. A little more time before growing up.

“Watching her swim out there by herself, it makes me choke up,” my husband said that night as we got in bed. “She’s just so innocent, and it goes so fast.”

“Remember when all you wanted to do was swim?” I said, tears lodged in my throat.

I continued folding my sandy clothes.

Dear Daughters:Make Lemonade

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Before I share this week’s column I just want to send a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has reached out the past week with support and love regarding this recent development in my cancer story. Every word has been held closely to our hearts and we love you.

We are home now and packing for a family spring break trip and when we get back I’ll be headed straight to Rochester for 6 1/2 weeks of radiation with a small weekly dose of chemo for good measure. I have a place to stay there and a good doctor who says we have like a 95 percent chance of getting rid of it this go ‘round. So I’ll take those odds and I’ll cuss a little and head that way to do the thing with all your words of encouragement as my wings.

The following column I wrote on my phone in between scans and pokes and prods last week. I turned it in three minutes to deadline while the girls were at home with my parents and then Chad’s parents. Dealing with health issues and kids who are old enough to be worried is new for me. I hope I do right by them.

(Also, before I left, Chad put on a timer for three minutes and let them say as many and whatever cuss words they wanted in that time, which is probably not the best parenting choice, but I would highly recommend. In fact, I’m about to go do it myself…)

Anyways, here’s to zapping some tumors and being pissed and annoyed and grateful and worried and hopeful…and here’s my letter to my daughters.

Mayo Clinic

Dear Daughters,

I’m writing to you 694 miles away from the ranch, drinking coffee from a paper cup with your dad outside a big hospital. We drove all day yesterday to get here, or I should say, your dad drove all day while I managed what we were going to listen to, where we would stop to eat and how to get there. 

I’ve spent thousands of hours driving thousands of miles beside this man, for dozens of reasons. This reason, in particular, is so doctors can take pictures of the inside of my body to make a plan to get rid of cancer that has slowly crept back into our lives.

Yes, it’s in my body, but it affects our lives, your lives especially. It means that for a time I will have to be away, and I won’t get to drive you to school, or pick you up, or make you supper, or do your hair, or argue with you about bedtime and cleaning your rooms. And that’s hard for me and you, too.

But it’s all just temporary. A blip. And it gives you a chance to spend more time with your grandparents, who love you and want to help. And your aunts and uncles, too. And your dad, which will be fun, you’ll have him to yourself for a bit, even though he’ll probably make you do the laundry. You’ll make memories through this bump in our ordinary lives, and they will be good ones, even though I know you’re nervous.

This is what I’ve learned in my life — that good stuff comes from the hard stuff. Almost always the best stuff actually. And I want to say I’m sorry you have to learn it early, daughters, but actually I’m not. The earlier you can learn that life, no matter how much we’ve tried to make it comfortable and uncomplicated for you so far, eventually has a way of showing us we have limited control, and we need to manage what we have carefully.

What does that mean exactly? You’ve probably heard the phrase, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” And that sounds cute, because lemons can be sweetened easily with sugar. But real life lemons vary in scope and scariness, like losing a friend or missing a buzzer-beating shot or failing a major test or crashing a car or getting sick or your mom having cancer.

But the lemonade part is the attitude you choose to keep at the forefront of your actions. And it’s also the people who love you and how you love them back in the hard times.

So here’s a real example of how you can make lemonade now, dear daughters, while I’m gone for a couple of months zapping this cancer: stand by your dad in the kitchen and let him teach you how to cook your favorite supper. Or pick a new recipe every week to try together. He will love to show you, and you will gain a new skill. Then break the rules and pile in the big bed together to sleep every night. Shoot more hoops together because it makes you happy, play more cards because it makes you laugh.

Or, when Nana is here, ask her to bring her sewing machine and make a fluffy pillow together. Or read your dragon book to her at night and ask for one more chapter.

Have Grandma Beth take you shopping, that’s her love language. Ask Papa Gene if you can help him feed cows and cut the twine with your little pocket knife.

But most importantly, I think, is to be helpful. Do the dishes without being asked, and turn the music up loud and sing while you do it. Learn to fold your laundry, and put it away. Take care of your pets, give the dogs more attention. Wipe the bathroom sink after you brush your teeth. Organize your drawers. Being helpful makes you feel useful and more brave and less scared. 

I know, I’ve been practicing it my whole life. I’m practicing it right now actually.

Dear daughters, in your life you will be the driver and the one who needs to be driven, and we are lucky to have people in our lives willing to take the wheel. Learn from them, let them love on you and be grateful.

It’s all gonna be in the rearview mirror soon, kids. And we’re going to be sweeter for it.

Make Art. It’s an Emergency.

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“Make art now. It’s an emergency.”

I saw this sentiment come across my feed the other day and it made me pause for a minute. Art as an emergency? It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. Entirely. In fact, I wish I would have thought to put it as bluntly. 

Emergency indicates a frantic moment forward to fix something that is broken, but the process of making art and music is quite often slow and methodical, one that’s personal, meditative, trial and error and try again. To make a painting, for most of us, is not lucrative. To sing at the top of our lungs in the car or out in the hills with your kids makes us no money at all. Dancing in the kitchen, you may argue, is not going to save a life. 

But could it? 

Recently I received confirmation the cancer that was cut out of my airway over five years ago has slowly crept back, this time on the outside of my esophagus. After a month or so in the weird and worried place of not really knowing what it all means, I’ve learned that it’s time to head back to Mayo clinic to handle it. After some testing and intake in Rochester this week, I’ll be there for six weeks of radiation treatment and a low dose of once-a-week chemo. We’ve been keeping an eye on this, it’s treatable and I’m going to be fine, but ugh. It’s annoying. 

Is that a word anyone uses for a cancer diagnosis? I don’t know, but I think I’m grateful for it. To be annoyed means I’m not in imminent danger, or in pain. It just means I’m inconvenienced.

But let me tell you the worst part about a reoccurring cancer diagnosis for me (and maybe some of you who have found yourselves in similar situations can agree) it’s hands down sharing the news with the people who love and worry about you. 

I hate it. I don’t want to be the reason anyone worries. That’s a big one for me. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about me. There’s that part. 

And I don’t want to be away from them. 

That’s the other one.

But what you want in times like these doesn’t matter. You do what you have to do and then you get called brave, even though brave indicates a choice. There’s no choice. There’s just the next step. 

Which brings me to the art. I’ve spent most of my career working to figure out how to bring more of it to rooms of people in rural communities. And over the course of six months or so I’ve seen that vision really blossom in the work we’re doing with our arts foundation. And I’ve felt it more profoundly on the stages on which I have been so fortunate to stand and sing. The rooms have been full, every seat in the crowd there waiting to listen, to tap their toes, to feel connected to something. Every chair sat behind an easel waiting for instruction, or body hovered over a paint pallet looking to create, is there to make something that wasn’t there before. Not for money. Not for acclaim. Not for anything but the learning, the sitting together, the laughing, the making. 

What is that?

 What brings people out of their homes or out of the everyday tasks of being human to create or witness art? And why is it hard to explain? Maybe because it’s primal? Like, we weren’t born to live behind computer screens, or to move eighty-miles-per-hour down a four-lane highway for hours a day. We weren’t born to know tax structure or the best product made to clean our floors. But turn on some music and watch a baby start to wiggle. Give a toddler a brush and watch her create circles. Grab your husband’s hands and he might just spin you around. Sing “You are my Sunshine” to your ailing grandmother and watch her toes tap and her lips move to sing along.

I told my kids the news the other day. They cried a bit because cancer is scary. I told them I was going to be just fine, but daddy might make them do the laundry when I’m gone. I showed them my muscles; they showed me theirs and then hit the ground to do some pushups. They can do more than me. Way more.  

After school, they asked me if it was still ok to feel happy. It hadn’t occurred to me that I needed to give them that permission, but now I know. We turned up the music loud on the way home, they sang the National Anthem at the top of their lungs in the kitchen while I made supper. They sit at the table and draw pictures of aliens and unicorns and a girl on a hill with long black hair. They dance down the hallway with the music on blast on the way to bed. I sit behind my guitar in the dark when they’re sleeping and things I didn’t know I had to say come out of my mouth in a song. 

We lose this instinct, and we lose ourselves in the sorrow and callouses that living creates.  We can’t let it happen. It’s an emergency.