I'm Tumor Free Y'all!!!!! One of my best friends dubbed me a "tumor free princess" and I loved the nickname so much it's in my insta bio and maybe it'll be the title of my book or at least a chapter in that thing.

I shared a lot about that over on insta-my pathology appointment, final brain MRI until next year, the miracle of my surgery and recovery. Lots more to come, I'm just really slowwwwww right now.

Alright, buckle up. This is probably gonna be a long one. I have so much to say about this (please remember my promise to never stfu about any of this that I made back in March. I'm here to deliver on that promise). I've wanted to send an email for so long but I could not type properly for the first 8 weeks and it has taken me time to begin integrating, processing and to be able to articulate what I want to say about all of this*gestures at giant pile of both miracles and shit*

First things first, some perspective.

I've been keeping a perspective journal since my surgery. I wrote in it recently:

The more I was fucking up in my life, behaving in ways out of alignment with my values and the person I want to be, the more harshly I was judging and condemning other people.

The more self-punitive I was, the more punitive of a lens I took towards other people.

The more minor the problems in my life, with my health and within my relationships, the more I blew them way out of proportion, lamented my plight, and spun a tale of my misery.

Why? Because when we aren't happy with ourselves, our lives, our relationships-it's much easier to point the finger outward. To blame anyone else or anything else. Because sitting with ourselves is wildly uncomfortable. Because sometimes we say we're doing our best but our soul knows that is simply not true. It's easier to fuss outwards than to go in, be accountable and make changes. So outwardly fuss I did.

And then my life imploded.

Continuously. For the last year.

Nothing like death and sitting with your own mortality to deliver you some perspective and to deliver you out of self absorption and into growing the fuck up. I have never been less whiny, more grateful for my life and more kind to myself and my body than I have throughout the process of everything falling apart. I complained more when my biggest issue was too many dishes and a pile of laundry than death, death and a brain tumor. Ain't that something?

Back to the life implosions. First, a piece of my professional work. Over, done. Incredibly stressful. Then, the sudden death of an extraordinary person-my sister in law Keir. My husband plunged into sudden bottomless grief. The despair and helplessness I felt as his partner. I felt totally inadequate. I got sick with Covid for the first time at the end of December and it took me over 6 weeks to recover-which is why I work so hard to protect my precious body and brain-she's a tough cookie but vulnerable! Then, another sudden and tragic family death. Grief deja vu. It felt like we could not come up for air. We just clung to one another. For months and months.

I called my sister after the second death and said: There's going to be a third thing.

She said: There already was-the first thing was the professional stressor.

I wanted that to be true so badly but that psychic knowing really knows sometimes. No. That wasn't it. There's a third thing. I heard it clear as day. Not my own anxiety, not waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just knowing.

Then the brain tumor came. Showed up in my MyChart the last day of February. What. The. Fuck.

I wondered throughout all these months what people must have thought as I looked around at the wreckage of my own life. I asked one of my good friends and he said, "They probably think: Oh my God, this is awful, I feel so bad. And I'm glad it's not happening to me." Honest. Fair. I'd feel the same way.

Exhaustion

A year ago right around this time, Summer 2022, I felt this exhaustion settling into my entire body. I felt the opposite of summer vibes. I felt like I wanted to hermit. I had been holding myself through a stressful professional situation and my nervous system was fried. I was so deeply tired. It felt a bit like the burnout I experienced after I stopped doing grief work full time.

"I just want to lay down" I said to Chris. To my sister Kaela. To my coach Rachael.

"So lay down" they would say back to me. And I felt like: If I lay down, I may never get up. You ever felt that tired? Where you feel like your body and soul will melt into your bed/couch/chair and then you'll just be stuck there? In perpetuity? I remember looking forward to Fall and Winter and thinking, "I will rest. I will hermit. I will recover. I just need to hang on a little bit longer."

And obviously, that's not how it went at all. I had to hang on for dear life much longer than anticipated. I was in survival mode. I kept looking at my husband and thinking: I just gotta keep him going. I just gotta keep us afloat.

The tumor is when I felt myself collapse under the weight of all of it. I was too tired to do this. To have surgery, to recover. I had no fight in me. Too tired. Just wanted to lay.

Well...I did get to lay down. For almost two months I laid down so hard. I #manifested this! ;)

But in all seriousness, I gave myself permission to not go into warrior mode. I used spite as a spiritual practice and my dark sense of humor to buoy myself through the weeks leading up to surgery and in the months after. I leaned a bit into delusion about how intense recovery was going to be. I brought cute PJs and books to the hospital room but turns out I would not be able to read a book for 7 weeks. I thought I would not need round the clock care and supervision within two weeks of my surgery- I needed help showering for the first month! I thought I would be back working full time in my business in July! The delusion! It's amazing the stories we tell ourselves to try and get through things. And then life happens and we go: Oh. Okay then. Alternative title for my book: A Year of Being Dick Slapped by Life. Too crass? Too bad! Turns out having a brain tumor did not evolve me into a celestial entity. I might even be worse than before!

I went through so much of this last year exhausted. And guess what? I'm still incredibly exhausted!! Every day I wonder: How can I still be this fucking tired?? I'm 4+ months out! But what I keep learning again and again is this:

Things often take much longer than we think they should/want them to. We have all these ideas and desires around how things should be but sometimes it just is what it is. We live in such a fast paced society. And when we can no longer go at that pace, we feel like there is something wrong with us. And there is not! Change takes time. Healing takes time. Probably more time than we'd like. It feels wrong to slow down but if you do it long enough and stick with the discomfort of going slow, one day you will look around and go: ahhh, this feels nice!! I have space! I can breathe!

Healing from brain surgery has taught me a deeper level of patience that I never wanted (but am becoming increasingly grateful for). Because this shit is slow!!!! And I cannot fight how slow the healing is. And I cannot fight the exhaustion I currently feel at a soul level. And most of the time I don't want to fight it. I don't want to push. I want to get out of my own way, make space and allow. When I look at all the years I spent swimming upstream I wonder, "Where did I think I was going? I was always going to end up here. I wore my ass out for no good reason!" And then I go lay down somewhere.

An example of recent growth: I ran for the first time in June. And it felt so good and has felt so good to walk and run that I looked up 5k races for the fall. I'll do a 5k to celebrate being 6 months tumor free! And this week as I've jogged I thought instead: I need more time. I wont' be ready to run a 5k in October unless I push and focus mostly on running as my main form of exercise. And I don't want to do that. My body doesn't want that. My brain doesn't want that. Why would I do that? I can just do it in the Spring. Growth! Two questions that have helped me grow in the last few months: Can I do that? Do I want to do that?

Resting, Regrouping, Rebuilding

When we are in survival mode, it's really difficult to process and heal from what's happening as it's happening. We're just trying to survive. And as much as we'd like, we cannot bypass this part. Sometimes the whole thing has to fall completely apart and then we fall completely apart and THEN we can start the clean up process. And oh, it is a process. A journey, if you will. And so, when the threat of danger passes (sometimes in a moment and sometimes it takes years), when we are finally safe, we collapse.

I told a friend a few weeks ago: I finally feel safe enough to collapse. To fall apart a bit. To cry. To sleep. To lay down.

I cry every day. Tears of relief. Tears of grief. Tears of gratitude. Of attitude (you're shocked about this one aren't ya).

On August 5th, I wrote a note in my phone that said: Resting, regrouping, rebuilding. This is my recovery path. I feel that I am currently in the resting phase with a bit of regrouping. Actually, I feel like I'm resting and re-orienting to my own life. Re-orienting feels like the regrouping pre-req.

The resting feels frustrating at times. Not always comfortable to be like: yup. Still resting. Stillllllll resting. To be honest, I feel more tired in the last few weeks than I did in June and I'm not sure why. I feel at times like I'm going backwards in my recovery-my short term memory feels shit, running feels harder right now than before, I feel more tired and am back to crashing some days. I will complain to Chris: I feel exhausted and really sick today. And he'll say: Yeah! You had brain surgery! You're still recovering! Remember?

Oh. Yeah.

Turns out I just need time. So much more than I anticipated. More than I've ever needed for any surgery. Brains, amiright?

In ridiculous recovery news, I went to a movie last month for the first time since my surgery and it fucked me up so badly I spent the next two days laying with the blinds closed saying, "Fuck you Transformers!" to absolutely no one (in my defense it was not my first movie choice-it was Chris' birthday and he is of the male species). Anyway, it was stimulation overload for this healing brain and I could not believe it made me so sick. But I had to just throw my hands up and say: Okay, I have to lay down. What else can I do? So no, I have not seen the Barbie movie but have googled three times to see when I can rent it from home. No firm answers yet, I'll let you know.

Right now, the re-orienting to my life feels like standing amidst rubble. Shattered glass everywhere. A giant mess. Trying to figure out where to start cleaning up. Doing one thing and then going to lay down. Slow.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough. I'm an incredibly ambitious person. A high achieving human. And to have so much time and to do so little and to still feel so incredibly tired feels...uncomfortable. But also makes sense. A chunk of my brain is gone. I mean, I'm thrilled the tumor is gone and also I feel sad about the chunk of healthy brain tissue. She didn't do anything wrong!

I think a lot about adrienne maree brown's words: Small is good. Small is all.

I say them to myself in moments of self judgment about how slow this all feels. How "little" I'm able to do.

And then I see flashes of myself jogging my beloved greenway. Floating in a body of water. Pushing a cart through the grocery store. Chatting with a loved one. Putting a meal together. Doing my skincare. Reading a book. The most simple things that I held onto during my recovery. All I wanted to do-the most simple daily things. And I'm doing them. Tired, but alive and incredibly happy to be here.

Small IS good. Small IS all.

Thank you all so much for the tremendous outpouring of love and support over the last year of life. It has meant so much to me. I am slowly trying to reconnect with people and feel like I'm a part of things again, a part of the world again. That's all a part of re-orienting to my own life and to the shit that really matters to me. Being able to write to you here felt really good. I will probably sleep for 9 hours.

Love y'all and talk soon!

Alyssa, Tumor Free Princess