Author: Force

  • Max Heart Rate

    If I’m going to put myself through treatment, I might as well make it worthwhile. I decided early on that if my experience can help someone else in the future, then I’ll gladly contribute. So, I volunteered as a test subject, agreeing to follow a prescribed workout regimen throughout treatment and undergo periodic physiological testing for a cardiovascular research study.

    Baseline Visit 1 began with something I’ve always wanted to do… a maximal heart-rate test. Of course, first came the preliminaries. A baseline echocardiogram confirmed I was clear to participate, followed by a general physical and neurological exam. Everything checked out. I was good to go.

    “Alright,” the researcher said, “we’re going to place this mask over your face. You will bite down on the mouthpiece and make sure it seals over your gums. Your nose will be clipped so all breathing comes through the mouth. There is a drain piece for saliva, make sure you don’t swallow it. We’ll monitor your pulse oxygen and blood pressure throughout.”

    Then came the instructions.
    The treadmill would speed up until I reached my age-calculated maximal heart rate. Once there, speed would stay constant but the incline would be increased by about 2.5% every few minutes. I’d need to point to a chart to indicate how hard I felt I was working.  Thumbs up if you’re good, Thumbs down if you’re not and open hand swiped by throat to indicate Stop.

    Perfect, I thought. “Two Thumbs-up Let’s do this!”

    The mask slid over my head, the tube connected to the machine at the right of the treadmill. I centered myself on the machine and matched the belt stride for stride.

    “We’re almost at your calculated rate. How hard are you working?” they asked.

    I pointed to – Very Light.

    “Pulse ox?” The researcher asked the intern positioned to the left of me at the treadmill.
    “98%,” she reported.

    “Great. Beginning the test in 5…4…3…2…1.”

    The incline rose. I kept a steady rhythm, hearing the doctor murmur with curiosity in the background as he observed the computer monitor. Five people were in the room: a doctor, a clinician, two researchers, one intern.  With the treadmill facing a plain beige wall. Everyone behind me. So that’s what I focused on – the beige canvas.

    After the first minute: “How hard are you working?” The researcher asked me.
    I pointed to “Light” on the laminated chart presented to me by the intern. 
    Blood pressure was yelled out – 144/78.
    “We’ll increase again. How are you doing?”
    Thumbs up. Still feeling good.

    Round after round, the incline inched upward. My arms began to pump, my breathing deepened, but I still felt strong. “I could keep this pace for six hours,” I thought.

    “Pulse ox?” The researcher asked

     “97%” replied the intern.

    Eventually, the sweat came. My heart thudded against my ribs. My face flushed behind the mask as I gulped air through the tube.
    “Keep going… every second counts… Can you give me more time?” the researcher asked.
    Thumbs up. I wasn’t anywhere near passing out.

    “How hard are you working?”
    I pointed to “Very Hard” this time.

    Another incline.
    I heard the doctor gasp in the background.
    The clinician whispered, “Wow, that’s amazing.”

    “Pulse ox?”

    “It’s reading 91%!”concern flickered in the intern’s voice.

    The clinician moved toward the echocardiogram machine, positioned to the far right of the room, preparing for the moment I stepped off. My vision began to vignette….darkness creeping inward. The beige wall shifting toward gray.

    “The segment is almost over. Can you keep pushing?”
    Thumbs up again. If I wasn’t completely out, I could keep going. I thought.

    Now drenched, heart hammering, lungs burning…. but still moving.

    “Keep going… keep going.. every second counts” The researcher cheered.
    I held on until the end of the segment. Then the treadmill stopped.

    I stepped off the belt, grabbed the handrails, and the second researcher quickly removed the mask. They all guided me back to the exam bed for the final echocardiogram. I lay still, eyes closed, letting my senses return to normal. As the clinician quickly removed the velcro straps on the black cotton shirt exposing and my left chest wall to press down with the transducer beneath my left breast. I could still feel my heart beating.   

    “So… how did I do?” I asked, while she observed the monitor.

    “You did amazing,” the clinician said. “Your heart rate was up there.”

    “What about my VO₂ max reading?”

    The clinician looked at the researcher. “Can she know it?”

    “No,” they said. “We’ll share results at the end of the study.”

    “Well… does it match my watch? I have a reading of 40.”

    She smiled. “Close. Pretty close.”

    The final echo looked good. The test was over.

    And me?
    I felt electric….flooded with energy.

    I was asked to change into my regular attire and walk out of the room. I couldn’t help but try to take a peek at the reading glancing at the treadmill monitor and could have sworn I saw a VO2 reading of 36.

    I’ll find out the true value in several months.

  • Echo

    Had an echocardiogram today, watched my own heart moving across the screen, sound waves bouncing through my chest to form a real-time portrait of the strongest muscle I have. It felt surreal… hearing the blood flow and the rhythmic opening and closing of valves through heart chambers.

    December is the month where treatment begins. Dates are still unfolding, but this week is all about baseline diagnostics, the groundwork before the action officially starts. One step at a time.

    Moving forward, this blog becomes my journey log. A space to process, to share, and to stay grounded in the present…..the focus is one day at a time.

    If you’re here because you’ve ever wondered what this path looks like, welcome. I was once like you a normal person going about my day now a patient tattered by the label- cancer patient. Let’s walk through this together and see how the story unfolds. God knows what is ahead, but I’ll remain optimistic.

  • Thanksgiving

    Thanksgiving is tomorrow.

    Despite everything, I’m still here feeling grateful.

    I believe I’ll be ok…but I’m also learning to make peace with the possibility that things may not always go that way, and, well……. that’s part of the journey too.

    Today my mind wandered to memories I didn’t expect. Just a year ago, we brought Mom home from the memory-care facility. Now Dad cares for her every day.

    A year ago, I ran the Turkey Trot with my brother and had breakfast with him and the baby afterward. This year, I find myself in my home office, typing, feeling a strange mix of numbness and reflection…. Looking back at moments I usually try not to revisit.

    I’m learning to rest on what’s here, right now.

    I’m grateful for this connection.

    I’m grateful for this space to write to process.

    I’m grateful for another year.

    I’m grateful even for the inevitable, whatever it may look like.

    I’m grateful for the flexibility my employer gives me.

    I’m grateful for the support of my new friend.

    I’m grateful for my spouse and everything he carries and gives.

    I’m grateful for the ability to hope and dream, because that’s what truly keeps me alive.

  • Wigs

    The Oncologist told me I’d be losing my hair once treatment starts. It wasn’t something I wanted to hear. My hair has always felt like my life force….my own version of Samson’s strength…..and imagining myself without it felt devastating.

    But after the initial sting, I did what I’ve been doing with everything lately, I gathered myself, and figured out how to be prepared. My husband and I visited a local wig shop, a world I never imagined I’d step into. It was a small hair salon with a well-lit mirror and two chairs.

    A row of wigs lined a shelf from different colors, length, and style. Faux hair crafted to meet a woman at one of the most vulnerable moments of her life, offering her a soft shield as perhaps toxic chemicals enter her bloodstream, destroying sick cells along with everything else in their path. It struck me that behind every wig is someone’s battle, someone’s story. Mine will soon join them.

    The shop owner, kind enough to come in on a Sunday, greeted me warmly. She studied me for barely a second before saying, “You’re definitely a 1.” I blinked in confusion until she explained the color scale: 1 is the darkest, 60 is pure white. I had no idea hair shades were cataloged so clinically.

    She brought out boxes from another room…with shoulder-length styles, bangs, layered cuts and taught me how to place a wig on properly. Find the side tabs, line up the edges, lift them by the strands, not by dragging the lace. She said it as if she were training me to handle something sacred and maybe she was.

    Then came the eyebrow conversation. I hadn’t even thought about that. “Once your hairline goes, remember it’s four finger-widths from your brows,” she said. “And if your eyebrows thin, you’ll want to fill them in, otherwise the wig won’t look right.”

    Makeup has never been part of my life. She gently showed me a small box of powders, explaining stencils and shading, another skill I never expected to need.

    In the end, I chose two wigs, one short with bangs for convenience, and one long…. closer to how I look now, for comfort. My husband nodded with that steady approval he gives when he knows I need reassurance.

    We left with instructions on cleaning, brushing, storage… an entire new chapter I hadn’t planned on spending my weekend learning. I imagine countless women have walked this same path, each one wondering, as I did, how did I get here? The mind searches for reasons. Maybe it was the few years I smoked to survive night shifts. Maybe it was my old diet, the chemicals in my workplace, or simply the randomness of biology. I’ll probably never know. What I do know is this, I’m here now. It was caught early.

    My Gobi March registration has been deferred to 2027. The race director responded with kindness and understanding. I look forward to crossing that finish line someday, dust-covered, exhausted, transformed with my long black hair tied back. But first, I must prepare… mentally. One step at a time.

  • Coping

    Over a week of coughing up phlegm, speaking through a stale, worn-out voice. The flu is finally passing.

    Today, I ran a half-marathon just to quiet my mind. To breathe. To try to hold myself steady before the storm of this coming week. Soon, I’ll learn what comes next, treatment, work, life. The shape of my future.

    I hate being in this space of not-knowing. There’s comfort in normalcy and routine, and yet I feel severed from both. Everything I do feels like it’s for everyone else. What I want always feels just out of reach. So, I keep moving through the motions, numb and muted, the inner world tucked somewhere I can’t quite access.

    Everything for others, rarely for myself. Except when I’m running. That’s where I still recognize me.

    I started watching Breaking Bad again. Somehow it feels fitting now, with this diagnosis looming over everything. Maybe I’m trying to channel a bit of Heisenberg…. Walter White…. someone who seized control when life threatened to define him. It’s strange and comforting to see Albuquerque again, the city we once left to escape crime and heaviness.

    This week I find out what happens next.
    Please let it be bearable.
    Please let it be something I can carry.

    I can’t help but think….
    I hate this.
    All of it.


    Life feels sharp and unkind right now and that’s just the truth.

  • Roadkill

    Fifty-five miles per hour down a two-lane rural road.
    I caught it in my peripheral vision—right shoulder—front paws stretched, hind legs exploding across the asphalt.

    I glanced at the rear-view mirror; another vehicle trailed close behind. Stopping wasn’t an option.
    An oncoming car approached from ahead—swerving wasn’t an option either.

    Maybe it will stop.
    Maybe it will make it across.

    I held my line.
    It ran.

    I felt no thud, heard nothing. For a moment, I assumed it had made it.

    Then, in the driver-side mirror, I saw a tight curl of fur lying in the opposite lane. It hadn’t made it.
    It must have collided with the oncoming vehicle’s tire.

    Still, I felt no sadness. No pain.

    And suddenly I was twelve again—my mom driving me to a cross-country meet in the dark hours before dawn, heading toward the mountain to catch the district bus to Deming, New Mexico. A rabbit darted out. There was no time to brake, no room to swerve. The heavy thud echoed through the car.

    I cried the rest of the way. My first encounter with roadkill—so sudden, so brutal.

    But now—just another drive.
    I felt nothing.

    Life.
    Death.

    One minute, a squirrel sprinting across the road; the next, stillness.
    Its body will feed scavengers—crows, maybe others.

    The cycle continues.

  • 64

    Gadolinium, a rare-earth element forged in the violent deaths of ancient stars, will enter my bloodstream tomorrow. It feels surreal to think that something born billions of years ago, long before Earth even existed, is now being used to help diagnose what’s happening inside me.

    It will arrive already chelated, safely held in a molecular cage so it can move through my body without reacting. Once inside, it will subtly change the way water protons relax after being excited by radio waves, creating brighter MRI scans so doctors can see abnormalities more clearly.

    I’ll admit… I was nervous at first. I’ve never needed this procedure before.
    Learning the science behind it….the physics, the chemistry, the careful design… helped. Knowledge can have a calming effect sometimes.

    I became curious about where this element comes from.
    Gadolinium isn’t called “rare” because there’s so little of it, but because extracting it is difficult. If my contrast agent turns out to be Bayer’s Gadavist or Bracco’s ProHance, odds are the gadolinium was mined at Bayan Obo Mine in Inner Mongolia, the largest rare-earth element mine on the planet.

    Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia were once both part of the greater Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Outer Mongolia declared independence in 1911, later solidified with Soviet support in 1921, while Inner Mongolia remained under Chinese control for its proximity to China. Still, both regions share deep cultural and historical roots. I didn’t expect my MRI prep to lead me through this history… yet here I am.

    Tomorrow, I’ll lie still for about 45 minutes, listening to the rhythmic pulse of the machine. I think I’ll picture the gadolinium moving through my veins, guiding my mind across the region where it was mined. I’ll imagine the hum of magnetic resonance blending with the low, resonant tones of Mongolian throat singing.
    Somehow, this image brings me peace and I’m not even in the machine yet.

    It’s strange…. almost comforting…..to think of this element’s journey: born in exploding stars, trapped in ancient rock, mined, refined, chelated, packaged, transported halfway around the world… just to arrive here, inside me.

    It feels like a thread……something cosmic……. woven through time, now intersecting with my own story. I don’t fully understand the bigger design, but I hope there is one. Tomorrow is just another step, to help me heal.

  • Carcinoma

    5:30 a.m.
    I woke up and checked my email before my eyes were even fully open.
    A new test result has been posted…read the alert.

    I reached for my glasses on the nightstand, opened MyChart, and there it was….. the pathology results I’d been waiting on all weekend.

    Invasive carcinoma……
    Not the words I wanted to see.

    I woke my husband and whispered, “They posted the results… carcinoma.”
    He didn’t need any more explanation. He just held me. “I’m sorry” he said

    I made a joke……because that’s what I do when things get too real.
    “Well… can I finally get the long-haired dachshund I always wanted?”
    “Yes,” he said. “We can get a dog now.”

    Small victory.

    I pictured an elderly rescue…..one who just needs somewhere soft to land for his final years. Definitely a boy… I have no energy for a dramatic little girl dog.

    Around 10 a.m. the physician called.
    I pretended I hadn’t read the report already.
    “Do you have time to talk?”
    “Yes.” I said.
    “It is cancer. Not benign.” She said.

    “Ok.” I answered.
    She paused……. maybe waiting for emotion I didn’t have yet. I wasn’t sure what the correct response should be… so I stayed quiet. 

    She then proceeded to tell me the MRI would be moved up and went through the details of what happens next.

    “We’re still piecing everything together.” I listened, and then I drifted…..”She does this every day…” I thought. 

    Delivering life-altering news to strangers.
    I couldn’t do what she does. 

    So… the waiting is over.
    Now it’s one day at a time……… But then again. It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? 

    I don’t want any of this.            
    I wish things could simply unravel the way nature intended.

    Or maybe nature did intend this.

    I don’t know.

    Life makes no sense to me.

    But…. there’s an adventure waiting for me next summer, so I’m choosing to move forward with whatever…. I can’t say I really care at this point.

    If I’m being honest… I’d rather die in the desert anyway.  

    But for now—today—I’m still here.
    So we keep going. I’ll just have to shift my mental focus… that’s all. 

    We’ll get through this.

  • Waiting

    Waiting breeds anticipation.
    What is anticipation, really….at least in physiological terms? It’s the body’s quiet chemistry experiment: neurotransmitters surging, hormones firing, the amygdala alert. Cortisol and norepinephrine rise, with a delicate dash of dopamine, hope and fear mixing in the bloodstream.

    While those chemicals play their dance, the mind searches for distraction. Maybe by finishing that half-completed 1,000-piece Disney Stitch puzzle abandoned days ago. Or by curling up in bed, trying to ignore the dull ache and the bruised puncture site that throbs like a simple reminder of uncertainty. It’s a kind of suspended malaise, life moving, but slower now.

    I think again of the circle of life, how, when Norman passed away a couple years ago, and Belinda was born. Death and birth, endings and beginnings, braided so tightly you can’t tell where one stops and the other begins. Now, it feels like the universe is staging a repeat: my boss’s daughter about to arrive as I await results that could mark another ending….or a continuation of my own story.

    I hope for the latter, but we don’t know.
    We wait.

    Anticipation….it’s like sending a text and watching the screen, willing a reply to appear. The same surge of chemicals. The same pulse of aliveness. In this waiting, I am acutely present, every sound is amplified. Every ding on my phone a jolt of hope, maybe it’s MyChart. Maybe the answer is here.

    Everything around me feels placed with intention. Every object, every breath, part of the stillness before revelation. What will it be?

    I tell myself I’ll prepare for both outcomes. I’ll steady myself either way.
    For now, we remain mid-air…..like a coin tossed high, spinning, glinting, turning, until the inevitable drop decides my fate.

  • The Ancient City

    I envisioned myself running into the ancient city of Karakorum…sweaty, salt-streaked, and stinking of seven days beneath the Mongolian sun. My pack bounced against my back as the crew clapped, cheering me toward the finish line.

    “You doing, OK?” someone called out.

    Then, suddenly, I was back.

    The sound faded, replaced by the hum of the ultrasound machine. The nurse pressed down hard on the already tender spot on my left breast.
    “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “We’ve got about three more minutes. You’re doing good.”

    “Ok, Paige. Thank you,” I managed.

    “Why are we doing this again?” I asked.

    “Vascularity. To ensure there is no bleeding.”

    “Ok. Paige.” I said.

    I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling tiles. A sea turtle had been painted across one of them—its fins outstretched, floating in an endless white. I closed my eyes, clenched the fist on my trembling left arm, and focused on my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Through the nose. Slow. Controlled.

    Her voice broke through again: “When you go home, make sure you—”

    But I drifted. The pain was dull, radiating, and I tried to escape it by slipping back into the desert.

    None of the Biopsy Videos I watched in preparation for this procedure had prepared me for this…..the raw ache, the pressure.

    “Ok? Did you understand?……. Ok??” she said, her voice growing louder.

    “Yes,” I replied, though I hadn’t heard everything.

    “Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off?” I asked, uncertain.

    “Don’t worry. It’ll be in your post procedure notes.”

    “Ok” I said again, quietly.

    The last three minutes dragged on like hours. It was the longest five minutes of my life—the worst part of the biopsy….the unrelenting pressure on freshly punctured flesh.

    I could still hear the metallic click-click of the core needle echoing in my left ear as I lay on my side, thinking absurdly about the sterility of the instruments, about my cells traveling to pathology, about whether a human or a Machine Vision AI system would be used to interpret them.

    Next, I was escorted to a second room for what they described as a gentle mammogram.

    When it was all finally over, they wrapped me tightly in a bandage and let me go.

    “Samples are collected. It’s out of my hands now.” I thought.

    I walked into the lobby and saw my husband waiting patiently. I couldn’t say much. Didn’t want to say much. There were others in the lobby observing my exit.

    “I’ll go get the car” he said.

    My husband pulled into the front of the building and I started to cry as soon as I got into the car. Now I understood why the prepare for procedure notes insisted you have a driver.

    The pain wasn’t just physical…..it was also the weight of uncertainty.

    I clenched my fist, breathed through it, and saw myself again beneath the Mongolian sky……running, enduring, surviving.

    Now, I wait.