Home Away From Home

The rest of Wednesday was a blur.

After learning about the TP53 mutation and that my treatment would eventually take me to Houston for a bone marrow transplant, everything felt surreal.

There wasn't much time to sit with it.

The nurses came in to place my PICC line—a long IV that would become my lifeline for chemotherapy, blood draws, antibiotics, and countless medications over the coming weeks. It was another reminder that this wasn't temporary anymore.

Not long after, I received my very first chemotherapy treatment.

It's strange because people always ask what the first chemo feels like.

For me, it wasn't dramatic. There wasn't some defining moment where I suddenly felt different. It was simply the beginning. The beginning of the fight.

But what I remember most from that day had nothing to do with chemotherapy.

It was the people.

Later that afternoon, Lily and Kenzie came to my hospital room to help transform it. Danielly had spent hours putting together giant poster boards covered in pictures of my kids, my family, my closest girlfriends, and everyone at Veterinary Vision Specialists. They covered the sterile hospital walls with reminders of the life I had outside those windows.

One of my clients had made me a beautiful VVS quilt, and we hung it where I could see it from my bed.

The girls strung twinkle lights around the room.

Piece by piece, they turned my oncology hospital room into something that actually felt comforting.

Those posters have become some of my favorite things in this room. Every time I look up, I don't see hospital walls.

I see birthdays, vacations, school plays, friends, my kids laughing, the team we've built at VVS.

They remind me exactly what I'm fighting to get back to.

The next few days brought in a lot of visitors.

My parents drove into town with my sister.

Friends stopped by.

Everyone was trying to help however they could.

Meanwhile, my life had just erupted like an earthquake.

Every part of it had been shaken- My family, my practice, my future, the custody battle, the plans we had made.

Everything was scattered across the floor, and somehow I was supposed to start putting the pieces back together while lying in a hospital bed receiving chemotherapy.

During the day, Etta was at SPCA camp. Each afternoon Suzie would pick her up, and she and Graham would come visit me.

Those visits were the best part of my day. For a little while I could just be a mom again.

And that was exactly who I needed to remember I still was, because those 3 kids are my purpose during this fight.