The Luckiest Unlucky Girl

Before I begin my tale of our Brazilian wildlife adventure, I guess I should tell you a little about what inspired this trip. I am an avid reader of travel guides and upon perusing my Lonely Planet Brazil book last year, I discovered that the second rated thing to do in Brazil, besides visit the Christ statue, was to see the wildlife in the Pantanal. In September we always get a week off to celebrate the Chilean National Holiday, el Dieciocho, and this usually ends up being a trip designed most for Jon´s tastes. Last year, for example, we went to Iguazu Falls, which he had been dying to see. After a bit of research into the Pantanal, we both decided it was definitely worth putting on our travel agenda for our September spring break.
The Pantanal is a wetland area located in the Amazon basin in the central/ western part of the country. We learned that there is a wet season and a dry season in the area, and so we were pleased to find that September falls in the middle of the dry season, the best time for wildlife viewing. Our first big challenge was finding a tour company to take us on our Brazilian safari. We did a lot of internet research and found some trips we liked, but they all seemed pretty much the same. After I re-read the guidebook I encountered a paragraph about a company called Focus Tours based out of the states that specializes in ecological preservation of the region. The book said that if you were short on time (we only had a week…) and didn´t mind paying more, than this was the best company to go with. Normally we don´t mind paying more for quality trips, so this wasn´t really a problem for us. When we contacted Focus Tours we discovered that their trip sounded pretty amazing, but unfortunately, was WAY out of our price range. It was going to be over 4,000 dollars a person for a week, not including flights. We contacted the company and said we loved the tour, but asked if there was any way to bring down the price by perhaps making the trip public so others could share in the costs of food and fuel.
Almost immediately, a man by the name of Douglas Trent contacted Jon back and said that he was a researcher associated with Focus Tours. In fact, he used to run Focus Tours but only until he started this non-profit environmental project called Bichos do Pantanal. He offered to have us sponsor his research (cutting the cost of the trip in half) and that we could then accompany him on his boat for the week. We could help him count species of wildlife and take pictures, or simply come along for the ride if we didn´t want to do any work. Well, after hearing this Jon was over the moon. He was more excited about this trip than I´d ever seen him before. You see, before Jon met me he was definitely more of the adventurous type. After college he spent a month in the Wyoming wilderness (without showering) while completing a challenging NOLS certification course. The summer before our move to China he traveled to Madagascar with a group called Earth Watch in order to help a scientist there study the fossa, a mixture between a cat and a mongoose, featured in the Disney movie. During our first year of China, he was famous for sleeping on a bench in Guilin with another colleague because they could not find a hotel room. On our first big trip the summer after we met, he spent an extra three weeks trekking through Borneo while I went to London for my International Teaching Courses. Anyway, the long and short of it is, that since Jon has met me our travel has definitely become less adventurous and more comfortable, which I sometimes feel guilty about. I can no longer really stay in hostels and have become accustomed to creature comforts. I´m hoping it´s a sign that we´re getting older and have outgrown the backpacker lifestyle, but maybe it´s because I´m spoiled. Probably a combination! As soon as I stepped foot on the Bichos do Pantanal boat and saw where we would be spending the next 7 nights of our trip I knew I would have to get used to my former style of traveling. But more about that later!

Arrival in Brazil

Jon and I departed for the Santiago airport directly after our annual Dieciocho faculty party on Friday. This was the first time we had left for our vacation on Friday afternoon and I would definitely not do it again. We had to pack in the middle of a busy workweek which is never fun. I was also pretty ill leading up to the trip as I got a bad case of food poisoning from some swiss chard two days before we left and had lost most of my bodily fluids. Needless to say, I forgot a few things, but luckily, Jon was very adept at packing all the outdoor necessities we would need for our wildlife trip. He made sure we had all of our camera gear, bug spray, and sunscreen; all I had to do was pack a few items of comfy clothing.
On Friday afternoon, I performed in the Dieciocho show. I was a back-up dancer with six other ladies to Venir Al Sur, a popular Spanish song that most of the Chileans in the audience knew. Since the theme of the party was Welcome to the Nido Jungle, us dancing ladies were dressed accordingly in animal prints with leis, etc. We were the opening act, so I had just about enough time to change back into regular clothes after our performance before we had to hit the road. Usually Jon and I like to stay till the bitter end of the Dieciocho party for the dance session with the maintenance staff, but I had been told the Santiago airport can be a zoo right before the national holiday, so we left pretty early.
And, unfortunately, our prediction was correct. Despite arriving at the airport three hours before our flight, we barely had time to grab some Subway before boarding the plane. (Yes: Subway is now more prevalent worldwide than McDonalds….) After waiting in line on the tarmac for a good 30 minutes before we could take off, we were on our way! The three and a half hour flight to Sao Paolo was good and I even managed to doze off for a bit. Despite the major airline disasters that have occurred recently, I´m a much better flier now than I was before. I figure if something happens then I´ll just deal with it or be dead and I won´t have a lot of choice about it. Or maybe it´s the Melatonin that I take now before flights that helps keep me calm. Either way, I know Jon´s not complaining about my new attitude towards air travel. I also liked Gol Airlines, which seemed to be Brazil´s version of a low-cost airline like Southwest. They had relatively modern planes that apparently were first owned by Delta, but no first or business class and everyone was seated at the same time.
However, despite the smooth flight, when we arrived in Sao Paolo we discovered that it was only about ten minutes before our other plane to Cuiaba was boarding and we were still on the other plane. That meant we would have to navigate the giant airport, pass through immigration, pick up our bags, get through customs, re-check our bags, go through security, and find our new gate in less than 45 minutes if we wanted to catch our flight. Well, let me tell you- it was a harrowing 45 minutes and involved a lot of stress and running through the airport. When our bags didn´t arrive on the carousel until 25 minutes before our other flight was leaving, I thought for sure we were going to miss our flight. But somehow, we cut a bunch of really long lines, sprinted through the giant airport, and made it onto the plane 5 minutes before takeoff, panting, sweating, and feeling seriously nauseous. I pretty much passed out all the way to Cuiaba and was pleasantly surprised, upon landing, that our bags had made it too.
We arrived in Cuiaba after midnight and checked into our hotel that had been arranged for us. I wouldn´t recommend the Diplomata Hotel unless you are really only looking for a bed to sleep in, but that was pretty much all we needed so we were good to go. When I walked into the extremely hot room I also realized that the fleece and down jacket I brought in case of cool nights were going to be completely unnecessary. In fact, I should have packed a lot more tank tops and shorts. Oh well! Jon and I were both excited and just wanted to sleep so we could get to our destination and see some animals.

      I have written a lot of fluffy pieces recently about weddings and honeymoons and family and travel, so I guess it´s about time for another entry about regular life. Because, just like everyone else, my ordinary life is filled with early mornings, working hours, and daily errands. And if you think about it, it´s those mundane tasks like hitting the snooze button on the alarm in the morning or walking the dog to the grocery store after school that take up the majority of our lives, so I guess they are worth talking about as well as the vacations, even if they are admittedly, less glamorous.

   Because our seasons are opposite to those in the northern hemisphere, the school year at our international school in Chile begins in the middle of winter. So, after our three-week summer/winter break from school, Jon and I reluctantly boarded our airplane bound for snowy mountains, freezing cold buildings, and expensive heating bills. Upon touchdown in Chile we bundled back into our heavy coats, lit the fire in our living room, and headed back to work in July, a time I normally associate with swimming pools and heat. The change in seasons still throws me for a loop even though this is my fourth year in Chile. Since the weather is more like January weather I´ve grown accustomed to, it´s hard to believe the calendar says July.  

   At the end of last school year, I was hired as a full time sub in the middle and high school for the 2014-15 school year. There were no social studies positions available and so I had to negotiate my continued employment at the school, a topic I will hopefully be able to speak freely about some day in the future… However, ever since my life was interrupted by cancer two years ago, I´ve had to adjust my expectations about every day life and about what is normal, because those have fundamentally changed.

     Sometimes it is very challenging to deal with change and it can often be very humbling. Given my current lifestyle, you may have guessed that I seek new challenges, but I also have a difficult time with them. Often, the changes in my life are accompanied by a period of mild depression where I mope about and mourn the loss of the way things used to be. Granted, the cold and rainy, winter weather hasn´t helped cheer me up, but mopey could definitely be used to describe my mood of late.  Something I´ve thought a lot about during this gloomy time is that we are getting old. Perhaps, dare I say it, we´ve even entered adult hood…and on that note, I´ve decided that the thirties are a time of the most dramatic and intense change in most people´s lives.

    As an example, I am now 33. Most of my friends are married, or partnered up, or perhaps facing the future with no significant other in sight. Regardless, they are all making life decisions based on these facts, and therefore lives are changing.  Indeed, most of my friends have become parents or are in the process of becoming parents, and so that has been a big change for them. It´s hard to go from nights out, dancing with cocktails, to nights in dealing with temper tantrums and poopy diapers. But then again, there are plenty of other things old we can do now in our “old age” that we couldn´t do in our twenties: most notably, we can afford the fabulous lifestyle we now lead.  I certainly don´t think my challenges are worse or more difficult than the changes that others have gone through, or that now life is only full of negative things, but I do think that all of us are currently going through a time period where normal life is immensely different than it ussed to be. In that line of thinking, I do want to discuss the changes I´m going through, primarily to get them off my chest.  Forgive me, dear readers, but these blogs are saving me a pretty penny on therapy bills.

   One big change I have been grappling with lately is that I am no longer doing a job that I excel at (teaching high school history), and am instead just doing the best I can for the students that I am given an opportunity to work with. Right now, for example, I am covering a maternity leave until March for the math resource teacher in the middle school. I am relearning how to divide decimals and simplify radical numbers, two topics I never thought I would have to relearn. I am also gaining new skills like how to work with 6^th graders for whom math does not come easily.   I guess, in that regard, the students and I are similar because math was never my favorite subject either. Although I was always good at memorizing equations and studying the required chapters for the next test, I´m not sure I ever really understood math. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for students the world over, the way math is taught has changed a LOT since when I was a student, so it has been an eye-opening experience that I´m sure will help make me a better teacher in the future.

     In addition to my work schedule, my life as a cancer survivor also contains a a full schedule of doctor´s appointments on top of my regular working hours. Right now, for example, it is 7:30 PM,  and I am at the clinic undergoing my five-hour antibody treatment (really a milder form of chemotherapy), which I will continue to do every three weeks from now until the end of my life. Sometimes the treatments don´t bother me, like today, because I have some free time to write and the weather outside doesn´t inspire me to to do anything besides stay inside and curl up in a blanket. Sometimes, however, I really don´t like the treatments at all. They remind me of a time when I was not well and life was scary and in turmoil. Sometimes, when I see all the bald patients, pale, hooked up to saline bags, and dozing off in their reclining chairs, I have a hard time staying positive about life. I know I continue to be SO lucky that my treatment is working and that, despite the odds, I am cancer free, but it is a constant reminder that my life is transient and fragile and can end at any time.  

   Recently I had my first pet scan since I was diagnosed back in 2012. Dr. Buhler recommended I have one just to make sure that everything was still going well. A pet scan, you may remember, is a full body scan that looks inside your entire body in order to spot cell growth and see if anything is irregular. The test itself is pretty nerve racking because they inject you with radiation before the exam and you have to lie silently in a dark room while the saline solution pushes the radiation throughout your body for an hour before you can have the exam taken. My exam was the last of the day so the nurses were in a huge hurry to get my done in time for their lunch break and so they rushed me through everything, and did not do a good job securing the needle in my arm.   For a week afterwards I had a huge, yellow and purple bruise on my right arm to remind me of the exam. And so I went, through the machine, with the nurse absent-mindedly dictating when I should breath and how I should lie still for 35 minutes and other such nonsense. And, of course, waiting for the results was equally nerve-wracking. I´m pretty good about putting bad things into a little box in my mind so I managed not to let the meeting with Dr. Buhler ruin my weekend, but as I strode down the hall with Jon the following week to Buhler´s office, my heart was beating so loud that you could have heard the drumming for miles away. We entered the office, and Buhler kind of stared at us for a few minutes with a stern look on his face. I could feel my heart and Jon´s heart simultaneously drop into the pit of our stomachs.  

     After about two minutes of unbearable silence, I practically shouted, “Well… the pet scan results? How am I doing, Doc???” To which he proceeded to spend more time staring at his computer screen looking at the results before he proclaimed that I was perfectly healthy, and still in remission, and doing great.   (I guess the silence was for dramatic effect?) Anyway, Dr. Buhler seemed shocked by the results since, as he shared, it is extremely rare for a young patient with such advanced cancer to still be cancer free a year and a half later. I asked him if he thought the new drug had been a factor in my recovery, and he smiled, shrugged, and said he had no idea. In fact, he said he didn´t even want to know, as long as it was working. I was a little upset by this as I wonder why doctors don´t look into the reasons for survival as much as they do the symptoms of the disease, but who am I to judge the medical profession so harshly? Regardless, Jon and I were elated and I was ready to celebrate, but I had to run off to Open House at the school and talk to a bunch of parents. Serious buzz kill!

    Surprisingly, although I should have continued to be extremely happy about my good health, this is when I started to become a little more depressed. “So, I´m healthy,” I thought. “Now what??!! Am I ready for yet another stage of life?” The questions and feelings came so unexpectedly and were very tricky to answer after two years of living like there was no tomorrow. I decided I needed to really rejoin real life and figure out what the point of it all is. I know all you parents out there would argue that children are a reason for living, and I guess I feel somewhat ready for that next stage.   But unfortunately, having children is going to be difficult for us as well.

     I recently had a conversation with my doctor in which he told me that I should not get pregnant, even though, technically I still could.   Pregnancy hormones, the doctor told me, would probably bring my hormone-based cancer back, and also interrupt my treatment schedule. If I were to try and extract my eggs for surrogacy, I would also need to be injected with hormones, which would likely result in the aforementioned scenario. All in all, it seems like it´s going to be one of those really challenging situations that will make me want to put my head down on the table and give up, just like many of my students when faced with math. And I don´t blame them!  Doing things that may lead to criticism is no fun. So, for now, I´ve reverted back to not thinking too much about the future, but instead going through the daily motions until the spring sun arrives and my path becomes clearer. Which should happen in two weeks when we get a week off of school to celebrate the Chilean national holiday. YAY!  But for now, I´d love to hear if others have any strategies about how to deal with the negative effects of change because I think I probably need some, and I don´t want to pay a professional to tell me what they are,

 

Now, I´m sure some of you might be asking: Why would two young, world travelers choose to go on a truly American Mid-West holiday, exploring the lighthouses, parks, shores, and bed and breakfasts of Lake Michigan? In fact, most would say that our honeymoon might be more befitting of older, possibly retired couples, of which we encountered several on our travels. Well- the answer is really two-fold. 1) I had seen on Good Morning America that Sleeping Bear Dunes and the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan were recently voted the Most Beautiful Place in America so I decided I needed to see them for myself, and 2) before I began traveling the world, my family visited much of our own country during long, summer road trips. I have been lucky enough to visit almost all of the states, except for six. Michigan was one of them. (Of course, after I went on the trip, I realized that I hadn´t counted Alaska in that number, so I still have six more states to go: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Ohio, Alaska, and North Dakota.) So with those goals in mind I started to map out an itinerary for a ten day road trip around the lake, spending the night in each of the following ports of call: Milwaukee, Door County, Mackinac Island, Leelanau Peninsula, and Grand Haven.  

     STOP ONE: MILWAUKEE

My sister accompanied us on our first stop of the romantic honeymoon trip around the lake. We both wanted to spend a few quality sissy days and also to celebrate her birthday together, so we chose Milwaukee because it was on the lake, neither of us had been there, and they also had cheap flights to her hometown of Portland. I didn´t know much about Milwaukee before visiting except that they are known for their cold winters, beer, and cheese; and after our two day visit, I have concluded that Milwaukee is a very lovely lakeside city, (at least in the summer) with, indeed, a lot of beer and cheese. The abundance of these two ingredients makes Milwaukee a perfect foodie destination. There are lots of breweries to visit, and many fun restaurants to explore. Upon arrival at our hotel, we noticed that it seemed more like a ghost town than the 28^th largest city in the United States. Despite it being a warm summer´s day there were no pedestrians out and about, and hardly anyone exploring the city, even by car. We took a stroll from our hotel to the Milwaukee River, home of the misnamed Lake Front Brewery (it is NOT on the lake front, in case you are wondering…). Along the way we passed only two people. However, when we entered the beer hall, we realized that all the tourists in Milwaukee were inside drinking beer. Which is what we proceeded to do for the rest of the afternoon. Jon´s brother, Adam, had recommended Lake Front because it is a less touristy tour than say Miller´s or PBR, and they also include a mug and four pours of beer within the 7 dollar entrance fee. A pretty good deal, if you ask me. After discovering that Lake Front´s Wisconsinite summer beer was the one for me, I had three pours of it and then we proceeded/stumbled back down the river with water jugs in hand to explore Historic Old World 3^rd Street. Again, we didn´t pass very many people and, befuddled, we popped into the Wisconsin Cheese Mart where we proceeded to partake of more Wisconsin beer and cheese. Delicious! That evening we ate yet again, this time dining on barbeque with Jon´s high school friend Brad and his girlfriend Cortnee at the Smoke Shack. This was followed by drinks at their stunning apartment overlooking the Summer Fest grounds along the lake. It was there that we learned that nobody was out in the streets because we arrived a day after Summer Fest ended, and everyone in Milwaukee was resting from the party. Probably bad timing on our part, but oh well!

     On our second day in MKE we decided that we obviously needed to eat some more, so I booked us a food walking tour of Brady Street, an old ethnic and hippie neighborhood in the northeastern part of the city. First, though, we thought we might not get enough food on the trip so we tucked into some scrumptious eggs benedicts at the Café at the Plaza, a cute little spot in the courtyard of our hotel, and then the three of us took a cab to Brady and discovered that the other two members of our food tour were indeed an old, retired couple. With grandma and grandpa in tow we forayed down the street sampling homemade pizza, authentic Mexican tacos, cannolis, olives and cured meets from a historic Italian market (Gloriosios´), corned beef sliders, and more beer. I really enjoy food tours because the guides give you a lot of the cultural history of the area, you get to focus on some interesting neighborhoods, and of course- you sample foods that are typical of the area. All of our needs were met on the Brady Street tour and it left us well positioned to stop into a local dive bar to watch Germany humiliate Brazil in one of the most embarrassing soccer matches I´ve ever watched. After we rolled ourselves home wondering whether we could possibly fit more food in our bellies, we refreshed at the hotel in time to celebrate Ali´s birthday at the beautiful and decadent Lake Park Bistro. Although our taxi driver, for the second time, had never heard of the area we were going to (??!!) we managed to direct him to Lake Park and strolled past some gorgeous homes, a stately lighthouse, several lions statues and a golf course before we found the restaurant. Lake Park Bistro is an upscale French restaurant whose chef is apparently quite famous according to the myriads of newspaper clippings in the foyer of the restaurant. And we weren´t disappointed in our meal: our only complaint was that we know nothing of French wine and therefore were unable to tackle the expensive wine menu. They kept bringing us samples and it all tasted terrible, and much too expensive. The appetizer of breaded, soft-boiled egg, on top of a salad with mushrooms and truffle oil was, however, exquisite. As were our steaks and lamb chops, cooked Medium Rare to perfection. My only complaint about the restaurant was that I was still so full from all the food that I had been eating for the past week to fully enjoy the restaurant. What I´m saying is, when you visit the Lake Park Bistro, bone up on your French wines first (or just drink beer) and come HUNGRY. It was a great end to sissy´s visit and a wonderful way to end our time in the city.

 STOP TWO: DOOR COUNTY

      Door County is a popular vacation destination in Wisconsin, which is said to be the Martha´s Vineyard of the Midwest. We had heard a lot about the cute little towns and the beauty of the lake, so we knew that Door County needed to be a stop on our trip. However, unfortunately we only spent one night there so I´m not sure I can be a good judge of the area. It was just alright for me… The day we arrived at our hotel in Egg Harbor (Ashbrooke Manor) it was a bit overcast, so we headed to Peninsula State Park in the hopes of doing a hike before the rain set in. I had read a little about each of the places we were visiting, but I really had no expectations and nothing I really HAD to do, so it was nice just being able to decide what to do as we went. The State Park was beautiful- a very woodsy area along Green Bay with miles and miles of hiking and biking paths. It looked like a very nice place for a family to camp for a few days in the summer. Well, due to time constraints, we were only there for the three hour tour, so we headed to the scenic drive and stopped at a few of the outlooks before deciding to do the most popular hike in the park, Eagle Bluff Trail. I really enjoy relatively flat hikes that are shaded and follow a water source, so this hike met all three of my requirements. Unfortunately, due to the wet winter, the mosquitos were in full bloom, so Jon spent most of the time swatting his neck and hurrying so as not to get bitten. I, on the other hand, am so full of drugs that I must not taste good to mosquitos anymore, and so I escaped without a single bite. At the end of the two-hour hike Jon hurried to escape the bugs in the car and I decided to climb the Eagle´s Tower in order to get a view of the area from up high, above the tree line. When I reached the top of the wooden staircase a young toddler was in full meltdown mode pounding the floor and screaming at his dad that he didn´t want to climb back down- he wanted to jump!! so I snapped a picture and hurried down before I became witness to the small child flinging himself off of a wooden tower in Upper Wisconsin. Luckily, I noticed the father and son duo made it down off the tower shortly after I did, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

     After our time in the State Park we drove through the quaint town of Fish Creek (pronounced by the locals as Fish Crick) and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the jacuzzi and indoor pool at our “Adults-Only” hotel while we watched a group of 70 year olds sipping wine on the patio for happy hour. My suspicions about our old people vacation were coming true!   We ate a mediocre dinner at the best restaurant in our town, according to Travel Advisor, and decided that we´d had about as much of Door County as we really wanted for the time being, and so we left early the next day without visiting any of the wineries, eating cherries, riding the Door County trolley, or doing any shopping in the cute towns, which seemed like the major attractions of the peninsula. We plugged our next destination, Mackinac Island, into the GPS and began our six hour journey, back down to Green Bay, across the Upper Peninsula and through to the northeastern section of Lake Michigan where it meets Lake Huron.

    So, one drawback of having a destination wedding was that many of our friends and family couldn´t come. However, on the plus side, my in-laws were kind enough to host a wedding reception for us in their hometown of Towanda, Illinois on July 5th. Jon has a large family and only one of his uncles, one aunt, and two cousins were able to make it to Mexico; so, this second party was attended in great number by both Krumtingers and Neubauers, alike. We had 42 guests in Mexico and, I think, close to 75 at the Towanda reception. Plus, many of Jon´s friends and their parents still live in the area and were able to make it as well. I was lucky that my parents, sister, and best friend all made the journey, as well as a college friend, his girlfriend, and two of our friends from Chile. It meant so much to me that all those people went out of their way to be there and celebrate with us in BloNo, as Randi´s husband, Matt found out the nearby town of Bloomington Normal is affectionately called.
      The theme of the Towanda reception was sort of a Napa, backyard garden party: casual, yet elegant, which is exactly what Jon and I wanted. Sandi and Jim live in a neighborhood called the Lamplighter, which is surrounded by cornfields, where they have a lovely home with a huge back yard. In fact, many of Jon´s friends grew up with him in that same neighborhood, and still tell stories about the shenanigans they pulled while de-tasseling corn in the summer. (Yes, I am here to inform you that de-tasseling is a real job, and involves young men plucking the tops off corn so they don´t reproduce…) Besides castrating the corn plants, on hot, summer days, Krum and his cohorts would fish in the little pond nearby and ride bikes, enjoying the safe, secure, mid-western upbringing that everyone seems to reminisce about these days. My favorite part about the house is sitting on the back porch, watching the fireflies come out on a summer´s evening, eating some barbeque, and waiting for the 4th of July fireworks which you can also see from the patio. Extremely convenient!
For the event, Jim and Sandi rented a big white tent (in case of rain) and the tent was all strung up with paper lanterns (my favorite!) and the porch was decked out in twinkle lights. It really was beautiful. Thanks to Pinterest, Sandi was able to create some theme-appropriate centerpieces. These included sawed-off wine bottles, which served nicely as vases for pink roses and orange lilies, our wedding colors. Next to the wine bottle was a wine glass, turned upside down, with a pink rose inside, and a stem-less wine glass containing a white candle and surrounded by wine corks. They created a lovely addition to the ambiance. In addition, we had a DJ spinning tunes, a caterer who served delicious food, and plenty of tasty desserts, including mini pies, homemade mints made by Grandma Neubauer, cupcakes, and a cake that Jon and I had a difficult time cutting, and .
      I had decided to wear my dress again, which was lots of fun because I was able to capitalize on my investment and get more wear out of it. I do LOVE that dress, but did not love the fact that it was still just as tight as in Mexico (if not more, since after a week of chowing down on the restaurant portion sizes in the US I wasn´t quite as skinny as I thought I was…). Also I have decided that everyone looks better tan, and since I had just been through a few months of Chilean fall and winter, I was pale as all get out (Jon- I stole your phrase!) and just didn´t feel as beautiful as I did in Mexico. This, coupled with the fact that I had asked the hairdresser to straighten my hair and put flowers in it without trying the do out first, I just didn´t quite feel like myself. It is true that a test-run of hair, dress, and make-up is extremely important so that you feel comfortable on your wedding day. Alas, I gussied myself up in the dress, discovered that the bustle was broken from the last wedding celebration, and that I now had miles and miles of train dragging all over the backyard grass. My dress was made of intricate lace with a tulle overlay at the bottom, so the train basically acted as a superb bug catcher. Every single cricket and spider hanging out in Towanda made it´s way up my dress and got caught in the fabric. Not pleasant…. but luckily Jon´s Grandma is a fabulous seamstress, and so we fixed the bustle, I drank some white wine, and gradually I no longer cared about the fit of the dress, my paleness, or the creepy crawlies inhabiting my gown.
     Magically, also the Towanda fireworks happened to fall on July 5th instead of July 4th this year and so we were treated to our very own fireworks show during our reception. Which was really nice because Jon and I had wanted to honor our China roots during the Cancun celebration with fireworks, but we were only allowed these tiny sparklers, which I think were more the length of the sparklers that would fit on a birthday cake. (Definitely not what we were thinking…) In China not a single slab of concrete can be pored without the requisite bangs and booms of thousands of firecrackers scaring away the evil spirits. Being that we lived in a new subdivision called Golden Pebble Beach, we rose from our beds around 5 AM because of fireworks, we heard them pretty much all day from our classrooms, and we had trouble sleeping at night because of the din. The Towanda fireworks during our reception were a bit like small flashing lanterns in the sky compared to the massive displays we became accustomed to in Dalian, but it was still exciting. The night was made even more special when the DJ turned on the patriotic songs during the fireworks. So there we all were, in Towanda, Illinois, singing along to “I´m proud to be an American” and some Toby Keith jingle about “Putting a boot in your ass, it´s the American way!” But it was our willingness to belt these songs out that led me to believe that perhaps we should slow down on the booze. I guess that almost slipping on the hem of my half broken bustle as Jon spun me around during our first dance could have given me a clue….
     Sadly, the night ended much too quickly as wonderful evenings often do. We were lucky we had decided to go with the tent, because shortly after the fireworks display, it began to pour, and the tent became a necessity. After several trips running through the rain, holding up my skirts so I wouldn´t get them too wet as I hurried to the house bathroom, I realized it was actually raining quite a lot. The rain seemed to be the deal breaker for some party-goers, and so the DJ closed up shop a little early and the rest of us headed inside to partake of some Evans traditions, shots filled with half brandy and amaretto. Yeah, pretty sure I didn´t need those, and I´m sure Jon (who had to get me out of the dress all by himself for the second time in a row) would concur…
      My one regret about the party was that I wish I had been less upset about my appearance at the beginning of the night, and also that I had more time to spend with everybody, but such is life. It made me realize how lucky we were to be able to spend such quality time with all of our guests in Mexico. Many thanks go out to Sandi and Jim who put a lot of hard work into the party and to all those who made the journey. And thanks, also, to Jon´s cousin, Samantha who took some beautiful family photos before the party started. You made me look beautiful, even though I didn´t feel beautiful! Thanks☺ And with that, I guess I will have to hang up that wedding dress for good, as I think a third wedding celebration might be a bit much. Don´t you??!!

 There are lots of things about getting older that aren’t so pleasant.  For one thing, you have to go to work every day, which is much less fun than sitting through a day of classes with your friends, no matter how much my seventh graders complain about how miserable their lives are to me.  For another, you will never look as good as you did when you were twenty.  As my best friend so graciously remarked while we were putting on makeup in the mirror in Chicago the other week, the older you get, the more tiny lines appear around your eyes when you smile.  I guess these are called wrinkles and I guess they have started to appear on my face.  Thanks, Randi- I will forever be indebted to you for pointing that out..…  Anyway, I think one of the best things about getting older is that I appreciate my family much more than I did growing up.  

    As a teacher of teens, I have often admired and also questioned students who seem so close to their parents during my conferences with them.  Aren’t your middle and high school years supposed to be spent getting in fights with your parents and siblings and desperately trying to rebel at any moment possible?  Well, I don’t know about you- but I was definitely a teenage nightmare.  This is one of the reasons that I am hesitant to raise kids myself- KARMA…..  Like any teenager, I was always embarrassed to have my parents hanging around.  Any family trip between the years 1993 and 1999 was most often spent lagging at least a mile behind my parents, rolling my eyes with my sister and viciously criticizing the ill-fitting baseball hat my mother had chosen to wear, or my dad’s misguided outfits complete with shorts, sandals, and knee high socks.  Now that I am wiser, of course, I understand these things are completely superficial and are not important enough to get in the way of your relationship with your parents.  Probably even the most well dressed parents were mocked by their children for some reason or other.

     Since my illness two years ago, time that I have spent with my family has been especially precious and grand.  I have such fond memories of the many months my mom spent with me down in Chile, taking my mind off of cancer and everything bad that was happening to me.  When my sister and dad flew down also, it was the first time the Timms family had spent two weeks together in roughly ten years.  The smiles, laughs, (and no doubt some eye-rolling) from that happy time were definitely a life saver.  It’s true that no matter what, your family will always be there for you.  Recently my sister and parents flew to Chicago to spend time with me in the city before our wedding reception in Towanda, Jon’s hometown.  I met up with my parents in the Parker hotel and had a great day touring the Field museum and showing my mom the sights of Chicago.  She has become quite a photographer and I enjoy stealing the pictures from her and my husband and displaying them proudly as though they were my own.  My dad had to bow out of the windy, mile-long walk along the lakeshore from the Field museum to Millennium Park, as he was having some problems moving about (another side effect of getting older, I suppose.) 

 

Later that evening I treated my parents to a dinner at Tavern at the Park- the first of many calorie laden meals I have treated myself to since I arrived back in the states.   Prime rib, brisket, macaroni and cheese, key lime pie creme brûlée… all of this sounds good until your jeans that you wore home on the airplane no longer fit the same way three weeks later, but that’s a different story for a different time.  This is a blog about the importance of family.  

     My sister, being on a bit of a budget these days, did not fly into Chicago until well after midnight that night so I waited until after dinner to head to her friend’s apartment in Wicker Park and then off we went to the airport.  Her plane was delayed, which made me feel pretty old considering I was so tired I could barely open my eyes to greet her.  However, when we got back to Mira’s apartment, I was thrilled to be able to spend the night on a blow-up mattress with my sister.  You know, so I could feel young again…

    The second day in the city was the first time all four Timmses had been together since my grandmother’s 90th birthday last February.  It was nice to be able to laugh together and our day was truly magical.  I love Chicago in the summer.  It is such a walkable city- full of parks and museums and gorgeously tall buildings.  There is so much to do that is often more just a question of what can you accomplish in however much time you have allotted for the Windy City.  And in typical Timms fashion we had quite a day planned.  We started by touring the Art Institute and hurried of course to our favorite section of any art museum: the Impressionist Gallery.  When we visited Paris when I was about 12 or 13 and just beginning my awkward adolescence, my Aunt Domnica gifted my sister and me a pack of playing cards filled with Impressionist painters: Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Gauguin…  Ever since then it has been an obsession of mine and my sister to find all of the paintings that were depicted in that set of cards.    And who says that art can’t be interesting for kids?  I haven’t forgotten a single painting from that game and that was over twenty years ago.  Good present, Domnica!  After the art museum we took a jaunt over to Millennium Park so dad could see the famous reflective Bean and the Crown fountains that spit water from two, large, LED-screen sculptures depicting various faces of Chicagoans.  With all its quirkiness, Millennium Park is definitely one of my favorite spots in Chicago, and it was really fun to see it with my whole family, even though we were getting a bit cranky from all the walking at this point.  

     For lunch, we ate Chicago dogs in the park as it is the touristy thing to do.  I cheated a little and had an Italian sausage with ketchup (apparently sacrilegious according to Jon), but I despise hotdogs so it was the best I could do.  After the messiest lunch I have eaten in awhile, the four of us headed over to the boat loading docks where we were going to catch our afternoon Architecture Tour.  This was the second time I had taken the tour, but apparently I didn’t retain much of the information on the first trip, because it all seemed pretty new and fascinating to me this time around.  It is a truly memorable way to see Chicago  (or maybe not considering my previous comment…).  When the boat tour ended we convinced dad that it would be worth his while to walk out to Navy Pier and see the sights there.  I have been to Navy Pier several times, but again, it all seemed brand new to me this time around.  (I think possibly that losing your memory is yet another side effect of getting older..)  

     Regardless, Mom, Ali, and I had decided that we needed to ride the ferris wheel and Ali and I decided that we would be willing to pay up to ten dollars to do so.  Luckily, it was only 7 bucks and so we jumped on board and readied our cameras to take pictures of the Chicago skyline in the late afternoon sun.  Normally I am afraid of heights, but the giant wheel seemed pretty safe and secure.  The three of us had a great time ignoring how high we were and instead figured out that the price of the ferris wheel is

exactly one dollar per minute.  When we exited the ferris wheel seven minutes later, we had taken some fantastic photos and were in need of some beer and wings at Harry Caray’s sports bar, a local haunt that the Krumtingers turned me onto several years ago.  It was delish and I’m pretty sure we were all a bit tipsy as we headed off the pier to go eat more food.  Well, if you know anything about Chicago, I am sure you can guess what typical touristy place we went to for dinner….  And if you guessed Uno’s deep dish pizza, you would be right!  We walked from Navy Pier, along Lakefront beach, on Miracle Mile, across Michigan Avenue, and finally found our destination.  Sorry, dad- we probably should have taken a cab!  (It wasn’t as close as it looked on the map).  Forty five minutes later, we were seated around our pizza and I stopped to consider how anyone in the midwest is skinny with all this hearty food around.  I also paused for a moment to take it all in.  Who knows how many more times the entire Timms family will enjoy such a wonderful day together in such a fabulous city?  

     I, for one, am very grateful that we were able to have such a day and thankful that I have outgrown my misguided views of family.  Yes, families are there to annoy you when you’re younger, but they are pretty much the only thing that matters in the long-run.  I hate to use the word “blessed”, so I won’t because I dislike it so much, but my family makes me feel incredibly ……..happy.  Luckily, we still have a few more days to spend with the Krumtingers before we begin the long journey back to Chile and I will be sure to treasure and blog about those as well, as I hope to also blog about the fabulous wedding reception thrown by Jim and Sandi in their backyard.  I guess I have a lot of time to spend in front of my computer in the next couple days.  For now, I will end with a cheesy and inspirational quote that I have no doubt is hanging somewhere in the living room of our bed and breakfast in Grand Haven, Michigan.  Ah yes- I only had to walk around the corner to find one: “Family: we may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”  So profound!

 

 

You may not have known this, but up until July 1st, 2014, Jon and I were not legally married. Our ceremony in Mexico was strictly symbolic due to the fact that we didn’t want to pay the resort fee to make it official; nor did we want a Mexican marriage certificate. Instead, we gave Jim and Sandi the task of finding out how we could make it legal and official when we came back to the United States for our winter/summer break. (I still have trouble referring to July as winter…) So, the day after we touched down in Chicago we were off to the Cook County courthouse in Arlington Heights to pick up our marriage certificate. First of all, I’m not sure why a marriage certificate costs only 60 dollars and requires a few brief details about your life: name of mother, name of father, place of birth of each, and BOOM: you can get married. Whereas getting divorced usually requires lawyers, hassle, and a great deal of pain and money shelled out on either side. They should really make the first process a bit more difficult and then maybe the second process wouldn’t occur so much… Anyway, after calling my father to ensure the information I was giving was accurate, we were rewarded with a marriage certificate and told that in Illinois you need to wait at least one day between getting the certificate and legalizing the marriage.
So, the next day Jon and I dressed casually in white and headed into Chicago with Jim and Sandi in order to make it official in front of an illustrious Cook County judge. Now, I really had no idea what to expect from a courthouse wedding. I had seen a J-Lo rom com that made it look hassle-free and even a bit romantic: large windows letting in heavenly sunshine, wooden benches for your witnesses, there to appreciate the solemn vows, brides dressed in simple white dresses, a judge in a black gown smiling knowingly at the couple. For anyone else planning on getting married in front of a judge, I hate to shatter your illusions, but I want to tell it realistically so you know exactly what you’re getting into. For if you envisioned any romance in your quicky courthouse ceremony, think again!
As we walked down the stately streets of downtown Chicago, we encountered the courthouse directly across from the Daley Center. The building itself was absolutely beautiful: it had a grey, classical exterior and when we stepped inside we were awed by the long corridor filled with American flags and beautiful marble pillars holding up the domed roof. It seemed more like the interior of a gothic cathedral than the sterile federal building in Arlington Heights where we had obtained our certificate. My hopes for the romantic courthouse ceremony continued to build. We wandered around the impressive halls for a bit, looking for the matrimony courts and could not find them. We stopped in the grand entranceway to enquire about directions and received our first indication that the ceremony was going to be more like a trip to the DMV than to the J-Lo courthouse in my imagination. The woman at the information desk was engaged in conversation with her friend and after waiting about a minute, we interrupted her in order to ask for directions to the marriage courts. Her response was brief, irritated, and rather unfriendly… not unlike most customary service that I have grown accustomed to after three years in Chile. I could tell the information dispenser was not pleased we had broken up her important conversation to ask for information. So, back we went through the fancy corridor out to the side doors, where we spied a white sign pointing down an unceremonious set up stairs leading down to the basement where apparently the matrimony courts were located.
The corridor in the basement was dark and drab. There were absolutely no majestic windows in sight. We found the marriage courts and stepped inside to what seemed more like a dreary dentist’s waiting room than the room where happy, joyous couples come to become husband and wife. (Or husband and husband, or wife and wife, as it seemed most of the other couples in the room were waiting to do.) I was then informed that Illinois had recently passed a law making gay marriage legal, so that made a lot of sense to me. We strode up to the window where we handed over our marriage certificate and were told to take a seat after reading a sign posted in the window which said, “Although we know you are very excited about your big day, please keep the noise to a minimum so as not to interrupt the ceremony inside.” Well, I’m pretty sure they didn’t need to post that sign, because no one in that waiting room needed to be told to keep their excitement to a minimum. In fact, if someone had entered that room there is no way they could have known that people were not about to get a mouth full of teeth pulled, but were instead about to be joined in civil union. Jon and I were the only ones in white, and absolutely no one seemed dressed for matrimony. I had heard that American culture was getting more and more casual by the day, but this was ridiculous. One of the female couples had matching Tshirts of what looked to be Calvin peeing on something. One of the bride’s witnesses were wearing the Tshirt in hot pink and the other bride’s family was wearing the Tshirt in neon orange. In addition to said couple, there were two older men carrying briefcases, apparently there to tie the knot on their lunch break. To our right, were also seated two young men trembling with nervousness in plaid shirts, khakis and buzz cuts, with, sadly, no witnesses to accompany them. (They apparently are not privy to my seven year or above third rule regarding a successful marriage…) There was also a rather harried looking mother in jean shorts carrying a small bouquet of flowers with her fiancé and two small children in tow. While we waited for our turn to make a life-long commitment in front of an elected government official, we took some pictures to commemorate the event and tried to pretend as though there wasn’t a giant rust stain on the opposing wall where apparently water had been leaking down into the courthouse basement.
We only had to wait about 20 minutes for the four other couples in front of us to have their ceremonies when we were ushered into the back rooms. An extremely tall and goofy looking judge greeted us and immediately commented on Jon’s height and asked whether he played basketball. As the four of us traipsed into our ceremony room, Jim (Jon’s dad) and Judge McGuire discussed Wisconsin basketball camps that they had both attended. Apparently the judge also knew someone who played at Quincy University, where Jon went to school, so they chatted about that for awhile. In the humorous conversation, Judge McGuire also let it be known that in his lengthy basketball career he played against some NBA stars such as Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. Not a second later, he later proudly proclaimed that his only stint in professional basketball occurred in Iceland. (Do they even have a basketball league there?)
After much laughter, I wondered when the ceremony would be starting. There were no official looking wooden benches, no windows, and nothing on the walls in the tiny, cramped cubicle that was now filled with four people averaging about 6 foot 5 in height, and one shrimpy bride in the corner. It was a pretty comical scenario, as was the ceremony itself. Eventually, the judge began his marriage speal, which he had apparently forgotten most of the words to, because he stumbled through it as though it were his first time.
When he asked Jon if he took me to be his wife, Jon answered, “Yeah.” Judge McGuire replied that Jon would need to at least say “Yes”. He then jokingly followed that up with, “Do you, Elizabeth, take this knucklehead to be your lawfully wedded wife?” I had no choice but to laugh and reply in agreement. Then we were told to face each other and place rings on each other’s fingers. We answered that we already were wearing our rings, which seemed to fluster the judge quite a bit because he stammered out something about a ring being a circle of life, and then hurried up to the magical kiss between husband and wife. After we sealed the deal, the other marriage judge in Cook County, a tiny woman with a large, curly hairdo, appeared in the doorway and declared that we were having too much fun and then proceeded to make fun of Judge McGuire. We then learned that the judge himself had, in his own words, “dodged a bullet” and had never been married. Apparently our marriage judge does not hold such a high opinion of the institution… If that had been my only wedding ceremony, to tell the truth, I would have been very disappointed. But, as my newly official father in law pointed out, at least I would remember that ceremony forever. So off we went, to another official building to get certified copies of the certificate and to celebrate being husband and wife with a fabulous day in the city. All kidding aside, it was an unforgettable wedding day! (If anyone has any equally ridiculous courthouse ceremony stories to share, I’d be happy to hear them:-))

One of the most difficult things about choosing to live your life abroad is that the world of international teaching is extremely transient.  People come and go.  For brief periods of time these people become your family, and it is extremely sad to watch your family get smaller and smaller as time goes on.  Three years ago we started out as 15 fresh-faced newbies, bound and determined to make Santiago our new home.  I don’t think that on that winter’s day in July of 2011, any of us could have dreamed what our lives would have been like now.  Over the past three years, we have done and seen so much.  In just our small group of 15 people, so much has changed: we’ve set up homes, established friendships, developed traditions, lost jobs, got new jobs, got engaged, got married, had kids, battle diseases… We’ve traveled, laughed, visited many, many wineries and made amazing memories.  I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world, but somehow, when people leave, it always makes me feel like it’s time to move on.  Will Santiago still feel like home now that many of our nearest and dearest friends have left?

When you live outside of the country it is difficult to define the concept of home: is it where you grew up?  Is it where you currently live?  Is it where your family members reside?  For me, home is that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you are surrounded by people and things you recognize and love.  For the past three years, Santiago has been that home for me.  Home has been me, laying on my couch, wallowing with Chingy in front of the TV in our terracotta living room.  Home is trying out a new recipe in our kitchen on a Saturday as Agustina does the laundry: preparing for some gathering or barbeque or party or what-not. Home is watching the sun peeking up over the Andes mountains covered in snow as Jon drives us to work.  Home is me, trying desperately to fit my car into the miniscule parking spaces in the basement of Clinica Alemana, where I have unfortunately spent many a day in the past two years.  Home is watching Chingy chase rabbits and birds in the park near my house as Jon and I walk around the path, catching glimpses of the Costanera Center when it is not obscured by smog.  Yes: all of those things have been home for me.  But mostly it’s been the people.  The most amazingly strong and supportive group of friends a person can ask for.  And it breaks my heart to have to say goodbye.  However, that is life.  Things change, people change, and all you can do, is cherish the memories of the time you were able to spend together.  Instead of being sad, it is best to smile, laugh, and vow to see each other in the future.

    I recently received the most wonderful wedding gift from my dearest sissy-wissy.  She put together a book for me and Jon where people from all different parts of our life had written us messages and sent in pictures of us through the ages.  Flipping through the pages of that book, I now realize that home is not really a place.  Superficially I realized that over the course of my thirty three years I have apparantely changed my hairstyle a lot and have either eaten more or stopped playing as much soccer… hahah!  I have spent a lot of time in many places: Rhode Island, England, North Carolina, Houston, Los Angeles, China, and Chile.  And I have made many amazing friends.  All of those people and places pictured in the book make up who I am today.  Reading the words that you all wrote have filled me with so much love that my heart is full to bursting.  Literally, I am writing this blog now so I can stop crying and get some sleep.  Thank you to everyone who has made me and Jon a part of your world.  We love you so very much.  As long as we have all of you in our life, we will always have a home, no matter what continent we live on.

     The venerable Buddha once said, “holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone. You are the one who gets burned.” If this is true, then this blog entry is my attempt to release the coal before I go up in flames.

     Anger is a strange and tyrannical emotion. If left unchecked it can consume you whole. For me, the feeling usually comes out of nowhere and brings on a wrath of disproportionate size for one so small. I can spend all day being uber- sweet to all my students; smiling and answering their often-ridiculous questions with the greatest of patience. But when I get home I can blow up over the most minute, inconsequential details: misplacing a piece of paper, discovering that the yogurt in the fridge is strawberry and not vanilla, watching Jon take heaps of un-sauced spaghetti while leaving all the sauce, veggies, and meat in the bottom of the pan…   And that was just yesterday!    

     Anger management is not a new problem for me. While having dinner with Jess in Sao Paulo the other weekend he reminded me of several incidents in my early twenties where I totally lost it and then proceeded to smooth all of it over and pretend like it never happened. And that was a long time before cancer, before I had something that truly deserved my anger. So, I guess, my anger problems have not appeared suddenly, out of nowhere. Unfortunately the past year has only served to make them much worse.

     I don´t think going through what I have been through is an excuse to let your anger fly whenever you feel like it, but I will admit it does make it difficult for me to control my emotions at times. The other day I arrived at school after a busy weekend chaperoning a middle school Model United Nations trip to Brazil. For three straight days we were up early and with the kids from morning until night. We left at 5:30 AM on Friday and I arrived home on Sunday night at 1 AM. I was tired, cranky, and had to fast all day because I was scheduled to take all of my one-year post cancer tests after school. I was in no mood to talk to anyone. I was beyond exhausted, stressed because of the tests, and incredulous as to why it was so cold and so dark at 7:30 in the morning. All I really wanted to do was get in my classroom, finish the grading that I did not finish over the weekend, and simply get through the day. Unfortunately everyone wanted to talk to me to find out how the trip had gone. It would have been very easy for me to gush about how amazing the conference was and how well the kids did, because both of those statements were incredibly true. Instead I nearly bit the heads off of anyone who dared to greet me. My poor friend, Amy, was first in line. Instead of answering her simple question of, “How´d it go?” with the polite and expected response of, “It went great,” I said, “I don´t really feel like talking this morning,” in just about the most curt, stand-off-ish tone that I could muster. Realizing that my reaction was completely inappropriate I put my lunch away in the fridge and hurried to the bathroom to gather myself before anyone else could become a victim of Hurricane Eli. After several deep breaths I emerged and apologized for my behavior. Luckily we are good enough friends that she completely understood and did not harbor ill will.

     But this is what I mean by anger. It is a like an untamed beast that rears its ugly head at the most inopportune times. It requires a tremendous amount of effort to safely secure it back in its cage where it belongs. I don´t enjoy being angry. In fact, I am often embarrassed by this side of me. Evil Eli is not an alter ego I am especially proud of, and is most certainly not the one I would like people to remember me by. Most of all, I realize that this anger I am holding inside prevents me from embracing the good points of life, and causes me to instead focus on the bad things that I often have no control over.

     I have never been, nor probably ever will be, a religious person. But after unleashing all the bitterness that I have recently, I do want to take a moment to count my blessings and remind myself that there are still a lot of amazing things going my way. Against all odds, I was just given a clean bill of health: I am officially one year in remission! I recently spent Easter weekend on the beautiful island of Chiloe with Jon and two other friends. Most people don´t have the time or finances to even dream of the type of travel I regularly participate in. And also, I am a newly wed with a loving and supportive husband who has dealt with my anger in the most amazing way. Sometimes his love and patience seems so unwavering that it is like a mirror reflecting back at me, forcing me to see that I actually have nothing to be angry about at all. (Which, of course, sometimes makes me even more infuriated… Haha!)

   And with that, my friends, I will stop my complaining and officially release the hot coal with the hope that it smolders and dies out before anyone else gets burned.

So, it´s been about a year now since I was officially diagnosed as being in remission from cancer. Which, of course, is a joyous statement, but also a nerve-racking one as well. Recently I have spent many a moment contemplating this milestone and wondering if everything is still okay. I´m back into the swing of things at work; which means, I´m back to feeling tired most of the day, feeling nauseous in the morning, and having some pounding fatigue headaches when I get home. Which of course, may just be normal side effects of having a job, but could also be a sign that my immune system is struggling. In addition, I´m having some short-term memory loss, which I can usually play off as me being old, but sometimes can be worrisome. After Jon admitted that he, too, had noticed some of my memory loss, I did some research. Apparently chemo-brain is a real condition, and many people continue to experience these symptoms 1-2 years after treatment. Sometimes the condition worsens and stays with you forever. So far I´ve only not been able to remember little, inconsequential things, but trust me- it´s not fun to be experiencing symptoms of old age at 32.

In addition to the headaches and fatigue, I am having some pain above my left breast: It is particularly tender to the touch in certain places. This, again, could just be a normal side effect of radiation and surgery, but it definitely takes my mind to some not-so- good places. Since the beginning of January I have been doing a physical therapy of sorts on the reconstructed breast. Of course, no one mentioned the need for breast therapy to me before the surgery, but apparently all women with implants need physical therapy afterwards in order to prevent the implant from hardening up under layers of scar tissue. In order to loosen up the scar tissue, the kinesiologist basically manhandles the breast throughout a series of the most painful “massages” I´ve ever had in my life. My kinesiologist is really nice and I like her very much, but wow can that tiny Columbian woman inflict some monster-sized pain with the palms of her hands!! Apparently her job is to figure out what part of the breast is the most disfigured, painful, tight or sore, and try to force the radiated scar tissue that exists there to break apart so the implant can move deeper into the socket. She achieves this by pinching the skin, rotating the implant, violently shaking the skin, or pressing down so deeply onto the skin that she has to stand up and use all of her weight. My job is to grimace, grip the sheets, and attempt to stifle my cries of pain. Luckily, the massages seem to be worth it since I have seen great improvements in the way the breast looks and moves since she started the treatment. Some of my skin now bounces back like real skin, the breast is more rounded and less lumpy looking, and I have increased my nerve sensitivity. There definitely are still some areas, though, that you could hit with a sledge- hammer and I wouldn´t feel a thing. And I will most certainly never be able to wear an outfit without a bra, because the breasts are still not in the same place, nor are they the same size. Last week, I explained to the therapist about the pain I was experiencing on the left-hand side of my chest, and she said that she had felt something there also, but attributed it to something called radiation fibrosis symptom: I´ve attached an article in case you would like to know more… It doesn´t feel like a tumor, it just feels kind of like painful knots deep in the muscle tissue. So, the kinesiologists words were reassuring, but of course, I wasn´t just going to take her word for it: I wanted to see what my doctor had to say about it.

Due to all my summer travel, I hadn´t actually seen my oncologist since January 23rd. Needless to say I was a little worried about my meeting with him this afternoon, since it´s probably about time for me to get some of my post-cancer checkups. Dr. Majlis, however, was his normal, cheery self and examined me and said that if I generally feel good and have no symptoms then there is no reason to get a pet scan. However, he did understand that I was nervous and so he went ahead and scheduled a thorax/ abdomen scan and also a pelvic x-ray. He said it was for my piece of mind. Well, let me tell you- those are going to be some scary exams.
I think what makes this time so nerve-racking for me is that I still can´t figure out why my body responded so well to the treatment. Although I continue to stop myself from reading statistics, I do know that most recurrences of cancer happen within 12-18 months of treatment. How is it that over a year ago, I had cancer coursing throughout my entire body and yet now I am perfectly fine? It just doesn´t seem right. And also it doesn´t seem likely. It´s not like I dedicated my life to finding what foods would be most healthy for a recovering cancer patient. I didn´t stop drinking, I didn´t switch to organic fruits and vegetables, and I didn´t cut out red meat. I didn´t juice, or cleanse, or remove dairy from my diet. In addition, I am subjecting my body to some very powerful drugs every three weeks, which I know is not good for me. For example, Herceptin is known to be extremely tough on the heart and my cardiologist expressed disbelief during my last exam that my doctor was planning on giving me Herceptin for the rest of my life. “Oh no,” he shook his head disapprovingly. “that´s not good for the heart.” Well, honestly who really knows what is worse: possibly getting a heart attack, or possibly having the cancer return. Tough Call! When I brought this fear up to the doctor, he once again told me the story of his one patient who has been on Herceptin for 10 years and is perfectly healthy, so… there´s that to pin my hopes on, I guess.
I think the not knowing is possibly the most difficult part about being a cancer survivor, especially when your cancer was severe. It makes it hard for me to make long-term plans, because I never can be sure what even the immediate future is going to bring. How can I think about adopting a child or moving to a new country or retirement if I have no clear vision of what my life will be like next month? I could go into the doctor again after the tests, and find out that my health is in jeopardy again. Or I could go in and they could say I´m fine.
Some people may say, “Well- everybody has this same problem of not knowing what the future will bring. Why are you so worried?¨ And I get it- I could die in a car wreck or get hit by lightning, or my plane could mysteriously disappear over the Indian Ocean. You never know what´s going to happen, but it sure is scary! Don´t worry: I don´t think about death on a daily basis and I certainly don´t let it stop me from living my life. But sometimes, just sometimes, it hits me and I am overwhelmed with sadness. Did you know that every single day over 20,000 people die of cancer worldwide? It seems like every week, someone that I know is newly diagnosed: my best friend´s grandmother, a co-worker, my mom´s best friend, a former teacher, a student´s mother…. The list goes on and on. And you can forget about watching movies or TV shows, or reading books, or browsing on the Internet, because cancer is there too. Sadly, it´s everywhere. According to an article I read on CNN, (oops-I guess I broke my no reading statistics rule) the chances of someone dying of cancer these days are 1 in 5. One in FIVE! Cancer has now surpassed heart disease as the leading killer in the United States. And believe me, those mortality rates are much higher if you ever had cancer in the past. So, as you can see, I have a lot to worry about. But, on the other hand, why worry? I know that if I get cancer again I will just have to deal with it. I will have no other choice. The more I dread it, the worse it will be if it does come true. In short, I think what I´m trying to say is that I should go to bed now and think happy thoughts. I should plan my future as though I were any other person who´s life has not been affected by this disease. Some days it is going to be tough, but hopefully I´ll just keep on being a cancer survivor and adding more candles to my celebratory cancer remission cakes.

During our weeklong wedding vacation in Cancun, Mexico, my father in law wisely said to me that life is a constant cycle of anticipating big events, living off the memories of those big events, and anticipating more events in the future. I find this statement to be incredibly true, especially when applied to weddings. You spend hours upon hours planning the event, agonizing over the minor and sometimes trivial details of the day, looking forward to seeing your friends and family, and of course wondering what the day will be like. You anticipate the event for months, you have an AMAZING two or three days, and then, Blink!… it´s over and you have to return to normal life. Then you wait for the pictures to arrive so you can re-live the memories.
Jon and I had begun planning our wedding a long time ago: just before my diagnosis we had put down a deposit to hold our day of January 19, 2014 at the gourmet, all-inclusive Azul Beach Resort. Of course, last year, during my treatment, a wedding was about the furthest thought from our minds and we put the plans on hold. However, as soon as the news came back that I was in remission we decided to go ahead and continue with the originally scheduled wedding. It seemed that a life celebration was in order and we wanted to formally acknowledge our commitment to each other.
Originally we chose a destination wedding because we wanted to be able to spend multiple days with friends and family since we rarely get to see them, being that we live abroad. In addition, I have always wanted to get married on a beach, and what better beach to be married on than one on the Mayan Riviera? We also thought that people in the northern United States, like Jon´s family, wouldn´t object to traveling somewhere warm in the dead of winter. Of course, there are multiple problems with destination weddings since they are expensive for guests and usually require people to take time off of work. Due to those facts, we scheduled our wedding around the Martin Luther King weekend so hopefully people would have more time to spend with us. As far as the expense goes, we figured that if people wanted to come spend a vacation with us and were financially able to do so, they would; and if they just couldn´t make it for whatever reason, then they wouldn´t be able to make it. To help ease our consciences, Jim and Sandi offered to have a hometown reception in July at their house in Illinois for those who were unable to make it to Mexico. I am very excited that not only do I get to wear my expensive dress twice, but also that we will get to celebrate our relationship with even more of our friends and family in just a few months.
After all was said and done, 42 fun and amazing people decided to join us in Mexico for, what I would call, a picture-perfect wedding…. or, as my father has often referred to it since, a “fantasy wedding”. Although I´m not entirely sure which connotations the word “fantasy” carries in his context, I do think the word fantasy is appropriate for our wedding, considering the exotic setting and the multiple events we had planned before the nuptials took place. For starters, Azul Beach was definitely the most luxurious place I´ve ever stayed in… and I´m glad, considering it was also by far the most expensive place I´ve ever stayed in. When we arrived, we were treated to glasses of blue bubbly as we hand selected our pillows and room scents. Ridiculous and unnecessary, yes… but also a super fun treat after the year we´ve had. Jon and I upgraded to a swim up suite which was about the size of our living area back home in Santiago, contained a Jacuzzi tub, and allowed us to jump from our balcony into the pool. Again, totally ridiculous and unnecessary, but a room I will never forget. I won´t go on and on about the resort´s amenities because it will make me sound like a spoiled brat, but let´s just say that the location was “fantastical”. The staff took care of all of our needs and everyone had a fabulous time. (Hopefully the guests were even able to forget how much it cost. Hahaha!)

I am not going to go into great detail about all the events of the wedding weekend due to the aforementioned spoiled brat status, but on Friday Jon and I booked a private catamaran and took some of the guests on a snorkeling, sunset cruise aboard the Fat Cat sailing vessel. I will never forget looking around and seeing our friends and family basking in the sun´s rays on the nets at the front of the boat, chasing after stingrays and sea turtles in the turquoise water, or jumping off the boat with beer in hand in order to wallow in the ocean. Much rum punch was consumed and spirits were high: it was definitely my favorite experience besides the actual wedding itself. That night my sister arranged for all the ladies to get together and they gave me some thoughtful gifts and we spent a bit of boozy time in the tequila bar remembering the good ole days. I love those girls!

Saturday, some of the guests decided to tour the neighboring Mayan ruins while the rest of us enjoyed the beach cabañas. That evening, Jon and I had arranged for a salsa instructor to come and give a lesson on the beach since we had been taking lessons in Santiago. The colors in the sky as the sun set were brilliant; however, about 15 minutes into the lesson it became clear that a storm was on the horizon. The wind picked up and dark, black clouds approached ominously in the sky. Our instructor, replete with cleavage-bearing, flouncy dance ensemble and pink and purple hair extensions kept a smile on her face and told us not to worry. She didn´t think it would rain and contended that the storm would blow over. As I watched the wait staff scramble around righting the hurricane lamps that had blown over on the tables where we were to have our Mexican beach barbeque, I knew that we would have to go with plan B for the evening´s meal. Eventually, the salsa instructor moved us to a covered pool bar to finish the lesson while the hotel staff braved the rain drops and changed the location of our bbq. The food was yummy and the location ended up being just fine for our group. The weather even cooperated in order to allow us to finish the evening with a bonfire on the beach, complete with Smores, brought to us from the United States by our wedding officiants, the Popes. Jon and I were both exhausted from the previous evening´s activities and so we called it an early night in preparation for the wedding day.

The weather on Sunday morning was a bit gloomy and caused many to wonder if there was a back-up plan for the ceremony in case the beach location wasn´t going to work out. Strangely, I was not phased by anything that day, and knew that no matter where the ceremony was held, at the end of the day, Jon and I would be married, and that everyone would have had a great time regardless. Luckily, the afternoon provided us with the clearest, sunniest skies of the entire vacation so we were in luck! At 1:30, I went to the spa where my lovely hairdresser, Irma, was successfully able to wrangle my short, curly mane into an acceptable wedding hairstyle, completely with sparkly Swarovski headband rented from Adorn.com. She also successfully applied my make-up and perfected the smoky eye concept while making up for my lack of eyelashes by inserting fake ones. The ladies also did a nice job beautifying my two bridesmaids (Ali and Randi) and my mother in law. After that, it was back to the room where the photographers were waiting to capture those awkward pictures of the bride trying to fit into her cumbersome, yet beautiful dress. Since I had purchased the dress in Chile neither bridesmaid had been to the fittings with me in order to learn how to lace up the back or bustle the train. So we had to watch some videos in Spanish that the store clerk had taken for me while the ladies attempted to strategically yank down tulle. I am looking forward to seeing those pictures for sure! We even had time for some cheesy mother-daughter pictures and a few of me sipping rum out of a straw poked in a coconut. After that, I was whisked off to the beach just in time for our 4:00 ceremony, where I found our wedding party waiting in line to walk down the aisle. One of the highlights had to be the cute-as-a-button flower girl, Jon´s niece Harper. Although I have not yet seen the video, apparently she attempted a few times to throw some rose petals before figuring out that all eyes were on her and scuttling down to the end of the aisle in order to give Uncle Jon a hug. Too cute!
To be honest, I don´t remember much about the actual ceremony itself, except that the tropical colors really popped. I remember that Elliot and Renea did an extremely good job leading the ceremony, and that Elliot even let forth a tear or two. I sang a song with the bridesmaids, Elliot, and Jon´s aunt, and Jon and I both had lovely vows for one another that I was able to deliver without bursting into tears. The ceremony seemed like it lasted all of about 10 seconds, but apparently was more like 25 minutes, which seemed about perfect. Another favorite flashback was turning to face the guests to take in the moment and seeing all those smiling faces. (And also the faces of the resort onlookers… One stranger even came up to me after the wedding and told me that my wedding was so beautiful, she cried…. Interesting!) I also enjoyed walking back down the aisle as the guests tossed their beach balls in the air. (Yes- I stole that idea on pinterest from a previous Azul Beach bride…) After the ceremony, guests headed up to the Sky Deck for cocktail hour while Jon and I took romantic pictures on the beach, which I apparently still need to wait another month to see. Sad… Anyway, the cocktail hour location was out of this world as we had a rooftop view of the surrounding area and were serenaded by a Yucatan Trio as the sun came down. Again, “fantasty wedding” comes to mind! After cocktail hour we moved back down to the beach before entering the reception. Since Jon and I met in China we thought it would be a great idea to incorporate fireworks into the wedding since no event worth mentioning in China goes on without the accompanying light displays. We weren´t allowed to actually set off fireworks (HUGE bummer…) but instead were promised sparklers. It turns out that the sparklers they were able to find were about as long as a toothpick and much more suitable for decorating a cake than for making a lighted arch for the bride and groom to walk through. I am looking forward to laughing a LOT when I see those pictures….
The reception was fabulous. The decorations looked beautiful, the food was good and served right on time, and Jon and I successfully showed off our salsa moves during our first dance. My favorite part of the reception would have to be the balloons, bubbles, and glow sticks provided by the DJ, and also the tear-jerker speeches provided by friends and family on both sides. Cancer was mentioned a lot in the speeches, but despite everyone´s best efforts to turn me into a blubbering fool, luckily I was able to hold it together. I do find it quite amazing that just over a year ago it seemed unlikely that I would ever be able to attend my wedding ceremony in Mexico, and yet- there I was, in the dress, surrounded by life-long friends, and taking tequila shots with my mother. Good times!

Needless to say, once most of the guests left the next day, and I was able to emerge from my bed despite my terrific tequila hangover, the resort seemed a bit lonely. The luxurious tropical location just wasn´t the same without a big event to look forward to and friends and family to celebrate with. Before returning home, however, we did enjoy a nice visit to the ruins of Chichen Itza and were able to spend more time with Jon´s family and some of the other guests who had chosen to extend the vacation as well. And so, as the saying goes, Jon and I successfully got hitched, in a truly romantic place, and are left with lasting memories of a fantasy wedding. I, for one, would like to thank those of you who came from the bottom of my heart. I truly had such a wonderful time with each and every one of you. I thank my family and Jon´s family who made the sacrifices to be there to celebrate with us and not give us any grief about having a wedding in a non-traditional way.
And lastly, I´d like to thank my new husband, for sticking with me through the tough times, laughing with me through the good, and agreeing to be my partner in life. Despite my mixed feelings about marriage and weddings, I know that we have made the right decision and look forward to anticipating more big events with you. I have included my vows since I think they sum up our relationship pretty well. Besitos, Love Bug!

Jon:
The words “in sickness and in health” carry new meaning for me now. We´ve been through so much together, both good and bad… we survived three years in Dalian, China together, we´ve traveled the globe and seen so many amazing things. We´ve moved continents, savored countless bottles of Chilean wine, and acquired a pair of furry Mongol warriors only to lose one a month ago. Last year we faced our biggest challenge so far: we battled cancer and won… I am so proud and excited to be standing here with you today. Your kindness, patience, humor, and empathy have meant more to me than you´ll ever know. Having you in my life has made it that much easier to smile, laugh, and live life with a positive outlook. And so, today, in front of our family and friends on this beautiful beach here in Mexico, I vow to you the following:
I vow to cherish every moment I spend with you, whether it´s on one of our grand travel adventures, or a simple evening walking Chingy and cooking dinner at home.
I promise to focus on the good times rather than let life´s problems prevent us from making happy memories together.
And lastly I vow to spend the rest of my life caring for you and supporting you as you have done for me.
I will love you forever.
TOO