From Chemo To Kili

What happens when life throws you a curveball, and you find the strength to climb the highest peaks?  Today I talk about breast cancer and how training for Kilimanjaro has pulled me out of a big slump.

Enjoy~

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Two and a half years ago, I found a lump in my breast that turned out to be breast cancer. I don't want to talk about this, and it gutted me. It was the worst thing that I've ever been through. Anyway, I don't really want to talk about cancer so much today. Talk about cancer so much today. Instead, I want to talk about how preparing for Kilimanjaro and getting my body healthy and strong again has helped me just come out of this deep, dark, sad, dark, sad, depressed, hopeless place that I was in not too long ago.

Speaker 1: 0:49

When you receive a cancer diagnosis, it's kind of like you get this really, really bad news and then you have all these appointments, you meet your medical team and they come up with a plan for you and you kind of just get on this roller coaster and you just ride the roller coaster throughout the entire cancer journey and then you get to the end of the roller coaster and you get off the roller coaster but you're still feeling dizzy and weird and weak and strange and you don't know what to expect. Because it's like you did it you went through treatment, you rang the bell at the end, you did all the hard things. It was painful, miserable, uncomfortable, terrible, horrible. And then you get to the end of the ride and it's like what next? I think for most cancer patients that's a really difficult transition, because you go from being this sick cancer patient to, all of a sudden, trying to reintegrate back into this world that seems so different and so foreign. I felt lonely, I felt depressed, I was sad and I couldn't figure out why I was so depressed because I thought I did it. I just went through cancer treatment. There's no evidence of disease in my body. Why is it that I feel so sad instead of so happy? And it took me a while to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 2:30

And I think for me, the reason that I felt so sad coming out of cancer treatment was that I just felt like the future was so uncertain. I felt like it was so hopeless and I was terrified of cancer coming back and having to go through treatment all over again. In fact, I'm still terrified of that. The one thing that's helped me overcome these feelings like I don't know what the future holds, there's so much I don't know. I don't know how my health is going to be in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. I just I just feel like there's these moments I have where the uncertainty of the future can just bring me to my knees and take me to a really sad, scary place. And this fear of the future was so real that it was keeping me from making plans and keeping me from, you know, buying that plane ticket for that trip six months out. It was keeping me from putting things on out. It was keeping me from putting things on the calendar. It was keeping me from wanting to do those things, because I just felt like what if I put that big trip on the calendar and then I get sick and then I have to cancel it and then I lose a lot of money? And it kept me from doing a lot of the things that I felt like I wanted to do, coming out of cancer treatment and feeling like I was given the second chance at life.

Speaker 1: 4:02

One thing that's helped me kind of get over this has actually been to prepare to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. When I put Mount Kilimanjaro on the schedule in March of 2023, I wasn't even a year out of treatment, but I knew that I needed a big cancer finish line, that I needed a big goal, that I needed something to work towards. I will say that putting Kilimanjaro on my calendar gave me a purpose and it gave me a goal. It gave me something to work towards. It gave me a reason to get out of bed every single day and come out to beautiful spaces like this to train my body and my mind to prepare for this expedition. I don't know what the future holds, but all this time spent walking out here in nature has taught me that I don't need to be afraid of whatever comes next. It's taught me that I'm strong enough to deal with it, and so, while I didn't want to make a video about cancer today, I felt like I should make a video about cancer, because there's so many women in our community who are going through difficult things. Not necessarily cancer could be cancer, but women going through difficult relationships, breakups, divorces, trauma, illness, sadness, disease all of these difficult things. Today, if you're watching this video and you're feeling sad and hopeless and depressed, if you're feeling scared of the future, scared of uncertainty, you just feel like things are impossible right now, I'm going to challenge you to set a big, scary goal your own personal Mount Kilimanjaro but set a goal big enough that it's going to motivate you and inspire you to get out of bed every single day and to strengthen your body and your mind. Now I don't know if I'm going to make it to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, and if I don't, that's okay, because what I've learned along the way has been incredible and I'm not going to stop climbing mountains. And I'm not gonna stop climbing mountains and I'm not gonna just give up and I'm not gonna let cancer win. I always thought that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro was gonna be my cancer finish line, but I don't think so. I think it's just the start. I think it's just the start of incredible things to come in the future.

Speaker 1: 6:35

This is Rebecca. I'm the founder of hike like a woman. I'm signing out because I'm getting on an airplane tomorrow and heading to Mount Kilimanjaro. If you want to learn more about what we do here at hike like a woman, you can find us hike like a womancom. If you have any questions about any of our upcoming trips or adventures, or if you want to join us for our Mount Kilimanjaro climb in August of 2025, head on over to our website and you can learn more, or fire off an email to my team. Hi at hikelikeawomancom. Thanks so much. The next update you're going to have from me is going to be from Mount Kilimanjaro. Take care, see you next time.