Cancer Slayer

“Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see.

You choose.” – Bob Proctor

On a cool Thursday morning last week when the marine layer began to ascend over the Pacific Ocean and Newport Beach Bay, my husband and I wandered into a small gift shop on Balboa Island.

It was a tchotchke collectors dream. The store was packed with tiny figurines, trucker hats with “Beach please,” scrolled across the top, earrings, candles and black blocks with white inspirational and irreverent quotes in all caps across them like “PILATES? OH HELL NO. I THOUGHT YOU SAID PIE AND LATTES.”

My sweet husband, who spends most of his life thinking of others, saw it first. In a glass window, facing the street, the 5-inch-by-7-inch block read: “CANCER TOUCHED MY LIFE SO I KICKED ITS ASS.”

“We should get this for your mom,” he said.

“Yeeeees,” I replied. “Absolutely. Yes.”

The shop owner wrapped up that block in tissue paper, tucked it into a gift bag, and we headed back to the beach house we rented for the week to give my mom her gift.

Two months ago, I didn’t think she would make this trip.

My mom was diagnosed with a non-aggressive form of lymphoma about a year ago. In January, I wrote about her turning 74 and starting treatment. The last line of the story was the one that we all clutched tightly: “My mom is a 74-year-old cancer slayer. Remember that, mom.”

Her first treatment was three days after her birthday, and I watched my mom go from a TABATA and Bootcamp extraordinaire, to hospital-bound in what felt like overnight. I was in Louisiana, and she was in New York, and my fiercely independent mom turtled inward, choosing to be sick alone, not wanting to burden anyone. I felt helpless as she repeatedly refused my help.

I’m thankful that February was the shortest month of the year because it was her worst. The six-hour chemo session that she sat through once per month was tolerable but the pills that she had to take daily, wreaked havoc on her body – headaches and heart palpitations, relentless vomiting.

I was 23 hours away from her in a different time zone, worried and scared, wanting to help but knowing I couldn’t do anything to fix it. She was hospitalized for dehydration and too weak to eat. She lost 12 pounds and spent weeks on her couch. I relied heavily on her friends and boyfriend who she has been with for nearly 30 years, to provide updates. They took good care of her and reminded me that she retreated when she was ill and that was her way and we had to respect that.

If my mom was the cancer slayer, my brother, sister and I were her army in waiting, ready for the signal to go to her. It’s a tough place to be in when you have to respect the boundaries your parents set but also want to bust through them to fix and help and do. She didn’t want us there and made that very clear. But the more immobile she became, the more mobilized we were. We waited with our proverbial go bags and our Expedia links bookmarked, ready to show up.

I spent every morning meditating, setting intentions, dipping into my vast toolbox for help, reminding myself what was in my control and what wasn’t. I processed every feeling, survived on very little sleep and leaned heavily on those around me as I prayed for a full recovery for my mom. I had two choices: Spend my energy expecting the worst or spend my energy hoping for the best.

I chose to hope for the best.

Thankfully, March rolled in like a lamb.

That’s when she started to feel better. She sounded better. She was back to work and back to working out and leaning into what she described as a “beautiful boring life that she loved” and her third round of chemo was seamless. Her doctor decided she could discontinue the daily pill, and her headaches and heart palpations were gone.

I booked my mom’s flight to California before I believed she would really be there. I added every single safety net offered – trip insurance, priority seating so the ticket would be refundable, her own bedroom and bathroom in the house. I picked a house on the bay with a yellow door because she had recently painted her front door yellow. It felt like fate to me and good luck, a manifestation of happiness, and I leaned hard into the universe responding in kind.

On April 16, less than a week before we left for California, I got the best phone call from my mom.

“My PET scan results are back,” she said. “It’s gone. There is no more cancer left in my body.”

I was in the middle of a media event when I got that call. I had stepped out of the home they were filming in, and I stood in the backyard, my heart in my chest and tears, poking at the corners of my eyes, as I silently screamed and rejoiced the news that I had hoped we would get. The chemo worked, and her body helped fight the cancer that had invaded it.

I told my mom I loved her, and I was so incredibly happy and I walked back into that house, filled with gratitude and relief, shedding the weight of the fear and unknown.

She got to go on our California trip. Her flights were on time, she loved the house with the yellow door and the cancer slayer did everything she wanted to do on that trip – she walked the island, she went paddle boarding, she biked alongside the Pacific Ocean, and she spent time with us, laughing and being her.

When she opened up the gift my husband and I got her, she leaned her head back and laughed. I love her laugh because it stretches from the corner of her mouth to her eyes, and she leans her head back and feels it throughout her body.

“Thank you,” she said. “The cancer slayer did it. I did it!”

April 29, 2025