My mom's diagnosis

I debated whether I wanted to write this post or not. I like to keep things to myself and am normally a pretty private person. But in the end I decided to write about it for two reasons: one, my mom's diagnosis has become a major part of the rest of the trip for me, and it would be hard to overlook on my blog. Two, many of my readers are close with my family or my parents, and would be interested in hearing how it plays into my ride. So here it is.

July 22nd started out just like any other day on the 4K. We got a slow start from Logan because of the dorms, but it wasn't a big deal because it was "only" a 78-mile day. Basically by now, any mileage under 80 means a short day.

At mile 20, we crossed into Idaho!

It was a lot of rolling hills, a lot of desert, and not a lot of towns. We were pretty much on the same road the entire day, so we were just chugging along.

A small town we passed through - check out the Western vibe!

Reservoir

We stopped to pet a horse..

Really cool looking farm

We were out in the middle of nowhere for most of the day and nobody had cell service. At the lunch stop we were informed that the last group was wayyyy behind us and the water van wasn't sure if they'd be able to get us another water stop before the end of the day. They told us there was a gas station about 12 miles down the road and that we should stop and refill there in case we didn't get another water stop.

When we stopped I checked my phone while waiting for my teammates to go to the bathroom, and saw I had a text from my mom. She was asking me if I had time to call her later. The tone of it was slightly out of the ordinary and I just had a bad feeling about it. Since I had time anyway while I was waiting I called her right away. She picked up and I asked her if everything was okay.

Immediately I could tell it was not. I asked repeatedly what was wrong and became more frantic as she struggled to tell me. A million possibilities rushed through my mind, escalating in severity as I heard the emotion in her voice. Finally she told me the news that she has cancer.

I never expected those words to come out of my mom's mouth. I would've expected anything but that. How could this happen? My mom isn't even 50 and she's the healthiest person I know. I actually wrote a little about that in this post, after she joined me for a 40-mile training ride on her 20-year old mountain bike (aka at a huge disadvantage, and still kept up with me).

If you think I'm crazy for biking across the country, you should see my mom. She exercises 6 days a week, no matter how busy she is -- and with a daily 2-hour commute, job with the Department of Defense and three active children, if anyone has an excuse not to work out, it's her, but she does it every day anyway. She'll be up at 4 am if she has to. She also eats super healthy and is an amazing cook -- she's always fed my family top notch food. She has never smoked and never puts anything bad into her body at all. We always joke about how she is going to live forever and she says she is going to have to engage in "risky behaviors" after the age of 70 so she doesn't "overstay her welcome."

So needless to say this news put me in complete and total shock. I immediately went into hysterics, unable to believe this and overwhelmed with fear. My parents both talked to me and explained the situation. In a routine physical it was discovered that my mom's liver enzyme levels were a big high. Not an immediate cause for concern, but she needed to get a CT scan to check it out.

That scan came back with more questions, and she needed to get a PET scan and then a biopsy. Her tests revealed multiple lesions on her liver, which were then confirmed to be cancer. The doctors believed that the liver was not the primary source and were preparing to do more tests to find the primary source. They didn't know any more detail at this point but expected to have a diagnosis and a stage in a few days.

Still in shock outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, my teammates had realized I was getting bad news and were consoling me even while I was still on the phone. They led me to sit down in the shade and brought me the closest thing they could find to tissues: some ripped up paper towels. 4K OK.

It took me a while to collect myself and my teammates didn't rush me. Because of the delay in talking on the phone, another group rolled up to the gas station, and not being able to deal with being around that many people, that's when I got on my bike with Joanna and we rolled out quickly. 

As I struggled to try to process this news, I realized I was with the best group of people I could possibly be with for this. Many people on my team have had parents diagnosed with cancer, some of whom have survived it and some who have lost their parents to it. When I found out I happened to be with Julie, Maroun, and Joanna -- Maroun's dad and Joanna's mom are currently undergoing treatment for cancer. If anyone understood what I was feeling at that moment it would be them.

In those last 7 miles I had so many questions running through my mind that I knew had no answers. I prayed a lot. Joanna and I talked a little but not too much. She pretty much knew when to talk and when not to talk, and I appreciated that. What we did do was ride really fast. I think I was taking out my frustration and shock on the road and Joanna kept up with me. We left the rest of our group far behind but I didn't even notice.

That night I was pretty quiet and upset, understandably so. Once I had showered I called my parents again to hear more details, since I wasn't really processing anything earlier. My team played the 4K Singles Dating game that we had come up with the day before, and I didn't announce anything to my team because I wasn't ready to talk about it and I didn't want to put a damper on the fun mood.

We also visited the geyser in Soda Springs!

Sunset in Soda Springs

I knew I was in for a rough night of sleep and unfortunately that has been a theme since. Luckily, I haven't had problems eating... probably because there's no physical way to not be hungry after the amount of biking I'm doing.

All I wanted to do was be home with my family. Once I found this out, nothing else mattered - literally nothing. Not the ride, not my sleep, not what I ate, not school. Just my mom and my family. I started thinking about leaving the ride and going home, but my mom said she wanted me to finish the ride, and I knew she wasn't lying because she knows how much work I've put into this ride and it will make her really happy to see me finish. Also she hates when people sit around doing nothing and she said there would be nothing for me to do at home - my dad was taking care of everything. I knew she was right but still just wanted to be with her. I figured I'd wait a few days until we had more details and then decide from there. At this point there were 18 days left on the ride.

Obviously it was a rough day. I had to accept the completely unexpected news. I had to come to terms with the fact that my life had changed permanently and things would never be the same no matter what. I had to struggle with my role in this. I need to be strong for my mom and I will. If there's anything this trip has taught me, it's definitely perseverance, and we are going to need that.

My dad made her a Facebook page, so you can friend her if you want to keep up with updates. I'll be honest and say I disagreed with him in making her one. Of course I appreciate all the supportive messages she's getting on it, but any time I see it I think of it as her cancer's Facebook profile and not hers. I don't like it. My mom is still my mom and is not defined by the disease inside of her. The fact that it was made right at this time makes it impossible for her page to not be defined by the cancer. However, my dad was receiving dozens of supportive messages via email and he needed a more streamlined way to both collect support and distribute news quickly. So it'll definitely be good for that.

So, I'll be finishing the ride in honor of my mom and what we are about to face, and then coming home to take care of her. Apparently my dad is doing a good job of it but we all know he is better at doing physics.