A Single Mile

In a bit over 30 minutes I walked my first mile since being diagnosed with cancer 6 months ago. In those few months my life has been altered from assumed health to sickness, from days being marked by the nearness to the weekend to days and sometimes hours measured by treatment scheduels and doctors visits. Chemo thearapy, countless tests, a body broken by disease and the treatments that aim to heal it. Less than 2 months ago I found myself in respritory failure, poisened by the drugs that were attacking the disease, laying in a hospital on oxygen. 12 days later, my body was atrophed to the point that simple tasks were nearly unthinkable. Today, nearly 60 days after facing a body that was shutting down, lungs that gasped for a simple breath,  I am slowly feeling my strength. A single mile seems fairly insignificant, but for me it is a serious marker, something I doubted I would be able to regain. A milestone of body, and spirit, and hope. In years past these legs that have struggled to bear my bodies own weight carried me accross mountains. The mountains of my past were made of rock and stone, those of my present are made of an intangible but powerful realilty of the fragility of life, love, and humanity. I hope that I will have the resolove to continue this journey, one step at a time.