Turtles all the Way Down

I usually like to write a year end wrap up – my writing has been super inconsistent and obviously absent this year. I feel like I can comfortably say this has been my hardest year yet. It started and ended with quite a few bangs. Last week, as I drove to Augusta for my monthly IVIG infusion, I was “writing in my head” as I often do and I was thinking of what word(s) could sum up 2025 for me. “Surrender” came to mind and then I asked myself if surrender and hope can coexist and my answer was a resounding yes.

I feel as if the past 8 years of my cancer journies have been a constant surrender for me – surrendering what I thought I had figured out about life, surrendering the plans I had for my life, and often surrendering the hope I had for certain outcomes. Hope is a funny thing. We grow up wishing on stars, birthday candles, and myriad of other superstitions – even if fundamentally we aren’t superstitious. Maybe it’s cultural, maybe it’s childhood magic we don’t want to let go of, but either way, we continue to wish and dream of what is to come in our lives. The older we get, we often become more cynical as we see that there is no power in these wishes – or is there? I have talked to A LOT of medical professionals over the past decade – and one thing that has come up many times in my oncology circles is about the mind-body connection and how one’s mindset during treatment and recovery can have an impact on their outcome. As a psychology major, I am constantly fascinated by brain research – and SO much more information is out there about the science of the brain – how trauma impacts the brain, neuroplasticity, new information on chemicals in the brain, and more. This being my baseline and launching point for how I interpret the world around me, it has taken me on quite the mental journey the past eight years. One would think that the punches I have continued to take, the rugs that continue to be snatched out from underneath me, that I would crumble into this cynicism and depression that overtakes so many of us as life gets harder. But it hasn’t for me. I feel more myself and more confident in who I am than I ever have before. I am at peace – and that is what I am taking into 2026.

2025 has been a doozy. January has always been a hard month for me – so many of my life-changing moments have happened in January, and this past year didn’t disappoint in upping the ante. We had two major weather events that forced me to close my newly opened store for days during the slowest retail month of the year. And one of these storms brought another storm that our family would have to hunker down and ride out the rest of the year. Our oldest son was arrested for, I think, the third or fourth time (the bail bondsman recognizes me now, we are besties). But this time the charges were much more significant than before. I won’t share any more details to protect him (the arrest is public record and was posted all over social media, so that can’t be helped), but needless to say, it has been a year. He moved back in with us and has done some really hard work to turn his life around. It hasn’t been easy, and there is still a long road ahead, but he is in a much better place all around than he was this time last year. I am proud of him.

My new business has hung on through some major pivots that I wasn’t expecting to have to make. It definitely isn’t making me the big bucks, but it is paying it’s own bills, providing income for multiple employees (job creation!) and vendors, and becoming a hub of the community. We have done fundraisers, hosted book clubs, grief support meetings, parties, craft workshops, and more. The thing I am most proud of though is the “warm, cozy, at home” feeling that everyone describes it as. I had several goals in opening the Sparta Mercantile, but at the forefront was to provide a sweet, kind, warm, unhurried hospitality along with the drinks – because you never know what someone is dealing with in the background that you can’t see. And if I can provide a small glimmer of light, hope, warmth in the midst of their hard, I have accomplished my goal. I pray that in 2026 this little store continues its mission and continues to be this place for our community – spreading this kindness like a virus.

My mother has Alzheimer’s. This was another biggie for the year. We had noticed some changes in her short term memory and the previous year I had encouraged her to get a baseline memory test. As things progressed, I thought I should be more involved in getting this sorted out. At the beginning of February, I took a trip to Birmingham to go to her neurology appointment with her. It was then I felt like we needed to change doctors and find someone who would dig deeper and help us get ahead of this thing. The rest of the year has been a lot of hurry up and wait in this department, but I know that she is getting the best care with a much more invested physician now. He was planning on getting her started on a newly approved treatment for Alzheimer’s, however, a couple of weeks after tying up all the required testing and scans, an incidental finding on an unrelated CT scan revealed that she also has ovarian cancer. (That was just a few weeks ago – I told you it has taken all year) She will begin chemo this week. The Alzheimer’s treatment is on hold. We took a trip to Charleston last Spring that we had been trying to do for over 5 years (silly me kept having medical things come up) and we had a wonderful time making very sweet memories. She forgot birthdays this year. She doesn’t call or text like she used to. Nothing about this is easy and it is another big hard for me to work through that has also drug up a lot of old emotions I had tucked away for what I thought was a good hiding spot for them – but ahhhhh the mind……

I’ve made a LOT of strides this year in the mental health department. One of the biggest changes was addressing my ADHD. We had made good progress in dealing with my anxiety and PTSD, but this was the missing piece of the puzzle it seems. Once we started medicating the ADHD, I was able to get a better handle on the other areas and the anxiety improved as well. Being a psych major, of course I did a deep dive in the science of all of this and have a better understanding of how ADHD truly effects one’s brain, but also of how it can change and be more of an issue as you get older, experience trauma, have hormonal changes, etc. All of which have been heaped upon me in excess over the past 8 years. Throughout the year I have focused a LOT on my mental health – especially realizing how much it impacts my physical health – and have learned to be better about saying this word I have never been good at verbalizing…..”no”….. I have made hard decisions, had hard conversations – I’ve done this scared – I’ve done this weak – but I did it. And guess what, things got better. I will say it until I no longer can speak – mental health is important – ESPECIALLY when you are dealing with big, hard things. And your Biggest Hard might not seem much compared to mine (I hear this all the time), but this isn’t a contest. Your Biggest Hard is still the biggest hard you’ve experienced. Get help. Talk to someone. Therapy isn’t for weak people – it’s for the ones who refuse to give into the hard and let it win. It’s for the fighters. Getting help is for the brave – even the scared brave ones like me.

Gus finishes treatment this week! I cannot believe we have been battling leukemia with our baby for over two years – it is truly unfathomable. And here we are at the end. Objectively, I don’t know how a family goes through childhood cancer and a third adult cancer in mom all at the same time – especially with all our extra bonus dramas that have been sprinkled in along the way. But we have – and we are all still here, smiling, laughing, growing, and hopefully being a testament to God’s grace and mercy in all of our lives. I have no idea why God has allowed SO MUCH hard to come to our family back to back to back and at the same time – but I am an eternal optimist and firmly believe that it is all for some reason way bigger than we can fathom.

Along with this big milestone, we will also be at the end of Jack and Eli’s years of high school. This is their last high school baseball season. This is exciting and nerve-wrecking all at the same time! When they asked to come back home and finish high school at home so they could work more and pursue their filming and other business ventures, I couldn’t say no. It has been such a joy having them alongside of me the past couple of years – and I truly couldn’t have done everything I’ve done without the two of them. See, God knew we needed them home before Gus was diagnosed, I relapsed, etc. It has been a fun last chapter of this book with them. I am so excited to see where life takes them next – will they go on to play baseball in college? will their YouTube channel really take off? will one of their business ventures really take off? will something we didn’t see coming happen instead – probably so given our track record.

Medically speaking, I am stable today. This transplant was done a bit differently than my previous one, so the follow ups and monitoring look a bit different. I have developed another “leukemia” that we are going to monitor either forever or until it goes away – it is not malignant and the Boss Man isn’t concerned. I have had issues over the past several months or so with my chimerisms dropping. This is where they measure what percentage of DNA in my blood is mine vs. Murphy’s (donor). We want it to be 100% donor because that is what fights off the leukemia and provides me with an immune system. A few months ago I had to have daily infusions to bring those percentages back up and while they helped, my numbers have dropped again so we will have to rinse and repeat until things stablizie for good. I will also continue to go monthly for IVIG infusions – these have helped tremendously this past year to keep infections at bay. In two weeks I am having a quick little surgery to remove my ovaries. In light of my mom’s diagnosis, everyone recommended we take this step to reduce risk of me getting a hat trick of cancer types. I am also going to revisit the genetics doctor and start exploring anything new that has been discovered since we did genetic testing the first time. Cancer research has come so far and is moving at an exponential rate, but we still have a long way to go. I read an article recently (on the Memorial Sloan-Kettering site) saying that the 5 year survival rate for AML was still less than 25% – and I’ve had it twice.

So as 2026 gets rolling, I’m not making any resolutions or big plans – but I am heading into it with gratitude, hope, and anticipation for at least a glimmer of the answer of those big questions like, “what is the purpose of all of that – where do we go next – what are you using this in our lives for?” But ultimately I am entering this year with peace. Peace knowing that no matter what this year brings, we are all going to be okay, beacuse we have been through the unimaginable numerous times and are still here and thriving. Peace knowing that not knowing, not being able to figure it all out, is okay – we don’t have to figure it all out and ultimately we can’t. Which brings us back to the turtles. There are numerous versions of this myth/fable that many people have used to support various theories, but the basic premise is that trying to find the greater meaning in big questions of life can lead to infinite regress. The story goes that the world doesn’t fall because it rests on the back of a giant turtle, who is on the back of a bigger turtle, and on and on and on. Some questions only lead to more questions and can’t ever truly be answered. Why has 2025 been so hard for us? This side of heaven, I will never know. It’s turtles all the way down the line.