Each week I watch my daughter bend, stretch, curl, extend her body with strength and flexibility as she participates in a gymnastics class. There’s both an ease and grace about what she does as well as a great amount of effort and determination.

It’s been just over a year since I survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Immediately post clean PET scan, I felt a ‘joie de vivre’ like no other time in my life. I was in a state of complete blissful gratitude. Rainbows and unicorns – probably really annoying to some but that wasn’t my concern at the time.

I was able to spend more time with my children, playing with them, doing activities with them, and getting to know them again as their full time mom. My husband and I enjoyed being ‘in love’ all over again. We found and bought our dream home, I eventually went back to teaching (a job I sincerely love), and then we received the biggest surprise of our lives: we were pregnant again.

We had struggled for years through infertility, the loss of the triplets, and a few IVF attempts in order to grow our family. My oncologist had told me that the chemotherapy I underwent would, ‘most likely’, result in early onset menopause. Um, apparently, like many other situations in my life, I don’t fit into the ‘most likely’ category. Thankfully, our little miracle baby boy came into this world big and strong on September 20th, 2016. It feels as though a magical stork has placed three healthy, beautiful children in my care and I feel more blessed than ever before. Again, more rainbows and unicorns.

Me with my three kids enjoying family time at a local pumpkin patch before Halloween.

Now, here come the mental gymnastics I alluded to: I am about seven weeks post delivery of our son, Nathan. Today, I went in for an ultrasound, X-ray, and blood work in order to make sure the cancer is still gone after seeing my oncologist last week. Part of me is downright scared. The thought of being ill in any way again with three little babes depending on me is any moms worst nightmare.

And yet, just as Clara shows how brave she is every time she hops along the balance beam or flips into the foam pit, I need to push through that fear in order to get the tests complete and attend a variety of doctor’s appointments. I remind myself that, although the checkups are sucky, I am one lucky lady.

The main symptoms I experienced with my lymphoma were itchiness (that led to rashes), fatigue, and enlarged lymph nodes.

There have been times recently that I’ve felt an itch here or there. I’m thinking it’s just the start of winter and my skin is dry (no rashes though, thankfully!). I’m also feeling very tired. So, again, it’s probably just being the busy mom of three (including a newborn). I haven’t braved feeling the base of my neck around my collar bone since I had the biopsy done nearly two years ago. I have a large scar there and the lump I had felt there was the symptom that scared me and spurred me into action. (Really, it was my dear friend Fionna who was over with her family for dinner on a Friday night who I had told about the fatigue and lump who insisted I see a doctor ASAP and her worry is what really motivated me to get checked out.) Two weeks ago, I felt around my scar and felt a lump then but haven’t felt it since. So, this is either a bit of scar tissue or a regular sized lymph node that anyone would have anyway.

This is when I need to be both strong and flexible, graceful and powerful, thoughtful and spiritual. I can choose: let the fear consume me and steal moments of pure gold from me and my children or let the love override the fear and live in the moment when, at this point in time, I’m just fine. I’m here, at home with my family. I’m well enough to take care of them, play with them, get some exercise, eat good food … Chances are that I am 100% healthy.

I feel fear, like we all do of course, and it is a feat for me to continue to feel it, recognize it, and then move through it. I’m standing on the balance beam, I am supposed to do a flip to the other end (without bailing off the side in some injury-inducing fall). So, I need to lean into it, propel myself forward with strength and balance, and find myself grounding my weight once again on the narrow beam. Maintaining control versus letting go is simply a part of life for all of us.

The following is a thought pattern that happens in my brain many times a day, especially lately: busy doing tasks, a slight itchy feeling, fear the cancer is back, choose to continue to fear what that might mean or let it go, let it go, recognize the present moment and be in it~ my mental gymnastics as a cancer survivor.

After completing my tests (which meant that I had to fast since yesterday) I treated myself to a delicious lunch at a bagel shop on Lonsdale. Yum! Perhaps not food fit for a ‘real gymnast’ though. Luckily for me, I’m just a mental one – insert jokes here-.