My house growing up was not big or flashy. My parents built it in 1979 and it is a little over 2,100 square feet. We were the second house on the cul-de-sac. It was a simple two-story with gray siding and dark shutters on the second story. A small front porch and a great backyard. To the south of our backyard there were wetlands so no one could build on that land making our backyard feel open and expansive. We identified bedrooms based on carpet color. My room was the yellow room, which was the first one to the right up the stairs (until my younger sister was born and needed a room). Our basement was scary and our crawlspace was traumatizing. Which of course, my bedroom was eventually in the basement and if my parents needed anything in the crawlspace, I was “told” to help. But lately, when both my therapist and my physical therapist ask me to think of safety, it is my childhood home that pops into my head. This unassuming, modest home. And let me be clear, my childhood was riddled with imperfection (whose isn’t?). The inside of my home was rarely the image we exuded. There were lots of fights, discipline tended to hover on the line of more than necessary and constant eggshells on the floor to avoid and not break. Yet this home was safe. It was consistent, and bespoke of my early freedom as a kid, walking or riding my bike everywhere. I have had to question why I think this home brings a sense of safety. Perhaps I look back at this home as the center for my family unit. It was the only time I remember all 6 of us under one roof. Consistently. Before college or my parents divorce. Before a move to Louisville, Kentucky and then Southern Indiana. A house I felt connected to and where remembered memories are good: chasing my sister around the house (through the kitchen, down the hallway, around the formal living room and dining room and back to the kitchen making a circle), playing legos in the family room while watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, Holidays and first day of school pictures on the front porch. I was born in this house and so was my younger sister. My beginning. I wished I would have savored the last couple weeks a bit better. But I had just turned twelve and didn’t know any different. How could I know the unstable and pothole-ridden road ahead of me? I couldn’t know. So I remember my childhood house in a suburb of Chicago and that is the place my heart calls home.

Chris and I have been looking for a house for about four-five years. (This really should read: Liz has been checking online weekly if not more, for new houses coming on the market for the last four years). Right before covid, I began looking. Then covid. Then the crazy housing market with cash offers and skipped inspections. Then some more serious searching. Then cancer. But now, it seems like a better option to start seriously looking, again. We love our current house but it is cramped. Anything happening on the first floor is easily heard in every bedroom of the second floor. My boys have made the playroom a soccer play area and the ball is frequently getting kicked right where I am cooking. Opening and closing the hot oven door, preparing food on the counters as the ball bounces right in the middle. Arguing constantly over who scored a point or received a penalty. We need the space. At least so I can cook in peace. Then comes a text from a friend who knows of someone moving. Unashamedly, I google the house. Hope blooms. This house checks a lot of our boxes: basement, office and the kids stay in the same schools. More hope. I reached out to the owner. Could this be it? The house? We had a walk through and wouldn’t you know, this house really might just be it. The inspection goes well, finances are getting figured out (my cancer journey and my current lack of working is not helping our mortgage application) but we are taking a leap. We are moving. August 1. And I cannot help but laugh at God and believe He has a sense of parental humor while simultaneously worried this is too good to be true. Like really, in remission and recovery, we are going to pack a house? All those therapy sessions of better managing my stress and processing my anger are getting an opportunity to be tested. The mortgage complications somehow feel like a punishment to me because I chose to reduce hours during cancer treatments or took weeks off because of my two surgeries and surgery recoveries. Well, now the mortgage debt to income ratio looks to be too much. Ohh, cancer and its rippling effects. How I hate you. Too bad I cannot just put an asterisk to indicate I worked a lot more before my diagnosis for the mortgage underwriter. It will get figured out but again, another example of how my life has been impacted by this disease. Big sigh. I am overly sappy about our current home and all we experienced within it: newly married buying a home, pregnancies, bringing our three kids home from the hospital, breastfeeding downstairs in the middle of the night, taking couch cushions off so the kids can jump onto them, marking the kids height on the wall, nannying other kids as they played hide-and-seek, almost losing my marriage, sick kids and late night CVS runs and neighbors who walk into my house without knocking. This house has seen it all the last 15 years. Change is never easy. But as I was talking (read: crying) to Chris about the move and all my doubts, he mentioned this new house is a continued opportunity to grow: to host dinners, sleepovers, holidays. And so the Martin family is turning a page to a new home chapter. We are not going far, but it still means packing up all our belongings and moving. Onward to new opportunities and the various stresses of life. I’ll take house stress over cancer stress any day. Hands down. No competition. 

What’s been going on in my cancer recovery? My neuropathy continues to be an issue in my feet. I cannot feel the balls of my feet, and lately, my feet have been swelling due to the summer heat. Activities like running, jump rope or box jumps are too much for my feet. The pounding normally turns to pain later in the day. I continue to adjust workouts and try various vitamins and supplements to help. My hormones are getting better regulated. Did you know that testosterone for women is not covered by any insurance because the FDA does not approve this for women usage? Even though women biologically have this hormone in our bodies. That’s crazy but I cannot say I am shocked by the stupidity of it all. I have pelvic floor physical therapy which continues to be awkward and great at the same time. Good thing I really like my physical therapist. In fact, I think she is great. You learn comfortability quickly when another person is helping your vaginal stenosis. Thanks, radiation. But I am currently in bowel bootcamp to try to better regulate my bowel movements and hopefully help my incontinence. No, that has not gone away yet. And I will probably be saying that for years. Sometimes you doubt the timeline doctors give you or I scoff and think, I will beat the timeline given. Then, in the middle of said timeline for recovery, the light dawns, that, nope, it may take the full two years. If you see me speed walking, chances are I’m bee-lining to a bathroom. Like the other day in Lowe’s. I am four months out from surgery and every day I get flashes of frustration with my body that I struggle to control my bowel movements. A shift needs to happen there, though. Instead of being frustrated, I need to praise my body for what it has done. What it has endured. I sound like a broken record. A friend encouraged me to look back a year ago at where I was: chemotherapy with all the nasty, immediate side effects. My throat that felt like razor blades, take-home chemo, lack of energy, paranoia of losing my hair, neuropathy and no surgeries and experiences with Babs. No thanks. That seems so long ago when it was only just a year. I am so thankful to be here in my journey. It’s still not over. And honestly, I am not sure when I will say there are no more effects from cancer. But that is not today or this week and that can be okay. In the meantime, I’ll be packing up a house while savoring our last few weeks in our current home. 

Liz