Hard healing, dark humor and pants with no buttons

Hi, I’m Amber.

Professional plate-spinner. Full-time health warrior. Unapologetic wearer of stretchy pants. I’ve been through more diagnoses than WebMD on a bad night. I swear I must be the medical equivalent of a plot twist. Just when things start to settle, life tosses in another “WTF is this?” for fun.

• PCOS in my teens before anyone really talked about it

• Seven rounds of infertility treatments, which was just as dramatic as you’d believe it was.
• Uterine cancer? been there
• Hashimoto’s? of course
• Type 1 diabetes in adulthood? Why the hell not?

And now?

Neuroendocrine cancer.

The ZEBRA of all cancers- because apparently, I like my diagnoses rare, stripey, and hard to spot. Most people get the horses: I’m the one galloping into the specialist offices riding a damn zebra screaming “Surprise!”

This blog is my way of processing the chaos. I laugh through the tears. Maybe it offers a little hope to someone in the thick of it. Because if I don’t laugh, I will crumble into a pile of sarcastic ash. And honestly? I’ve come too far for that shit.

We rang in the new year like everyone else. We had a party, a sleepover, and a little denial. We also had a new appointment with a new cancer doctor. I just kept telling myself “it’s nothing, it’s autoimmune. They don’t know what they are talking about.” Because honestly-how much more could one family take?

My mother-in-law had just been diagnosed with small cell carcinoma and started her own battle with chemo and radiation. I wanted to support her more. However, my own body felt like it was falling apart like a dollar store lawn chair. My blood work? Total disaster. High white counts, shrunken platelets, Red cells begging for mercy. On paper, I looked half-dead. I was trying to be strong for my husband. He quietly carried it all. Inside, I was hanging on by a fraying thread of sarcasm and stubbornness.

That man, though-he gets me. He brings the humor when I forget how to laugh. He knows when to pull my stretchy pants up. He literally pulls them up to my boobs (short girl problems). Then he tells me to get back in the game. So that’s what we did.

What followed was a whirlwind: doctors, diagnoses, scans, biopsies & surgeries. while that was all happening, I went full-throttle into healing mode. January hit and I started the AIP 30-day elimination diet. Pitched the plastic, the non-stick, the crap. I switched to grounding sheets, red-light therapy, and herbal teas. I also chose clean supplements and more meditation. Additionally, I avoided any food with ingredients that require a chemistry degree to pronounce.

And you know what? Something shifted

My inflammation markers started dropping

My energy levels are creeping back up, most days.

My blood work got better-not perfect, but better. There were no prescriptions. I needed only a few rounds of antibiotics. I picked up a charming staph infection on my first visit to the ER.

So here I am. Still fighting. Still laughing. Still living this wild, painful, hilarious, beautiful mess of a life. If you’re here for honesty, healing, humor, recipes, rants and maybe a little woo-woo wellness sprinkled in, I’m your girl.

And if you also riding a zebra into the doctor’s office?

Welcome to the damn herd!