Knocked down but never knocked out 🥊

My physical fight with cancer was only about 2 weeks. No chemo. No radiation. No ports. No scans. Just a self-discovery, a push for a biopsy, a diagnosis and an excision. The end.

WRONG!

The mental battles have lingered and cut deeper than my 10cm surgical wound ever could. I’ve felt it all. The shame, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, the gratitude, the anxiety, the relief, the numb. Everything.

I’ve harbored a strange form a survivor’s guilt; that my privilege of a medical background gave me an advantage that others didn’t have.

I went through a phase where I didn’t think I deserved to be coined a “survivor” because it’s “just skin cancer.” Meanwhile, your skin is your largest and most exposed organ, melanoma is deadly if not caught early and the sun, that is suppose to give you life, could literally take mine away.

I struggled. On the heels of my brother’s post-marathon cardiac arrest, I met my own mortality. I was terrified. My big, beautiful, adventurous life now revolved around safety, compliance, fear and self preservation. I sat awake at night ruminating over the “what ifs”, taking personal inventory of every tiny spot on my very freckled body and googling unhinged questions like “are skin transplants a thing?” I was unwell. Thankfully, with help from friends and A LOT of therapy, I’ve found some clarity.

People have asked “why boxing”? Boxing has become an allegory for my life. Chances are that if I’m working on a skill in therapy, I’m also tackling that skill in the ring. I often ask myself “did my coach or therapist say that?” I’m learning to find calm in the chaos; to be less reactive by channeling my “wise mind” instead of my “emotional mind”; to be more confident and assertive; to be more present and stay in each fleeting moment. Ironically, the boxer’s mentality is not far off from the infamously pacifistic Buddha’s teachings. “Life is suffering” so you may as well “go the distance” (which I JUST found out is NOT about Rocky running to those damn stairs)

Come stay in the fight with me on 11/6/25.