Too Young for Cancer by Katie Coleman

Author:Katie Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

17

At the end of the day when you cross that finish line … No one is going to care if you raced the same line as the next guy. Or how many times you hit the wall before you learned your limits. For mistakes are our roadmap to success. The important part is you made it.

—Instagram post, May 10, 2014

THE ONLY WAY out is through. The phrase doesn’t depict strength in a traditional fashion. It describes a singular path with no escape routes, which feels like a fitting description of having cancer at times.

I wasn’t choosing to be strong, and my actions certainly didn’t feel like strength. Every decision I made was through a pile of tissues and a puddle of tears. I complained, I asked “Why me,” and I was terrified every step of the way. The truth is, I wasn’t acting out of strength; I was simply trying to survive. When your back is against the wall and the only way out is forward, it doesn’t matter how scared you are; you start walking.

The path often felt reminiscent to me of an experience I’d had canyoneering and rappelling with my coworkers several years prior to my diagnosis. I was working for MotorsportReg, a small startup that built software used at racetracks. It had been my dream to be working for the company, and I’d spent three years pursuing a job there before I ever landed one.

I’ve had a love of cars and for being behind the wheel for as long as I can remember—but not in a posters-on-the-wall, walking-encyclopedia-of-car-facts kind of way. It wasn’t the gears and motors that drew me in; it was the freedom of being on four wheels, and the memories and joy it created, that formed my bond and connection with cars.

In the large family I’d grown up in, going anywhere meant dividing up between two cars, which always turned into a race, regardless of whether our destination was five or fifty miles. I’d always call dibs on riding with dad, knowing even trips to Grandma’s could turn into a high-stakes road rally. With a strict no-speeding rule in place and a week’s worth of bragging rights on the line, my brother and I would call out side streets and time stoplights from the back seat as we laid out the best route to ensure our victory.

When my stepsister, who was eight years older than me, turned sixteen and got a car of her own, running errands with her quickly became one of my new favorite pastimes. After carting my siblings and me around town, she’d occasionally pull off at the church parking lot down the street to let me steer and wind our way through the empty lot. We might have only been going five miles an hour, but with the wheel gliding through my little hands, it felt like I was on top of the world. I cranked and navigated the wheel, soaking up the freedom to call the shots by pointing the nose of the car in any direction my little heart desired.

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