One Year CancerVersary

As hard as it is to believe, today is my one year cancerversary. Exactly one year ago today I got the call telling me I had "a form of cancer known as Hodgkin's Lymphoma." The past 365 days have been some of the hardest days of my life and included a series of unfortunate events: cancer diagnosis, my "permanent" crown fell out, mountain lion living in my backyard, ran into a bear on a ride, happened to get flats on both my car and bike on the same day...the day before my comprehensive exam...and it was near impossible to change Matty's flat b/c my special lock to take the lugnuts off was missing, got rear-ended by a car while stopped at a stoplight on my bike, Matty's battery died...I am sure there are some other things I am forgetting but you get the picture. However, in spite of the unfortunate events, the past year has included some incredible events as well: incredible new friends within the cancer community, Mandy coming home from Ecuador the week I was diagnosed, winning two national titles and setting a national record, First Descents (aka: The Best Week of My Life), not being seriously injured when I was hit by a car, not being eat by the mountain or bear, turning 30, finishing my doctoral coursework, and starting my private practice...the highs were high and the lows were low this year but anybody who knows me well knows I do not settle for mediocre. It was been an extraordinary year in both directions and life just keeps getting better! :)

Challenged in New Ways at Para Camp
I spent the past week working at a paralympic "Learn to Race" camp. I have ridden with some of the paralympic athletes over the past few years but never coached any of them. Needless to say, the past week was quite a challenge as I had to adapt my coaching style for all types of athletes, abilities, and types of bikes. As you can see in this picture, I am rely on vision for teaching. Well, many of my athletes were blind and riding tandems with sighted riders. I literally had to get hands on to teach them throughout the week.

We also had a big group of handcyclists. I had never seen a handcycle before camp started and was amazed and perplexed by those machines. We even got them out on the track for a few laps.

We also had single leg amputees and brain injuries. The week was filled with incredible athletes who had a lot of determination and courage. I was continually impressed by their abilities.

And, fortunately, camp ended this weekend as yesterday (the last day of summer) came complete with our first snowfall...and we expecting up to an inch of snow tonight. There is a winter storm warning in the mountains tonight as well...seriously, on the first day of fall!?!?

My First Month as a National Champion
I can hardly believe it has been a month since my last post. Life has been crazy busy ever since I slipped on the second jersey. The weekend after nats I turned 30 (yay!) so that entire week was one of celebration...celebrating my wins and celebrating my fourth decade of life. I may be the first excited woman to turn 30 but if you had my 29 you would be stoked too!

And I got to celebrate with all of my favorite Colorado Springs people...and Col and Edith, the newest edition to the Wilner family! :)

Edith was actually born while I was in Vail at First Descents. I went to see her the day I got back into town so she is less than a week old in this picture. She is so stinking cute!!!

Somewhere in the mix of the past month I went to Lakeside Amusement Park with the Rront Range cycling woman. I love those rickety rides and this year was no exception. In fact, Renee and I were so into our go-kart racing we got kicked off on our first lap. Renee opened the inside lane up to tempt me, I went for the hole, she hooked me, I t-boned her, and we were kicked off. That's okay because we just went back to the Wild Chipmunk, my favorite!

I also made a trip to Indiana for Donnie and Sera's wedding and was blessed to spend two days with Becky, one of my best friend's from college. We spent a day on the lake in northern Indiana and I loved every minute of it.

Then I met up with all of my brothers for Donnie's wedding. It was so fun to spend the day with them as it is not very often that we all get together anymore because of distance.

First pic of the four of us in a few years...this one is for my parents...funny how well we get along now considering how much we all used to fight! :)

And since Steve was the best man, I got lucky enough to spend a ton of time with sister-in-law Jen. She's a good add to the Gracheck clan! :)

And the wedding turned out to be a bit of a highschool reunion. Here are a few of us but there were a lot more to add from the 1997 and 1996 Dexter classes.