A year ago, almost to the day, I got a call that would mark the beginning of the strangest year of my life (following, of course, the sickest year of my life).

For months, I had chalked up my unending sinus ailments to seasonal allergies, assuming the swelling/pain in my nose was just a stubborn nasal polyp. My doctor took a biopsy just to rule out anything serious. I wasn’t concerned. It was nothing.

Until it wasn’t.

When the call came and I heard the words “nasal cancer”, my entire world shifted. Of course, I had no way of knowing that those two words would lead to a whirlwind of surgery, radiation, and a reconstructive process that would span for what has felt like decades. There are still days I wake up and cannot believe that THIS is my life right now.

I could try to describe the past year in a hundred different ways—brutal, exhausting, life-altering—but the truth is, none of those words fully encapsulate it. It has been painful and surreal. It has been enlightening and strangely beautiful. It has been the best, worst thing that has ever happened to me.

And while I am writing a much more detailed memoir about this experience that I hope to release in 2025 (assuming I ever find my ability to focus again), I feel like I owe all of you who have been waiting for word from me an update.

First, The Physical:
Healing, Hurting, and Everything In Between

You don’t realize how much a part of yourself your nose is until it’s gone. And when I say “gone,” I don’t mean that I woke up looking like Voldemort. Oh-ho, no. Voldemort was a stud in comparison. I woke up with a dark, black hole right in the center of my face. No bridge, no tip, just empty space where my nose used to be.

The first few weeks were a blur of appointments. My surgeon saw me constantly—every few days, I was being examined, scanned, cleaned, checked, and rechecked. There wasn’t much time to process, let alone grieve my adorable, missing nose. I hardly had time to notice that, where I once turned heads toward me, I was now turning them the other way.

That is—until the appointments stopped.

And then, I had nothing but time.

The doctors needed me to heal for several months before I could endure radiation. I knew my treatment would start up in May, but beyond that, there was no official timeline. No countdown to looking human. No sense of when I could hit play again on my life. Everything I had worked for—my career, my books, my plans—was on indefinite hold, all tied to the word of doctors who had suddenly gone quiet.

And so, I waited.

Time dragged. My body was mutilated but healing, while my mind was stuck in limbo—no longer in crisis, but unable to move forward. The days blurred, my reflection shifting subtly but still foreign to me. I had never felt so lost inside my own life.

Despite the torment I knew radiation would bring (I had read at least twenty cancer stories during my wait), I was relieved when the day finally came. Because at least it meant something was happening.

Six weeks. Five days a week. Strapped to a table, locked in place, while a machine blasted radiation into my face. The claustrophobia crept up fast. My mask held me still, so tight I could hardly swallow. I learned to focus on my breath. To count seconds. To find a story in my head and let it carry me away. Anything to keep the rising panic at bay.

And the side effects… wow.

There were the phantom smells—chlorine, burning, something metallic curling through my senses even when nothing was there. My taste and smell flickered on and off unpredictably. Some days, I could taste metal when I wasn’t eating anything. Other days, everything I ate tasted like cardboard.

And yet, in the midst of all this, I found comfort in the people around me. I looked forward to them.

My radiation team became my family where I had shut myself out from family. The first faces I saw each morning, the ones who reassured me, who held space for my discomfort, who made me laugh even when nothing felt funny, they understood what I was going through better than anyone else could. I looked forward to them.

But, just as quickly as I had been thrown into daily treatment, I was ripped away from it… ripped away from the people I’d come to call family.

Radiation ended.

And I was left waiting. Again.

Three months. Three months of silence. Three months of staring at my foreign reflection, waiting for someone to tell me what came next.

Having barely endured the first wait, I knew that if I was going to survive the second one, I would have to learn how to move forward despite being on hold.

The Mental Aspect:
Losing My Nose, Finding Myself

I always thought that if I ever went through something like this—something truly disfiguring, something that stripped me of the face I’d known my entire life—I would crumble.

That I’d feel ugly.
That I’d avoid mirrors.
That I’d prefer hiding over existing.

And at first, I almost did.

I spent those early weeks disconnecting from reality, avoiding my own reflection, avoiding the world, and slipping into an endless cycle of daydreams about the future.

I fantasized about the woman I would become once this was all over.

She wasn’t just a version of me with a reconstructed nose (although she was absolutely stunning in appearance)—she was bigger than that. She was elegant and confident, fluent in multiple languages, able to sit down at a piano and play without hesitation. She traveled, she gave back, she was surrounded by people who loved her for the depth of her soul, not the symmetry of her face.

She was who I had always envisioned myself to be.

And while I had many redeeming qualities worthy of my pride, there was far more to me in my visions of the future than where I’d left off in my personal development.

So, naturally, one day, in the middle of one of those fantasies, it hit me.

If this is the person I dream of being… what’s stopping me from becoming her?

A nose?

No.

That’s when I got up. I showered. I put on nice clothes, even if I had nowhere to go. I went down to my gym and moved my body—not to punish it, but to feel strong again. I signed up for language courses, started learning piano, and stopped waiting for some future version of myself to do all the things I had always wanted to do.

And then, as if they had been waiting for my mind to wake up first, my tastebuds woke up too.

For months, food had been nothing more than a texture. Radiation had robbed me of taste and smell, leaving everything dull, flat, meaningless. I ate because I had to, but I had no passion for it.

Until I DID.

One day, I could taste the faint sweetness of a peach.
Another, I caught the first whiff of fresh coffee brewing in the morning.
Then, the warmth of garlic sizzling in a pan.

And suddenly, food wasn’t just food anymore—it was an experience.

It was something to be savored.

I signed up for cooking courses—not just to learn how to make better meals, but to truly understand the flavors, textures, and techniques that brought food to life–that made every meal into something I looked forward to. I stopped treating food like a necessity and started seeing it as a joy. I became obsessed with flavors. I experimented in the kitchen, combining spices and ingredients in ways I never had before. I slowed down, taking the time to smell, taste, and appreciate every single thing I put into my body. And I felt better for it.

This extended beyond food. The return of my senses brought on a newfound appreciation for everything.

The crispness of cold air in my lungs.
The sound of rain hitting my window at night.
The way sunlight filtered through the trees in the afternoon.

I had spent so much time mourning what I had lost that I had never stopped to appreciate what I still had. What if, one morning, I wake up without my vision? I need to soak up every sight there is RIGHT NOW, memorize everything beautiful about this world, just in case I never see it… or smell it… or taste it or hear it or touch it.

And somewhere during this process of relearning to experience the world around me, something shifted.

I stopped seeing myself as broken. I stopped defining myself by what was missing.

And I started to love myself more than I ever had before.

Not in spite of my disfigurement. But rather, because of the person I had uncovered beneath it–because of the gift life became for the lessons this weird cancer brought me.

I realized that real beauty has nothing to do with bone structure or perfect skin or whatever fleeting thing people spend thousands of dollars trying to preserve.

Real beauty is confidence that extends to the soul when the soul is truly experiencing the life around it.

And for the first time in my life, I am radiant with my confidence.

Bandage on, I ventured out into public alongside the people in my life who had never looked away. And you know what happened?

I turned more heads than ever.

Not because I looked shocking.

But because I looked unafraid.

Looking Forward.

I’ve learned that survival is instinctive, but purpose is a choice. I’ve spent so much time waiting—waiting for a promotion, waiting to make enough money, waiting for my life to feel ‘ready.’ Then waiting for healing, for doctors, for a new normal—that when I finally realized it was me and not my circumstance that’s in control of my future, I began to see my plans for that future far differently than I ever had before. Everything I had been waiting for was… devoid of meaning. It was all relative to me and only me… it wasn’t intentional.

And if I was foinf to build a more intentional future, I needed to figure out what truly matters to me.

Because if there’s one thing cancer makes you question, it’s where you place your time and energy.

1: Rewriting My Story—Literally.

I have spent the past several years crafting fictional worlds, but for now, I have to put fiction on hold in order to write something a bit more real—in order to write MY STORY.

Because when you go through something like this, you need proof that you’re not alone.

I remember those early months after my diagnosis—how I had searched for stories of people who had been through this, how I had clung to every blog post and book I could find, hoping for something I could relate to.

Now, I want to be that voice for someone else.

So, I’ve set aside the fantasy novel I had been working on and started writing my cancer memoir. Not because I want to relive the pain, but because I want to document the transformation. I want to give someone else—someone who might be reading my words the way I once searched for others’—a glimpse of what’s okay to think and feel and experience when going through something this life-altering. I want them to see the raw truth—the moments of despair, the moments of humor, the way a person can be shattered and still become whole again.

2: Connecting and Giving Back

I don’t just want my future to be about writing.

I want it to be about people. About impact. About connections that go a bit deeper than a thumbs up on a post.

Through this experience, I have connected with so many cancer survivors online—people from all over the world who have gone through experiences both similar and vastly different than mine, some who have faced the same surgeries, others who’ve faced worse—learning almost all have had the same doubts, the same transformations, the same ups and downs as me.

And I don’t want those connections to just live in messages and support groups.

I’ve started planning trips overseas to meet some of these survivors I’ve bonded with—because there is something powerful about looking another person in the eye and seeing that they understand. A few of us have started working on an online writing space where people going through medical trauma can share their experiences and find support through storytelling. And alongside a few others, I’m working to develop a foundation that will help provide funding for facial reconstruction for those who can’t afford it/don’t have access to it. I have been privileged to have options—but many people aren’t. And if I can make even a small impact in helping someone else feel like themselves again, then this journey will have been for something.

Choosing a Life That’s Fully Lived

I suppose I have to end this ridiculously long blog post somewhere, so I’ll leave you with this:

Life is precious.

It’s not about accumulating stuff. Nor is it about chasing things that look good on paper or distracting yourself with mindless entertainment.

It’s about experiences.

It’s about conversations that change you.
It’s about meals that make you close your eyes and savor.
It’s about laughing until you cry.
It’s about showing up for people and appreciating the people who show up for you.
It’s about leaving the world better than you found it.

And I’m so grateful and excited to have lived through this experience so that I can finally understand what an amazing thing it is to be alive.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be sharing snippets from my cancer story online soon, and if any of you have a story of personal growth/endurance/survival to share, I would love to hear it!