My 31st birtday was over three months ago. It was amazing and it’s high time I wrote about it.

The first thing that made it amazing was that it did NOT involve a broken ankle, or any other bone for that matter (unlike last year). What it did involve was spending a weekend backpacking in the most beautiful mountain terrain with spectacular friends, my lover, and ten-bazillion mosquitoes.

The high Uinta Mountains in Utah are not place for sissies. In fact, the same weekend we were up there an experienced hiker went missing and a boyscout also almost chopped his leg off. The last one is due more to giving a pre-pubescent kid a hatchet than the intensity of the mountains, but I digress.

Over a three day weekend, our group of ten backpacked over 20 miles. This may not sound like the perfect birthday to you, but to me, it was heaven! We had beautiful, sunny weather for the entire weekend.

On Friday, the first day, we backpacked in four miles on the Highline Trail. We found a beautiful place to camp at Wilder Lake. Cute and I set up his ginormous tent a small way away from the fire and our group.

After setting up camp, we went on a two mile hike to Wyman and Packard Lakes. The views were simply breathtaking. If it wasn’t for the mosquitoes, I could have stayed up there,  perched on a rock, absorbing the beauty of my surroundings all evening.

Speaking of mosquitoes, they were indeed horrible. Not your typical, sitting on the back porch getting a few bites horrible either. We had to wear mosquito head nets and gloves most of the time – especially in camp.

The only thing that made the mosquitoes bearable was a yummy box of Bota wine that Chris bought and Cute lugged up for my birthday.

On Saturday we made a very tough but awe inspiring ten mile round trip hike to Naturalist Basin. In the Basin, we hiked to six crystal clear lakes, all just under 11,000 feet elevation. This is where the snow part of the birthday equation came into play.

After returning back to camp, stiff, bitten, and only slightly worse for the ware, Cute and I decided to take a much deserved nap. To my delight, when we finally came up to camp I discovered a birthday surprise orchestrated by our amazing group leader, Roger.

I was completely surprised. It meant so much to me that he had gone out of his way to make my birthday special. Truthfully, it was special enough just getting to be out nature with my wonderful hiking friends – this was the icing on the cake to make it absolutely perfect.

After eating our freeze dried dinners and some packpacker cake, we continued the celebration by drinking ourselves silly around the fire with rum lemonade – yet another item Cute packed up the mountain for us.

On Sunday, we tore down camp and backpacked back to the trail head. Even though I had somewhere around 30 mosquito bites by this time, I didn’t want to leave. It was so beautiful, so peaceful. It was my version of a life void from stress and worry. There was absolutely no cell phone reception there. What a freeing thing it is to not be tethered to a phone! It was not until we drove out of the canyon my cell reception returned, along with 40 emails, 6 voicemails, and a dozen text messages. Honestly it wasn’t until then that I even recognized how many mosquito bites I had. I suppose life’s annoyances come together in packages.

It seems to me the mountains put everything into perspective. I marvel at how much people are willing to go through to be close to them. Extreme weather, harsh terrain, dangerous wild life, less than ideal food; none of it seems to matter so long as you are in nature.

There is no real way to express the emotional toll taken on the family of someone who has cancer. It is a roller coaster that feels neverending. The constant waiting. The what if’s. The feeling of helplessness. The sleepless nights. The praying to a god you are not even sure exists.

It is exhausting.

After my mother’s mastectomy two weeks ago, they biopsied her tumor in 19 places. Four of the biopsies turned out to contain micro-invasive cancer while the other 15 were the expected non-invasive DCIS (Ductal carcinoma in situ) cancer her original biopsy had shown.

The invasive cancer was new. Something we were not prepared for, especially since we were reading the pathology report (my mother is a nurse and able to obtain a copy prior to having an appointment) without a doctor there to explain it. Our minds automatically spiraled in every direction as to what it would mean to her treatment. On the day of my mother’s mastectomy the doctor came to the waiting room and told us that the tests to her lymph nodes confirmed that the cancer had not spread. We cried with relief. The thought that the cancer might still have the ability to spread and that more treatment would be necessary was a devastating blow.

But now, after a whirlwind of ups and downs, they are telling us that it is over. Yes, over. Yesterday I spend a gut wrenching 3.5 hours at my mother’s oncologist appointment, the majority of which was spent waiting. Oddly enough, her first oncologist appointment will be one of her last. The doctor took us through a mini-lesson on the types of cancer, how they spread, how they are treated, and why options would or would not work in my mother’s case. Then, at the end of his lesson while we were all on pins and needles, he finally wrapped things up by telling us the magic words that my mother’s treatment was done. The micro-invasive cancer was smaller than 1mm and the chances of it spreading were less than 10%. That means no chemo, no radiation, and no hormone therapy.

Over.

I can’t even begin to tell you how happy we all are. We have been so loved, supported, and spoiled with cookies and prayers through this whole process. It meant the world to my mother knowing that she had such a strong support team behind her.

Somehow it still doesn’t seem real. I have had this constant feeling of worry as my companion and now I have permission to let it go. You’d think that would be easy to do, but I it is going to take a little time. However I am happy. I am so incredibly happy.

I told you mom would kick cancer’s ass.

Blogfully yours,

Summer