- Dani Fontanesi
Wonderful, Beautiful, Post-Cancer Life
We’ve admittedly been a bit terrible about keeping up with blog posts lately - and by “lately”, I mean the last couple years. This is largely because, well, life has kind of gone back to normal, and we figured, why would people care about what our “normal” lives look like now? But recently we’ve received a few messages that snapped us into reality and reminded us that, for people going through what we went through a few years ago, that is exactly what they want to see! They want to see that there is a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that is a cancer diagnosis. They want to know that there will be happiness and normalcy and lightheartedness again in their future. They want to know that the low, dark cloud of cancer, the cloud that blinds you to everything beyond it, will eventually lift and will reveal a beautiful day ahead.
This is what we wanted desperately when we were going through treatment. We wanted to hear stories from other people who were once in the deepest, darkest depths of this whole cancer thing, and were now living a beautiful life again. But instead, all we could find were the awful stories of treatment. Sure, those stories are helpful too (some of them). They make you feel less alone - like there are other people going through this with you. But what we really craved was to see those people living a happy, completely normal life again! We wanted hope that we would get there one day too.
So this is our first blog post of what it’s like 3 years after Matt’s bone marrow transplant. Life is beautiful again. Matt has been cancer-free since his bone marrow transplant 3 years ago and is no longer on any medications. We’ve rebuilt our careers, we’ve been doing a lot of traveling, Matt is surfing again, we bought a house, and….on the 3-year anniversary of Matt’s diagnosis this year, we found out we’re expecting a baby!!!!!!!!!
To say life is beautiful would be an understatement. We have a profound appreciation for life that is inexplicable. Our love is deeper than we ever imagined, and we are enjoying every cup of coffee we get to drink together, every breath of fresh air we breathe in together, and every warm ray of sunshine on our face - something we weren’t able to experience for so long in the hospital and isolation.
We’ll post more on the normalcy of post-cancer life soon - and reflections over the past few years as we’ve pulled through this, but for now, we’ll leave you with this beautifully-written article by Marissa Laliberte that summarizes how far we’ve come these past few years…and these beautiful photos by Chrissy Walther capturing the latest miracle in our lives.
Thank you so much to all the media sources that continue to share our story and raise awareness of the realities of a cancer diagnosis and the power of love, hope, perseverance, and fortitude in overcoming even the most dismal odds. We're so grateful to all of you.
