It's Only Hair

When Life Changes Everything: Why I’m Starting This Blog

When my daughter Myra was six, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer — Burkitt’s Lymphoma, one of the fastest-growing cancers there is.

Nothing prepares a parent for that kind of heartbreak. Nothing prepares you to watch your child fight for her life.

While caring for her through chemo, surgeries, procedures, and endless hospital visits, one thought pushed me forward day after day: all this suffering can’t be for nothing. Something had to come out of it. Something good had to come from all this pain.

At first, I tried soothing my broken heart by exercising in the hospital ward. Squats. Leg raises. Crunches. I even brought resistance bands so I could do outer thigh pulses while waiting for Myra’s weekly wound cleanings. I told myself that hey, even if we lost, I might walk away with a hot body. (Spoiler: I didn’t.)

Other days, I promised myself that when this was over — no matter the outcome — I’d devote myself to this cause. I’d light the way for others. Be there for the next family. Even if I had nothing useful to offer, I could at least be a shoulder to cry on.

And on the brighter days, when I dared to hope, I imagined a future where Myra would stand as a beacon for others. A living, walking testament that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Just like those healthy, hair-grown-back cancer survivor kids in the pediatric oncology ward gave us something to cling to in our darkest moments. One day, I imagined her sharing her story, volunteering her time, helping others through their storm.

As I write this, Myra’s been in remission for nearly four years.

After 6 rounds of chemo, 4 surgeries, too many panic attacks to count, visits to the Emergency Department, and way too many days spent in hospital rooms, she is now free from cancer. She’s almost 11 now. Feisty as hell. Fiercely independent. Driven, funny, sweet. But most of all, she carries a quiet strength within her tiny body that is almost unbelievable. She’s fought so hard to be here — to spend her 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th birthdays with us. And I hope for many, many, many more years.

Where most of us take the life we’ve been given for granted, she truly lives. She grabs every opportunity she gets to gain a new experience, learn skills, experience joy. Since emerging from her cancer episode, she’s gone on hikes, water-tubed down rivers, played with snow for the first time, learned how to sew a skirt, surfed, created a self-branded product, pitched it in an entrepreneurial competition (and won), started swimming competitively, and brought home medals as a testament to her dedication. Every bit of that reflects her sheer love of life.

And me? I just couldn’t be prouder of what she has made of this life she fought so hard to keep.

To this day, she talks about her time battling cancer as one of the best times in her life. It still amazes me that such a dark period could be felt as “the best time.” But when I think about it, I can see why.

As humans, we’re conditioned to label things: good or bad, desirable or undesirable. We then respond to situations as labeled — happy when things go “right,” upset when they don’t. But Myra’s journey showed me that when we step out of this pattern of thinking and just take the situations in our life as they are — not good, not bad, just is — suddenly, we’re better equipped mentally to handle what life dishes out to us.

When Myra had cancer, I never drummed into her how truly sick she was. She knew she had stage 4 cancer, yes. But that was as far as it went. I never told her that chemo would make her feel terrible, or that cancer patients are weak, sickly people that needed to stay in bed. I kept my mouth shut, observed her and I responded accordingly.

And to my surprise, without verbal suggestions and what I call “mental programming,” she didn’t become the bed-bound, sickly patient – the type that society would typically imagine stage-four cancer patients to be. In fact, she breezed through the entire process and came out the other end relatively unscathed. During that time, she skipped, danced, laughed, played and lived a fuller, more joyful life than most of us would on any regular day.

Witnessing how different fighting cancer was for her versus the conventional narrative, I saw first hand how powerful the mind is in determining how you experience life and situations. And how mindset shifts could truly be useful for anyone going through a tough spot in life, not just battling cancer.

So, remember when I said something good had to come out of this?

Well — this is it.

By sharing useful insights, coping hacks, diet tips, and recipes through this blog — and also through the book I’m writing, It’s Only Hair — I’ll share how to handle setbacks in life like Ninja Myra. The hacks. The insights. The mindset shifts. The nutrition tips. The good days. The very, very bad ones. I want to share it all — in case it helps even one person out there walk their own journey with a little more courage and a little less fear.

So stay tuned.

We’ve got so much to talk about.