A warning sign (my story pt. 2)

November 2019 Vail, CO

One cool, but sunny fall morning, I’m supposed to be packing for my dear baby cousin’s out-of-town wedding, but instead I’m lying on the bathroom floor. This morning, I woke up with an indescribable pain in my abdomen that eventually led to me vomiting blood. By the second bloody sickening (please remember to note my troubling sense of humor), I looked at my friend and asked for help.

We went to the ER, and they ordered a full abdomen CT scan. As often happens with the ER, we were in there all day. Eventually, the doctor came in and sat next to my bed. He was a mix of puzzled, concerned, and alarmingly serious. He relayed that they had found a mass on my pancreas, and he didn’t know what to make of it. My blood work was fine, vitals were good, and at first glance, I was a young, healthy 28-year-old girl (remember those words). Despite these facts, he was very uncomfortable with this uninvited visitor on my pancreas, and impressed upon me the need to follow up with my primary. He also explained that they rarely give full-abdomen CT scans in the ER, and there are only two reasons they will do that - one of which is vomiting blood.

While they did not determine what had caused me to get ill that morning, the doctor expressed it was a blessing, because it had showed us this discovery that probably would’ve gone unnoticed otherwise. A warning sign. I appreciate this doctor because for the next several months, he would be the only one to take this seriously—to take me seriously. After hours of fluids and watch, me and my new pet mass were released, and life as I knew it was about to change forever.

- backing up -

July 2019 Denver, CO

To understand my story and the trajectory of my decisions, it’s imperative to understand my grandma.

My grandma, my angel, had just beat cancer for a THIRD time in a row at 72 years old. Now, her oncologist and medical team were strongly encouraging her to do a bone marrow transplant to ensure the longest stretch of remission. However, although her body was cancer free, they still wanted her to do a rigorous round of chemo before the transplant. I guess to really make sure all the cancer was gone, or at least that’s how they sold it. This was going to be about a week-long procedure.

Almost immediately in the first few days she was in the hospital undergoing the transplant, she expressed that she wasn’t going to make it through this procedure. We spoke to the doctors, and they assured us that everyone feels this way on day 3 of the treatment, her vitals were strong, and there was nothing to worry about. She insisted that she knew her body better than they did, and she wasn’t going to hold up. This must’ve went on for another day or so—my memory of the timeline has been badly marred by the grief and trauma of that week.

She began telling us that she had been speaking with God, and that he was going to bring her home. She had enough of the worldly pain and the fight of cancer. She was ready, and still, the doctors told us this was normal and not to be alarmed. On day whatever, she gathered all of us in a room. She could barely speak at this point due to her body being so weak. She told us all that she was seeing angels, and assured us this was her time. Her voice was shaky and frail, but she was unafraid and convicted in being ready to leave her earthly home for her heavenly one.

Shortly after that, all of her organs started failing. It turns out that administering an extremely aggressive chemotherapy to a human body with no cancer right before an extremely aggressive bone marrow transplant, is too much for the organs to withstand. Imagine that. The doctors were baffled and raced around trying different medical interventions. She had a DNR. Shamefully, I admit to you, we bypassed it. It didn’t matter what any of us tried to do at that point, she had made a pact with her creator, and no one would get in the way of that. After ten long years of battling cancer on and off, 3 days before her 73rd birthday, and on her 55th wedding anniversary to my grandpa, my angel left me. Grandpa held her left arm, my aunt held her right arm, my mom held her left foot, and I held her right foot. We removed her life support, and held her by every limb for the 45 minute transition from human vessel to soul ascending, and for another hour after that. We so badly didn’t want to let go, and yet, during this time we experienced more powerful and profound last moments of life than I knew possible. She had lost all ability to communicate for days leading up to this, but somehow in those last moments, mustered the strength to communicate through blinks and tears, everything we needed to be able to let her go lovingly. Thank you for that gift, Grandma.

I could write endless novels about everything my grandma means to me, her resilience and unparalleled strength through it all, and the devastation her unexpected death left on our family…and maybe I will someday. For the purpose of how her story has impacted my own, I will keep it more focused.

Let me state this very clearly. Everyone should always be allowed to make their own decisions about how they treat their cancer, illness, or other various life-threatening ailments. Sometimes as a caretaker or supporter, those decisions can be brutal. Grandma chose to trust in her oncologist and medical team’s opinions, and it served her well for many years - until it didn’t. When she survived her first cancer, multiple myeloma, she was put on a maintenance drug to ensure she stayed in remission. What she purposefully didn’t tell us was that this particular drug had a grave side effect, Leukiemia, which she eventually succumbed to. Well, technically it was the bone marrow transplant that killed her, if you’re keeping score (I am). When she passed away from the transplant, her doctor asked my grandpa if they could do an autopsy to find out what they did wrong essentially. You can imagine that didn’t go over well. After I witnessed all the chemo, radiation, and then this disaster of a “life saving” procedure, I had pretty much made up my mind that if cancer ever came my way, I would never endure what she did and consequently, our whole family.

Spoiler alert: cancer does come my way!! Cue my chance to do it, cancer, differently—for the both of us.

August 2019 Vail, CO

Back up to Vail, back to work, back to normal? …..How? One month into the processing of grief, one month into watching my grandpa sit at the cemetery every day all day, and one month into life without my grandma. My spirit was still sunken deep into the pit of my stomach.

All the while, I’m having severe relationship issues. The kind that your nervous system embeds into your cells forever. After almost 9 years together and after the biggest loss of my life, my relationship ended. I won’t go too far into the details of this out of respect for this person, as in the present, we care for and remain supportive of each other. But it’s safe to assume, it leveled me…for a long time.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with housing in Vail or if you’re one of the lucky ones who never had the pleasure, but I couldn’t just move out. Instead, I moved to the basement of our house, where we continued to live together until our lease was over. Every night in this basement, I cried myself to sleep mourning the loss of my grandma and now the loss of the person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Our lives were completely intertwined, our families merged, our friend group one. This felt impossible. How do I start over now—without both of them? Without two of the most important people in my life? I have never felt more low, alone, and hopeless. In the dark of the basement, sleeping on a bean bag bed on the ground, my partner of nearly a decade just right upstairs, but unreachable emotionally. This was my rock bottom.

……or so I thought.

hint hint remember what’s coming? *cough* pancreas *cough* …Nothing, really? Ok fine I’ll tell you, THE CANCER diagnosis is coming. Cancer always takes you about as low as you can go. Honestly…please try to keep up.

Why “Living in awe”? (My story pt. 1)

Here you are,

This is my story and it’s one I don’t tell often, maybe often enough, depending on who you ask. I’ve been living with pancreatic cancer, knowingly, for 5 years now. If pancreatic cancer has touched your life in someway or you’re familiar with the statistics, then you’re aware that you shouldn’t even be hearing from me.

I understand how unbelievable this sounds. I don’t even always believe myself! Imposter syndrome—you’ve heard of it. Well it turns out it’s applicable to all things…including a verifiable medical diagnosis of mass proportions. It’s intimidating to share. Half the time I have to refer to my written records that say the words “pancreatic carcinoma” and “Raquelle Ahrens” on the same page to help my mind link the two together as fact and reality. And when I tell you there are STILL people who don’t believe me…. Like, sir, I don’t want this! I’d rather the imaging, pathology reports, surgeons, doctors, radiologists and specialists be lying as well. But that is not the way the fortune cookie cracked.

Apart from this diagnosis being hard enough to believe coming from a seemingly healthy, young individual with no family history—to add to the disbelief—at this time I still have not had surgery or received chemo or radiation (much to my medical team’s chagrin).

During this time I’ve been living in many different emotional states: disbelief, fear, anger, worry, denial, flat out defeat, and at my worst, absolute abandon and indifference. Today I’m Living In Awe.

Sidebar: As some Instagram influencer has told you by now, healing is not linear. And neither are my thoughts, so settle in and pop a Dramamine, because this story may jump around a bit.

The indifference has probably been the scariest part, because I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore. That’s a really hard sentiment to say out loud and relive now in this moment. I never want to hurt or scare anyone close to me, which is often what has kept me from authentically sharing my story. However, I realized recently, that I’m not only withholding potentially helpful information from others, but from myself as well.

There is solace, comfort, healing, hope, and straight up lifesaving help that comes from sharing our stories with each other. So I’m putting aside my fear that you, reader, will judge me, shame me, not believe me, or hurt me in someway. You might do one or some of those things but I can’t let these negative experiences stop me from spreading light where I can. The truth is all of those things have already happened to me during the last 5 years.

I’ve suffered damaged relationships and even lost friendships over this, which has been devastating. I’ve been really hurt by people’s reactions to MY decisions about MY cancer. It’s almost unbelievable as I pen it, and still, I’m done hiding over it. I can’t control how you receive this, but as Adam Sandler says in The Wedding Singer, “I have the microphone and you don’t so you WILL LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!” Me and my metaphorical microphone have the floor, but not to worry, my aim is to listen and learn so much more from all of you.

It might get heavy, but I’ll still keep it light. I’ve muscled through this entire experience with an unshakable spirit of humor and the phrases my dear friend and I use as an oxygen mask we administer to each other, “We laugh so we don’t cry.” and “Everything’s always fine.” The key here being that it is absolutely not fine, but we persist nonetheless.

This anecdote will be hopeful when it is and not when it isn’t. This isn’t some idealistic version of events because I’m sharing it publicly now. This will be about as raw and real life as it gets because that is where the growth and lessons are.

It’s imperative to note that I truly have only made it this far clinging to faith when I felt hopeless, wielding strength and courage like a sword even when I had to fake it, and trust falling into my support team (you know who you are).

So to recap, I have pancreatic cancer. In the following open letters I will tell you how we found it, the diagnosis, what I have and haven’t done, what the journey has been like, where I’m headed, and how everyday I’m Living In Awe. Thank you for being here.

There you go~

Let’s Begin

Here you are,

Here you are meaning whatever version you are of yourself today, still showed up here and now in this moment—and when you leave, There you go. Going as who you’ve become after reading these stories, anecdotes, or conscious trains of thought and sharing in this human experience together. Hopefully you leave someone slightly different than you came here as. When we’re Living In Awe, we’re growing and evolving by the second (psst, that’s a good thing).

Welcome to Living In Awe, an open space for kindred spirits to come together in wonder. Through storytelling, shared experiences, and creative expression, we explore the magic of the everyday: wellness, artistry, travel, spirituality, the human condition, and everything in between. It’s an invitation to slow down, connect deeply, and embrace life with open hearts, curious minds, and a sense of awe.

This is not a one size fits all platform. Who are you and what are you looking for? Whatever the answer, even if you didn’t have one, you belong here and you’re needed. So stick around, I have a lot to say and a lot to learn from you.

This is your sign to share your story. And there are a number of ways to do that here! Sharing takes courage and honestly, no one is more scared than me. I have so much fear surrounding my own story, but I’m locking arms with you and venturing into the unknown: how will I be received, who is going to laugh or judge, will I be believed? I don’t know the outcome to any of these questions, but I do know there’s value in sharing and if I can reach even one soul in a meaningful and impactful way, then it was way worth it. I don’t believe we are meant to walk alone. There’s scientific evidence and plenty of anecdotal testaments to back that one up. You can take heart and take shelter within me, and since you’re here, I’ll hope the offer is reciprocated within you. 

There you go~