Filling in the Gaps

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?  If a mountain-biking JAG doesn't post anything to a blog in almost 6 years, did anything happen?

Yeah, stuff happened.  I returned from Afghanistan in January 2012 and we moved to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.  I went for the job (Intelligence Law) but we fell in love with the area.  We spent 2+ wonderful years in the high desert mountains of southern Arizona, where we mountain biked and hiked, lost 3 cherished dogs and rescued 2 more, made lifelong friends, and found the one place on earth that could be a suitable substitute for retirement in the New Hampshire mountains.  In August 2014, I got out of the Army and we started an epic road trip across the country to return to my civilian litigation job with the Army in Washington DC.

Did we make it to DC???  (Do you know me????)  Of course we didn't make it to DC.  Somewhere around Kentucky, I started getting nostalgic for the Army.  By the time we hit West Virginia, I hatched a plan to get Doug drunk and tell him I wanted to go back in the Army.  In Pennsylvania, I called the Army and begged them to take me back.  It all worked ...... with the caveat that I had to go somewhere totally shitty for the next 2 years to make up for all the headaches I caused along the way.

So off to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri it was.  Yes, it is true that the only way to pronounce Missouri is MIS-ER-EY.  The only saving grace was the job.  I became a criminal defense attorney and eventually moved up to run the criminal defense office for Ft. Leonard Wood.  For everything we hated about Missouri, the job made up for it - I truly found my "calling" (for real this time!!!).  It was a long two years, with long hours and lots of weekends spent in the office, but hell, there wasn't anything else to do in MISERY anyway.

After "doing time" at Ft. Leonard Wood, I was given my pick of assignments for summer of 2016.  I picked ..... (drum roll please) ...... returning to Ft. Huachuca!  They needed a defense counsel, and we needed to be back to somewhere that wasn't miserable, and where our mountain bikes got dirty again.  Taking that job meant that I'll probably never again be promoted in the Army (two tours as a defense counsel is not good for your career; neither is two tours at a postage-stamp sized training installation) - but it was a risk we were willing to take in order to be happy again.  Life is just too damned short to be miserable for too long.

We were happy beyond words to be back in Arizona.  The mountains were as majestic as we remembered, and the singletrack was so so sweet.  The pups were happy to be running off leash and chasing lizards again.  When we left Ft. Leonard Wood, we sold everything we owned and moved into the RV full time, so we were living in the RV park right on post, literally AT the trailhead to singletrack up into the mountains.  Life could not have been better.  We were happy.  We were at home.  I loved my job.  Our mountain bikes were dirty again.  Our pups were content.  We had everything we ever wanted and were truly at peace.

And then I got diagnosed with breast cancer.  November 2016, while at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas for work, I went to the doctor, just to get something checked, thinking it was truly nothing. Hell, I had just had a mammogram in April and it was fine.  (OK, the truth?  I only went to the doctor to shut Doug up, because he wouldn't stop hounding me about getting the weird lumpy thing checked out).  In the course of 3 hours, I had several doctors squeezing my boobs, a mammogram, a biopsy, and a lot of pitiful looks from doctors who assured me that it "didn't necessarily" mean it was cancer, but I should probably stick around town until the pathology results came back.  On 8 November (yes, election day) I got the call that every woman dreads:   Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.  So that night, as we sat in bed watching Donald Trump get elected as POTUS, we tried to absorb all the uncertainty and fear of it .... all of it.

And that's why I fired up this blog again.  This really is just another little adventure.  We'll get through it - maybe not in one piece, but we'll come out the other end at some point.  So why not share this little adventure too?  Stay tuned.