Sara Blair

Moving during a pandemic, from one country—well continent really—to another was tricky. My partner and I were from two different countries, and we had to separate for the summer between leaving Vietnam and moving to Ecuador. But once we were reunited in Ecuador, everything was going to be okay again.

At least that was what I thought at the time.

It was only a few weeks into living in Quito that I started to feel pain in my ribs. I chalked it up to random things like maybe it’s the altitude. Or maybe walking the dogs we had just adopted. They were strong after all. It would go away.

But it didn’t. It persisted. Until I couldn’t handle it and went to the doctor in October. He diagnosed me with costochondritis and sent me along. And for a month, I researched this condition. I ordered things online to help me. I tried everything I could to make the pain go away.

Then one morning in November, I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I interrupted my partner doing his morning yoga that Tuesday morning and off we went to the hospital. Thankfully he spoke Spanish, and was with me, because I don’t know how I would’ve navigated the language barrier.

After two nights in the hospital, a hematologist diagnosed me with multiple myeloma—a cancer I’d never heard of.

I started chemotherapy the next week in Ecuador. And after 5 cycles, in March 2021, I was in remission.

After chemo, I had to travel home in Canada for my stem cell transplant. Once there, my family doctor referred me to an oncologist (things got complicated—long story), and eventually I was set up to get my stem cell transplant in July in Kingston.

Because of covid, I made the decision to do my stem cell transplant as an out-patient, with the understanding that I would be admitted if I spiked a fever or for any reason they deemed necessary. I was set up in a hotel near the hospital and got to stay with my partner, as he took care of me and took me to the hospital daily.

After 13 days of going back and forth, between hair loss and passing out in the hotel lobby, I was declared well enough to be discharged and I hit that gong and was on my way back to my parents. Within a month, my oncologist said I could go back to my life in Ecuador.

I thought my life of living abroad was over the day I got diagnosed. Sure, it crossed my mind that my life in general could be over too, but when I wasn’t thinking that deeply about it, it was my life I created abroad that was really of concern to me.

But I made it back to Ecuador to live and teach. And now I live in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

I was able to travel again, and for a year we did things big, and called it our redemption year. We swam with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands. At 9 months post SCT I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We stayed in an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora. We saw penguins in Antarctica. And so much more.

The best thing I have done since recovering is marrying the love of my life. We got married officially in the USA (he’s American), but we eloped on our travels in the Galapagos Islands, Bora Bora, Antarctica, and Iceland. Whether I have 1, 5, 10 or 50 years left, I know that spending it with him is the only thing that matters.