"Wherever you go, go with all your heart." — Confucius

It has never been my nature to focus on the worst of things in life. In my childhood, this was the product of a cheerful nature as well as a desire to contribute to the good feelings in my surroundings. I wanted to lift up my family, to help in any way I could and to be a part of what was working. There is no doubt this tendency attracted approval and loving gestures from the adults around me, but I suspect a large part of this disposition was present from the beginning. Focusing on the good and cultivating the beautiful seems to have been written right into my soul before I entered this body. This orientation has made living in this world all the more shocking, and I’ve had to battle to protect my natural inclination toward a light and loving heart.

I have also learned to see things for what they are, and I do have “worst days” that come to mind when I try to think of them. One of the most significant of those days is connected to a hospital stay when I was in the thick of treatment for breast cancer. I had landed in the oncology unit with an infection (and almost no immunity to fight it) as well as a mounting reaction to the chemotherapy treatment I’d agreed to. I’d been lying in an uncomfortable bed for five days, it was just before lunchtime, and I was being sent home. This seems as if it would be good news, but the problem was I would be leaving the hospital with nearly twenty pounds of excess fluid surrounding my organs and leaking through my capillaries into the tissue of my body. A rare reaction to the medicines I’d been given.

My husband and I stepped outside of the cool hospital lobby onto a blazing sidewalk, heated by the summer sun. We were quickly realizing the impact of my being released in such a state. Dazed and hungry, we anticipated heading home where two still-young children would be yearning for our attention. Because of this, we decided we should eat something before leaving the area and did a quick search to find a nearby restaurant. The only place we could find was a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant located down a steep hill beside the hospital. It was beyond distressing to discover my struggle in attempting to walk down that sloping road. My legs were heavy barrels filled with water, lifting one and then the next required strength and concentration. And yet, it was the condition of my heart that proved even more alarming. I was struggling to consume a full breath of the thick air and my heart felt simultaneously enlarged and weakened in a way I had never experienced.

I was consumed with the idea of this being my new reality. In the world of cancer treatment, practitioners are always talking about the new normal.

Would this level of weakness last forever? Had my heart been permanently damaged?

It must mean something that this memorable day—one of my very worst—is directly linked to one of my very bestdays—a day I would not trade for anything.

—

If I worried about one thing more than anything else before embarking on The Camino Francés this summer with my 16 year-old son, Jonah, I worried about the capacity of my heart. Throughout the five years of recovery since that breathless day at the top of the hill, I had shed the fluid from around my organs and skin, had regrown my hair then cutting it off again, and built up a moderate degree of physical stamina.

And yet, despite all of my efforts around exercise and nutrition, my heart had never regained the level of strength I knew from prior to my treatment. At times I would become winded even on short excursions. Everything had to be just right within my self-care in order to experience consistent energy and strength while engaging in vigorous movement. This brought up a lot of concerns about how my body would hold-up on The Camino.

Did I have the stamina to endure such an immense journey as walking across Spain?

Would I be able to keep up with the young and vibrant heart of my wonderfully athletic son?

I did not want to disappoint Jonah, and I was acutely aware there would be very little access to emergency care available in the Pyrenees Mountains where we’d cross from France into Spain at 4,600 feet up.

When planning our first day hiking out of St. Jean Pied-de-Port—notoriously one of the most difficult climbs throughout the entire Camino—I suggested to Jonah that we divide the day up into two passages. The issue was, the first stretch would be relatively short and on the very first day, it would mean finishing by noon. He would not agree, and having never really burdened him with the concerns about my heart, I decided to meet his ambition. Besides, I didn’t have an official diagnosis or tangible evidence I was at risk, just a visceral experience of my own body.

Our climb began before sunrise, our backpacks at the height of their weight. We wore more clothing than we needed and I broke into a dripping sweat not one mile from St. Jean where we’d begun. We were walking up a winding road that grew increasingly steep by the second, our calf muscles fully engaged with each step. It was an overcast day, damp with humidity lingering from torrential rains that had come down the night before. We stopped early on to begin peeling off layers and it was disorienting to imagine we had only just barely begun a journey that would stretch out over the course of the next month.

With a moment of confusion at a crossroads in the path, we took what was likely an even longer and steeper trail than necessary. It didn’t matter though, each of the different roads up were all very difficult, so steep, and extremely taxing. Other pilgrims were around, but we were all brand new to the route, and the finely-tuned directional impulses we’d soon acquire had yet to kick in.

Before we reached the mid-morning stopping point where many people would end their trek for the day, my heart rate (as recorded by my Garmin watch) had reached in excess of 160 bpm. With a chronically ultra-low blood pressure, this rate was strikingly high for me and I had to stop repeatedly to catch my breath. There were long stretches where we were poised at practically ninety-degrees, my head spinning, my heart beating at such an expanded upper limit it felt as if it might have nothing else to do but expand one inch further and quit. I felt dizzy and winded and as if I were a burden to Jonah with my repeated need for stopping. He was also winded, and yet, still able to move at a consistent and steady pace forward.

I thought he must be wondering if this would be the reality of our entire Camino. I know I was imagining as much, but appreciated his patience and steady encouragement of his breathless mom huffing along. After several hours, we reached a quaint restaurant where some pilgrims would stop for the day. We piled into a crowded dining room filled with communal tables and chattering pilgrims, backpacks strewn all around. Our internal temperatures came crashing down and we were suddenly chilled, a piping hot coffee then put into our hands—an elixir that sharpened our minds and warmed our chilled fingers. A slice of Spanish omelette (tortilla) ordered at the bar raised our blood sugar and provided the energy to continue. We had a very long way to go.

The next hours continued with rigorous hiking up-and-around, up-and-around into the mountains, now widening the scene into a vast and expansive perspective. These loops were long and wide and beautiful with magnificent scenes and we were overcome with a profound amazement at the realization of our journey having officially begun, transporting us to places we could never have imagined. We trekked among wild horses and stood at peaks above the clouds, my heart continuing to be stretched and challenged in ways it had not experienced for decades.

I sat on the side of the road, nauseous and a little afraid. I tried not to look too far ahead. I nearly cried tears of gratitude for the oasis of a solitary food truck stocked with bananas and cold drinks. My foot cramped and I removed my shoe. I reached a near panic when I realized we had another steep climb at a moment that seemed to bear the promise of the beginning of our trek down. From dawn until dusk, I carried on.

One of the most significant revelations of the entire Camino was the result of the test my heart endured on that very first day. It was stressed to its core, and it was transformed. Blood flowed into stagnant places and made demands of a muscle and a locus of wisdom that had forgotten how to function at its full capacity. Cells traveled from all corners of my body to assist, ushering in new vitality and the promise of a better rhythm going forward.

My heart came alive again on The Camino, and I never struggled in quite the same way as I did on that first day. I trust that beautiful beating organ in my chest more now than I ever did—even before my treatment. My beloved heart is stronger than I ever knew. ❤️