Amanda's Journey Through Life

For my 30th birthday I went to teppanyaki grill with friends and family. Then I went to see the new Star Wars movie, Episode VII. 2 days later, on Shabbat, Rabbi Yonah gave me my Hebrew Name, Emunah Hannah. Emunah means faith. Hannah is for the biblical heroine, whose heartfelt prayer became the model for Jewish prayer.

The end of my 20’s were hard for me. I had a breakup that absolutely devastated me. But that breakup was also the catalyst for the next great chapter of my life, which was moving to Pico and discovering my Judaism.

My 30s were an incredible decade. I overcame my panic attacks. I met the man I would marry, got married on the beach (which was a bucket-list item), and became a mom to three fantastic boys.

I traveled to amazing places and had epic and fun experiences. I zip-lined through the forest in Belize, spent a New Year’s Eve in Times Square, went to World Series games, and dined at Club 33 in Disneyland. I went to a crater in the south of Israel, and flew home first class. I had season passes to Disneyland, and season tickets to the Dodgers. I had SO. MUCH. FUN. 

As I leave my 30s, I celebrate being in real estate for 15 1/2 years. I started when I was young. I never gave up. I worked my ass off. I feel really proud of the career I’ve created, and I’m genuinely optimistic about what’s next.

I’ve been through hard times in this decade, but I pride myself on not being defined by my struggles and not caving to them. I’ve shown myself a level of resilience I didn’t know I had.

My 30s were so much better than my 20s. I hope my 40s are even better.

The elephant in the room for this coming decade is: Will this be my last?
I hope it isn’t. I can’t think of anything I want more than to celebrate my 50th with my family and friends. Regardless of what G-d’s plan is for me, I want to make the most of this life while I’m living.

40 is a birthday where many people stress about getting older. But to me, aging is a privilege, denied to so many. I feel genuinely privileged to have made it to 40, especially after being told at 36 that I have incurable lung cancer.

I think of those I knew who passed before 40: Heather Olsen, Ernest, and Carly. Cherishing life is something each of them did. Me viewing it as a privilege is a way to honor their memories, because I know they would have given anything to see their 40th’s. 

I reflect on where life is today, entering this next decade feeling nothing but happiness and optimism.

I feel honored to have the greatest friends. Truly, I think the company I keep is top-notch. I love our house, our neighborhood, and our community. I absolutely love being in Agoura. Chris is my manifestation of what I always wanted in a husband. Who he is today is the absolute best version of him that I’ve known.

As I start my 40th trip around the sun, I am exactly where I wanted to be in life. Married to a great man, raising these amazing boys, and working in a career I was able to fall back in love with this year. My birthday this year was perfect. Chris got me thoughtful gifts from himself and all the boys. Jack wrote me a sweet card. We had nice dinner at home. No-one was sick & it was a perfect day. 

Getting older is a privilege that I am deeply grateful for. Cheers to 40!

Three years ago today was the worst day of my life. But I survived. Over the past 1,096 days I have ‘adjusted’ which was my word of year 1. I had to learn how to live life in a completely new way.
The second year was about ‘living’.
This past year has been about ‘becoming’.
Becoming more at peace with the unknown.
Becoming stronger, physically and mentally challenging myself.
Becoming an advocate, for ALK Positive, Inc in joining the board and doing all that I can for this community.
Becoming the mom & wife I continue to aspire to be.

I’ve grown into this version of myself slowly, and sometimes painfully, but with SO MUCH gratitude. I’m not who I was before cancer, but I’m proud of who I’m becoming through it.

It has been an incredible year in so many ways. My life insurance paid out, which was truly life-changing. Chris and I bought our first house, something I never thought would be possible after being diagnosed. I dove into advocacy, joining the board of ALK Positive, serving on the Summit Committee, Leading Young Alkies and being apart of the Local Alkies group on Southern California. I started taking steps to overcome my fear of public speaking. First with the Patient Connect talk I gave at the Genentech campus in July, and then again at another Genentech event earlier this month, in front of about 400 people.

This stage with the twins is so much fun. This past year we’ve shared some wonderful adventures together. We went to Legoland, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and the long beach aquarium. We’re planning to go to Disneyland for the first time in early December.

On the 17th, Benny and James turned three. After three years of growing out their hair, we celebrated their upsherin and gave them their very first little-boy haircuts.

Time moves so quickly — it’s hard to believe it’s already been three years. The days fly by. Between getting everyone up and out of the house, working, marketing, dinners, baths, and bedtimes — life just happens.

James is talking in full sentences now, and after a long day at preschool and work, he’ll run up to me and say, “Hi Mama, I missed you. I love you,” and melt my heart.
Benny is slower to talk, but he makes up for it with affection. There is nothing like a Benny snuggles while watching a movie or a Benny hug and kiss.

They know who I am now. The way I felt about my mom growing up is how they feel about me. Each night we sit together in the rocking chair, say the Shema, and I tuck them into bed. If someone needs something during the night, they call for me.

These are moments that, on this day three years ago, I didn’t think I’d live to see — and certainly not with this amazing quality of life.

The ironic part is that one day I’ll have to explain this anniversary, along with my diagnosis, to them. I hadn’t thought much about it until someone asked during the Patient Connect Q&A session how I plan to share it with them.

With Jack, it was a conversation, and now he’s very comfortable with it. We talk about it openly, and because my health has been stable, he doesn’t think about it much. I hope my cancer will be to the twins what my adoption was to me: something I always knew about, could always ask questions about, and could always share my feelings about.

I never want them to worry about me dying. More than anything, I just want to be here — with them, with all the Stewart boys of Passagway Place.

Looking ahead to this next year, I’m perfectly content with stability. We’ve experienced enough change for a lifetime over the past three years. I’d be happy just coasting for a while — stable jobs, stable health, stable home, stable marriage, stable family, and stable scans.

Cheers to 3 years!!! I’ve made it. And Cheers to the Hope of Many More!

At the beginning of July, I was asked by Genentech, the pharmaceutical company that makes my targeted treatment, to come to their campus in San Francisco and be part of their Patient Connect series.

They told me it would be an intimate setting and that they’d work with me to tell my story. If I felt more comfortable, we could do it as a Q&A, or I could give a talk and then sit down for a Q&A afterwards.

The backstory here is my utter fear of public speaking. It comes as a complete shock to everyone who knows me because one-on-one conversations are so easy for me.

Years ago, I joined Toastmasters to help me overcome this fear. Public speaking was completely terrifying to me, but as part of my therapy, I was intentionally doing things that scared me. Toastmasters got me over the initial hump of getting on stage, but I’ve never fully broken through or become desensitized. I don’t volunteer to get on stage & when I do patient panels or a Q&A sessions about cancer, it’s incredibly anxiety-provoking. I’ve never done a speech or TED Talk–style presentation before. The most I’ve done are panels while sitting down with other patients or interview-style speaking engagements.

July had already been a mad dash, and I didn’t have much time to prepare.
The plan was for me to give a TED Talk–style speech and then sit down for a Q&A. They told me I could switch to a full Q&A format at the last minute if I wanted to, and that flexibility gave me the security I needed to ease some of my anxiety.

I wrote the speech that morning and kept it on my phone.

When I got to the Genentech campus, the plan was still the TED Talk format. From my experience with anxiety, I know that the panic breaks a few minutes in, but overcoming those first few minutes is incredibly difficult and incredibly uncomfortable.

I did two run-throughs before the audience started arriving. At noon, the doors opened and Genentech employees began walking in.

As many of you know, part of my story is that from the age of 16 until about 30, I had debilitating panic attacks. My incredible cognitive behavioral therapist, Dr. Guiss, taught me how the brain works during panic. That your mind thinks you’re in danger when you’re actually not—and the best thing you can do is keep going anyway, because that’s how you retrain your brain.

When you give in to fear, your mind thinks you’ve escaped danger, and you feel safe again. But you’ve reinforced the belief that there was something dangerous and scary. Now your brain thinks avoidance is the answer. In fact, avoidance to stay comfortable the worst thing you can do.

But when you face it, when you push through, the feeling is indescribable. It is the best high. The absolute best self-confidence builder.

So I sat on the chair, on the edge of my seat. My heart was racing. I was doing deep breathing the way Dr. Guiss taught me.

Then I was introduced.

I took one last deep breath, walked up on stage—and fucking nailed it.

Just like I expected, my anxiety broke a few minutes in. I delivered a speech on stage in front of 275 people, with another 100 streaming online.

I was able to go off-script. The audience laughed when I referred to Chris as an “undervalued asset” when I first met him, and they cried when I talked about being diagnosed with a terminal illness just 10 days postpartum.

I sat for the Q&A, thanked everyone for spending their lunch hour with me, got off the stage, and I have never been so proud of myself.

It made me reflect on the life lessons that I live by, that I have experienced, and that I encourage others to live by:

• That anything worth doing in life is going to be hard. In fact the best things I’ve experienced in life have also been the hardest. 
• To lean into discomfort instead of avoiding it.
• And most importantly, that bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s moving forward in spite of it.

Not everyone is afraid of public speaking, airplanes, or the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier, like I was.
Maybe your fear is needles or shots.
Maybe it’s the change of starting at the new school, or standing up for yourself to someone who scares you. 

Maybe it’s the fear of failure, of taking the test and not passing.

But whatever it is you avoid out of fear, I encourage you to do it anyways.

The pride you’ll feel in yourself, for doing the thing you were afraid to, is unexplainable. And it’s worth every ounce of discomfort it takes to get there.

*See Slideshow below for pictures from the event

Last week, I concluded a chapter in my book of life.
This chapter was one I didn’t think I would get to finish. There were many times I thought it would be my last.

It included being diagnosed, the initial weeks of shock, and coming to terms with the life I thought I was going to have.
It included the first year of treatment and learning to adjust to this new life of living with terminal cancer.

It also included the birth of Benny and James, and marrying Chris.
I think of the opening to this chapter as the day I found out I was pregnant.
And I think of its closing as the events of the past week.

On Monday, I had my final meeting with Dr. Anand, my first oncologist. She is retiring after a decades-long career in oncology. I remember meeting her for the first time on Halloween 2022. The twins were a little over two weeks old. Chris, Hadassah, and both of my parents came. Halloween was a Monday, and the night before, I had gotten my first PET scan results. Reading that report, I felt my body go numb. I had never read a radiology report before. I had metastasis to my bone, to my liver, and on multiple lymph nodes.

The prior Thursday, Dr. Dae, the pulmonologist from the ER, had called to tell me that yes, in fact, I did have lung cancer and it was going to be staged at 4 because of the plural effusion and the lymph node that crossed my chest from the plural effusion.
Those days felt like years. I was in the darkest of holes.

Leaving Dr. Anand’s office Monday afternoon was the first glimpse of optimism I had. Chris and I went to eat ice cream and had a little hope for the first time in weeks.
In her very thick Indian accent, talking a mile a minute, she said:
“You are young. You will have a genetic mutation. You will take targeted treatment and you will be on it for years. The spots lighting up — that’s okay. The medicine will go after all of them… Things will be fine.”

She told me about another patient who had been on targeted treatment for seven years. She said they keep coming out with new meds…
“You will be around for a long time. No chemo. No radiation.”

She was the light I so desperately needed at that time.
We had a great relationship over the past 2.5 years. She loved how involved I was in ALK Positive. When I wanted lung surgery, she gave me a homework assignment to talk to other Stage 4 patients who had lobes or wedge resections. Once I did it and reported back, she brought my case up at the tumor board, and I was approved for surgery.

Every time I asked for something — no matter how silly or unreasonable she may have thought it was — she let me do it. Especially in those early days of nonstop panic.
She was a blessing. I will miss her.

On Wednesday, Benny and James had their last day of preschool at Gan Israel in Santa Monica. It was a truly magical place.
When they started in August, we had already been to several Mommy and Me sessions there. But this was going to be their first time away from home all day — without me, and not at my parents’.

I wasn’t expecting much. I thought: They’ll go, they’ll learn, they’ll interact, they’ll have some Jewish experiences.
But it was so much more than I could have imagined. I became real friends with the other moms. We went to shul there on Shabbat. The boys thrived and loved it. They grew so much.

I loved it for them — the environment, the people, their teachers.
Hearing them say “Amen” after blessings and asking for challah warmed my Jewish mom heart.

At their farewell party, I was the mom walking around ugly crying.
I couldn’t even hold it together long enough to say goodbye to everyone.
It was a highlight of this chapter.

And on Friday, Chris and I moved into our new house in Agoura Hills.

I vividly remember moving day in June of 2022. I was five months pregnant.
I was moving in with Chris, Jack, and Maria, and I thought:
We can make this work until Chris finishes school in June.

I remember sometime in the first three months post-diagnosis, feeling the heavy sadness that we would never move again — because I was going to die, and Chris would need help with the kids.
I also remember thinking I could never strap Chris with a massive mortgage and then die.

I had to let go of that lifelong dream, that bucket list item, of buying and living in my own home.
I’ve owned homes, but they were rentals. I’ve never gotten to design, decorate, and live in my home.

When I made it through my first year of treatment and saw that my medicine was holding, I made the decision to start living again, not just planning for my death. Suddenly, buying a home and moving to Agoura — something I’d talked about since Chris and I met — came back into the realm of possibility.

We closed escrow on my 39th birthday last December.
We rented the house out for six months so that Jack and the twins could finish out their school years. And last Friday, we moved in.

This week — in typical girl fashion — I chopped off all my hair to complete the chapter.

This chapter began with a pregnancy test.
It has included unimaginable hardships, and incredible, unexpected turns.

When I think about life, I see the full spectrum, the high highs and the low lows.
I was diagnosed with terminal cancer — but I was also welcomed into the most amazing ALK Positive community. I’ve met some of the best people I’ve ever known.

That life insurance policy I randomly got at 33 — for no real reason — has changed our lives in the most incredible way.

I got married. I had my twin boys.
But I also had to learn how to be a wife and a mother — which, holy f***ing hell, was hard.

I lived with my mother-in-law, who was the biggest help I could have ever asked for.
But I also lived with my mother-in-law — which, even in the best of circumstances, is… a thing.

Our marriage hit rock bottom. But we found our way out and to something beautiful. We don’t just run a house and raise a family together — we now run a business together. It’s incredible. We are amazing, and I am so proud of us.

I sit here writing from my desk, in my office, in our new house — looking out the window at palm trees blowing in the wind.

This has been an incredible chapter.
I’m so grateful to have lived it — and that I had the honor of concluding it, and starting a new one.

I didn’t die.
This chapter wasn’t my end.

What will the next chapter look like?
I can’t wait to find out.

On my 36th birthday, I went to Disney World with my boyfriend of six months and his son, who had just turned 10 the day before me.

I started a journal with the intention of documenting my 36th year through my thoughts and writings. I still have that journal, and I write in it frequently. I also look back at it and read what I was thinking at the time.

This week was one of those weeks. It has been impossibly hard. Benny kicked off a stomach bug in our house last Thursday. The weekend was an absolute shit show (literally), and everyone is still recovering now, including poor James, who is hanging onto it the longest—though he’s in good spirits.

What makes this even worse (and does it get worse than everyone having a stomach bug)? Yes, it does—when you have emetophobia, which is an intense and irrational fear of vomiting or seeing others vomit.

I have had this fear since I got a stomach bug when I was five. It has shaped so much of my life, including, I’m sure, the panic attacks I had from ages 16 to 30. I have a rational understanding that my fear is irrational. I know that for the average person, vomiting isn’t a source of terror. It’s even welcomed as relief when they’re feeling sick, and it doesn’t stop them from helping others who are throwing up.

For me, this fear was a big factor in having kids. I knew this day would come—that I’d have little people who depend on me and require me to rise to the occasion despite something that has debilitated me for so long.

It is because of this, that the weight of the world I struggle so hard everyday to carry, crushed me today. 

On our best days, we still have three kids: 2-year-old twins and a teenager. Chris and I have been married for 1.5 years, but we’ve only known each other for 3.5. We’re balancing kids, careers, school, moving, buying a house, my nonprofit work,…oh, and did I mention my terminal cancer?

Over the past few days, I’ve done what needed to be done to make sure things are cleaned up, the kids are okay, I’m okay, Chris is okay. But any time I get the chance to just breathe, I start crying. Today I realized what I was crying about: I’m overwhelmed.

I don’t admit that often. I strive to be positive. I want to find happiness in every day because I don’t know how many more days I have left. If this disease takes the same medical trajectory as AIDS, I could have 40 more years. If I only live to the median survival for stage 4 ALK-positive lung cancer patients, I could have five. Realistically, I probably have somewhere in between.

But when you can’t enjoy the day—for multiple days—and you’re living through one of your biggest fears while evaluating just how overwhelming life has become, it’s understandable to break.

The fact that I’m able to rise to the occasion on an average day is pretty amazing. The fact that I then take on as much as I do is why people around me call me “inspiring.” But the truth is, no one would blame me if I ran away. If everything just became too much and I cracked under the pressure, no one would wonder why. I think people are more in awe of the fact that I haven’t.

But this week, I sure did miss my simple life, in my bachelorette apartment with just me and Shlomo that I lived in on my 36th birthday.

Moms—all moms—know this feeling. Sometimes it’s just too much. This week, I’ve wanted to go home and have my own mom take care of me. I even put in a food request. I called on my mother-in-law, who took incredible care of Jack this weekend (and then got the bug herself), to please come help me with James.

I cannot imagine not having my mom and my MIL. Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart. I love and appreciate you more than words can express. I admire you both for the circumstances in which you were moms.

What I have been through since I started my journal three years ago is still mind-boggling. How hard this past week has been for me is completely understandable.

My biggest takeaway is this: Have Grace. Have grace for myself, for other moms, and for other people living with cancer.

Life can be really fucking hard. And it’s okay to break, to take a break, and to admit that you need help every once in a while.

Two years ago today was the worst day of my life, but I survived.
This past year, I have not just survived; I have LIVED.

It will never be lost on me how I learned to wear all of my most prized hats (mom… of twins, stepmom, and wife) at the same time I was learning how to live with terminal cancer while continuing to work as a realtor and becoming an ALK-positive lung cancer advocate.
I really did all of that simultaneously. And holy hell, that was a lot.

In my first year post-diagnosis, I mourned the life I had and the life I thought I had ahead of me. For most people under 40, we expect to have more life ahead of us than life we have lived. For me, statistically speaking, that is no longer my reality.
How does one learn to live with their own mortality in that way? With a young family and a new marriage?
Do I have it figured out? No. But I think I’m doing a hell of a job learning, day by day, to accept it and balance it with hope.

My first year was overwhelming. It required me to learn what I needed to do to find peace and balance in all aspects of my life. I wrote in my journal. I went to the beach. I reached out to other ALKies. I started dipping my toes into advocacy work. Chris and I kept trying and continued to stick it out despite the overwhelming difficulty.

In my second year, this past year, it has felt like the seeds planted in the first year have begun to grow. I anticipated the anxiety I would feel around scans and took the necessary steps to give myself the grace I needed during that time. Chris and I have started to find our own groove in life and have built our own family dynamic. The little boys have grown into really fun toddlers, and it has become easier. I continue to try to be a good stepmom to Jack and often have open conversations with him about all aspects of life.

About three months ago, I realized the boys were turning two soon, and it hit me. My days are numbered, and I’m now two years into my diagnosis, which means I’m two years closer to dying. I realized every day we live is one less day to live. Time moves so quickly, which I’d be okay with if I just had a guarantee of more time — which NONE of us have. I’m just more acutely aware of it.
Everyone is terminally ill. Everyone, with every passing year, is closer to dying.

Time is our most precious commodity, and it is also the most undervalued. How many people do we know who dislike some aspect of their life but say, “one day”?

In this coming year, my hope is to keep chugging along on my first-line treatment and to check off a lot more from my bucket list. Chris and I are hoping to buy our first home together. Chris graduates with his master’s degree in two months. Jack finishes middle school in June. My advocacy work is so fun and fulfilling. I have the best group of friends.
Our family is amazing. Truly. I look at my life with so much gratitude.

Cheers to two years!!! I’ve made it. And cheers to the hope of many more.

My Dear Boys,

Next week, you will turn 2. As cliché as it sounds, being your mom is the greatest joy of my life. You both, your dad, and your big brother are the pieces of my heart. Always know that, whether I am here to tell you or not.

A part of my story, that you will undoubtedly know, is how the doctor missed my diagnosis. I had a chest X-ray and a breathing test in November. Then your dad and I surprisingly got pregnant with you the following Valentine’s Day. Yes, you will always know it was on Valentine’s Day, my favorite holiday.

I was not someone who yearned to be a parent. Because of our circumstances in the first year, it took me longer than normal to figure out what it meant to be your mom. I still sometimes look at you guys and can’t believe we are each other’s.
You now come to me when you want comfort, you cry when I drop you off, and you remind me that I am your mom. The feeling I get from my mom, that is what you get from me. I am sorry it took me so long to learn how to be your mom, and I am forever grateful to Carmen, Blanca, and your Grandma for helping me when I hadn’t figured it out just yet.

James and Benjamin, you are the most incredible toddlers. Benny, you’ve recently started saying “purple,” and now you insist on us holding hands most of the time as you walk around our house. James, your first word was “Mama,” and to this day, anytime your dad says, “Say Dada,” you reply with “Mama.” I love you that much too, buddy.
Being a parent is something only other parents can understand—how completely exhausting it is, and how even more rewarding it is. I do not judge anyone for not wanting this job, but for me, it feels like my life was incomplete before becoming your mom. The idea of being diagnosed and losing my ability to have kids before I had you sounds far more awful than what happened to me.

I have thought about that doctor’s mistake many times. My cancer might have been caught at an earlier, curable stage had they found it a year earlier. However, had that happened, I would have been in cancer treatment and would not have gotten pregnant with you.
If my life is cut short because of the advanced stage of my diagnosis, it was worth it 1000 times over because, James and Benjamin, you are the meaning of my life. I am so lucky. Thank you for choosing me and sticking by me while I figured it out.

I love you endlessly, my boys. Happy 2nd birthday. May Hashem bless us with many more together.

Love,
Mom