This article is part of the series “One Moment At A Time” about my family’s journey as we help my mother fight brain cancer. Feel free to subscribe below to receive periodic updates about our journey in your email inbox. Thank you for your continued support during this challenging life moment.
A YEAR TO REMEMBER
Overall, 2018 was an incredible year. After building up enough confidence the previous year to cut an unhealthy, two year relationship and more importantly, to end a very successful yet unfulfilling corporate career, I had embarked on the next chapter of my life. I set out to follow my passion and discover the world as I had always dreamed of doing.
After traveling over 98,000 miles around the globe in 2018, I found my happiness again. I can honestly say that I had become the happiest that I have been in my life in a very long time. And during this time of self-discovery, I found a talent that had been disguised by the corporate world as something that I dreaded doing: writing.
Click here to take a look at the video I put together that highlights the amazing things that I saw around the world in 2018.
Writing a book had always been a bucket list item. But writing a book was also the most daunting item on the list. During my travels, I discovered a book coach while listening to a podcast and that single moment ripped away the dark cloak hiding my hidden talent.
I had the time. I had the motivation. It was the right moment in my life. It was time to write the book that I had always wanted to write. After traveling across all of Southeast Asia and ending up at Mount Everest, I flew back home to spend the Fourth of July holiday with my family at my mother’s lake house. And over the months of July and August, I completed the first draft of my book, writing over 65,000 words (which is about 230-250 pages double spaced).
FIND YOUR PASSION NOW
In September, I traveled to Europe (Iceland, Ireland, England, Portugal). While flying at 30,000 feet between Iceland and England, a future business idea popped into my head: creating a transformational travel company to help others discover their true passion in life and to set a realistic plan to achieve that passion. This concept is exactly what I had just done over the past year leaving my corporate career to pursue my passion of traveling the world and living a balanced, location independent lifestyle.
The premise of the business is all about helping others do what they have always dreamed of doing before it becomes too late to do. To not wait for something tragic happen to you that triggers you to wake up one day to realize life is way too short for you to be doing something that you do not enjoy doing each day.
We like to think we have control over our health and our lives. And we do have some control, but we don’t have complete control over our lives. We will never know what tomorrow will bring. But we do have today.
In November, I set out for Bali to begin building my first trip that was planned to occur in April 2019. The trip would be seven days of self-discovery and confidence building through adventures like rappelling down waterfalls and trekking to the top of a volcano to watch the sunrise. Healing your soul through a water purification ceremony at a sacred Balinese water temple. Self reflection through calming walks in lush green rice fields and healing outdoor massages. And I would be the participant’s personal guide with private, one-on-one life strategy chats taking place before, during and after the trip to lock in and activate that inner passion. (I most likely will need to shift this now).
MIND TRIGGERS
As I looked out of my window seat during the approach into the Detroit Airport after leaving 85 degree temperatures with pure sunshine in Bali 20 hours earlier, large white snowflakes streaked by the airplane and covered the farm fields zipping by below. Mike and my mother arrived at the perfect time after I exited the terminal with my winter coat packed deep in my luggage. I was excited to see them and spend time with my family for Thanksgiving in a few days after being away for over two months circumventing the globe.
My mother didn’t jump out of the car to give me a welcome back hug as she usually did which triggered an odd feeling inside of my mind. I threw my luggage into the back of the white SUV and quickly hopped into the back seat behind Mike sitting in the driver’s seat. As I sat down I sensed a strange energy surround my body and I pulled the car door closed so I could warm up.
I could hear the tenseness in my mother’s voice as she welcomed me back. I figured my mother and Mike may have been in a small argument over directions and driving just before picking me up, but it didn’t feel normal. My mother’s quick statements to Mike about how to drive out of the traffic in the passenger pick up area sounded odd to me. Her anxious tone and almost directive comments signaled to my brain to monitor her statements more closely.
Mike pulled over at rest area to use the bathroom about ten minutes into our drive back to my mother’s house. I stepped out of the car while we waited to capture the fluffy white snowflakes calmly dancing toward the snow covered landscape. It was certainly worthy of an Instagram story! I took a deep breath to pull in the pure air into my lungs trying not to think too much into the eeriness of the past fifteen minutes.
Now that my mind was triggered, I continued to pay close attention to my mother’s words. When I got back into the car I asked if everything was ok. She told me they had gotten a little lost on the way to pick me up which made sense. My mother had been worked up over small things like this in the past but I had noticed they had become more pronounced over the past couple of years. And after being away for two months, it caught me off guard.
THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING NOW
We made our planned breakfast stop at Bob Evans, my mother’s favorite breakfast restaurant, but I noticed that she wasn’t all that excited about the visit. While we waited for our food, my mother brought up an incident that happened at her school several days prior. Usually, this sort of conversation would be normal, however she had randomly told me the same exact incident ten minutes earlier.
My eyes quickly shifted over to Mike who was sitting next to her in the booth. His eyebrows suddenly lowered as he looked back at me. It was like the referee had reached into his belt and threw the penalty flag high into the air.
My mother stood up and excused herself to use the restroom. Mike looked at me and paused like he was about to tell me a secret. He shared with me that he was concerned about my mother. That she had repeated herself lately. He must have been reading my mind.
My mother has been concerned for most of her adult life about having Alzheimer’s disease, something that her mother endured for over 15 years before passing. And my grandmother’s mother also had Alzheimer’s. I wasn’t ready to accept that my 63 year old mother was beginning to show early signs of Alzheimer’s. Mike and I agreed to pay close attention to her moving forward and keep a log of incidences we noticed.
NANA KNOWS BEST
The last week of November and the entire month of December was going to be my most intense period yet of 2018. I would finish and publish my book to hit my January 8, 2019, book launch goal which would kick off a mini-book launch tour. And during the same time period, build a website and marketing plan to launch my new transformational travel company to lock in six participants for my first trip that was now fully planned in Bali.
A week after Thanksgiving, my mother picked up my sister’s kids after school and drove them to my sister’s house. My niece, Breanna, burst through the garage door and immediately walked into the dining room where I was typing away on my laptop, very close to finishing my book. “Uncle Cory, Nana sent us to our rooms for 20 minutes,” she said so fast and was breathing heavily.
Brandon, my nephew, came over and put his arms around me as I was seated at the table. A look of deep concern covered his face as if he was in disbelief. My mother turned the corner of the doorway leading into the kitchen and gave me a half smile like she had just endured a stressful moment.
“Ok, well you both must not have been good for your Nana so I need you to go upstairs and I will start the time on my phone,” I said to both of them clinging to me knowing that they can both be extremely hyper in the car after school. But twenty minutes seemed excessive. My mom had never done that before. Their heads hanging low, they slowly walked up the stairs to their rooms.
SHOCKED AND CONFUSED
My mother took her coat off and sat down at the table next to me. She put her hands over her tired eyes as she exhaled. I cautiously asked her what had happened.
“Well I was at the dentist,” she said. I paused waiting for her to continue to tell me what happened with the kids but that was all she said.
“What happened in the car with the kids?” I continued thinking she would just rattle off about them screaming and fighting over something silly. But I wasn’t quite prepared for what happened next.
A series of random words began to flow from my mother’s mouth. She was telling me something that made no sense. Words that didn’t belong together but were being used in sentences that had no meaning. Her face remained neutral as if she knew that is what she wanted to say.
I sat frozen listening to her spit out the strangest things. I tried to clarify what she was saying but I couldn’t understand anything that she meant. My eyes widened and it felt like a loud alarm had gone off in my head. My heart began to hurt thinking this may be the beginning of that terrible disease.
“Mom, are you feeling ok? Do you realize some of the things you are saying don’t make any sense?” I said and had become concerned to the point that I needed to get her to a doctor soon.
She told me that she had been having sharp headaches over the past week. And that she had gone to the doctor for sinus headaches the previous weekend and was taking medication. I thought maybe she was having a bad reaction to the medication. I told her that maybe we need to go in and get her checked out.
My mother put her elbows on the table and placed her hands on her forehead. Her body pulled over with exhaustion as we sat in a brief silence. My nerves kicked in and my entire body was scared. I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
STAY POSITIVE
My sister arrived home around the same time that the timer went off for the kids to come out of their rooms. When my sister came around the corner to the dining room, I turned around and looked at my sister in disbelief.
My mother drove back to her house that evening in the dark. It was the last time she drove to date. I called Mike after she pulled out of the driveway to head home and gave him a heads up about the bizarre conversation I had with her.
Three days later I received a phone call from Mike. “Cory, your mother complained of painful headaches yesterday so we didn’t drive up to Detroit to visit my brother and his wife like we had planned. And this morning, she couldn’t remember where she stored her tea. This is something she has gotten every morning from the same cupboard. Something is not right. I’m taking her to the emergency room in Angola.”
I turned my head and looked out the window as the cold rain fell from the sky. My eyes softly closed and chills flushed through my body while I hung up the phone. The past two weeks flashed through my mind. Staying as positive as I could, I was hopeful this would be a good way to find out for sure what was going on with my mother. I hopped in my rental car and raced to the hospital.
….To Be Continued. CLICK HERE to continue.
One moment at a time.
I plan to continue to write about this new life journey. It is a tough topic to write about but I feel writing will be a great emotional release for me and could help others along the way going through something similar. If you would like to receive a weekly update, feel free to enter your email and sign up below.
