I have been calling and writing my representatives for months now. This is the latest of what I wrote. I decided to write to all of them, not just the ones I disagree with. There were some slight variations in the wording. My feelings come as no shock to anyone who knows me. I am a real person with a real experience and my representatives will hear from me.
Dear Representatives,
I am a 32 year old resident of Milwaukee, WI. Only to Tammy: You were my congresswoman in Madison when I was a student and I was thrilled to vote for you when you ran for Senator. I’m writing to share my personal health story. A year ago I was an active, healthy 31 year old. I was in, probably, the best shape of my life. Except that I wasn’t. I had a body full of tumors that I didn’t know about. I went to my primary care doctor with complaints about bloating and some other fairly non-descript symptoms that I had mostly written off as being a woman. Thankfully, I have an wonderful primary care doctor who listened to me and ordered ultra-sounds. Within less than a week I was referred to a gynecologic oncologist who told me I needed surgery immediately. There was a good change I had ovarian cancer. On August 10, 2016 I underwent surgery to have an ovary removed, with the real possibility of a full hysterectomy at age 31. Well, they didn’t do a hysterectomy, but they did remove both ovaries and my appendix. I was diagnosed with appendix cancer that day. I had never heard of it before. I knew nothing. I was suddenly talking to additional physicians and being told that I would need another, much more invasive surgery. Less than 4 weeks after this initial surgery I began chemotherapy. I went through 8 rounds of chemo while also recovering from surgery. I started to get stronger and then my chemo had to be switched to a stronger chemo. I lost my hair. I felt miserable. My Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve were all ruined by this. On January 20, 2017 (this date is not lost on me), I underwent a 12 hour cytoreductive and HIPEC surgery. This means my surgeon went in to remove all visible tumor and then a hot chemo was poured into my abdominal cavity for 90 minutes. I have very few memories from the first days after this surgery, but I do know I ended up in the surgical ICU. I ended up in the hospital for five weeks due to an infection. Thankfully my three and six months scans have been clean and I have no evidence of disease today. This is only true because of my health insurance. My hospital stay was billed out at almost half a million dollars. I am alive today and not broke because of my health insurance. I am truly terrified of everything that has been proposed. I will have a pre-existing condition for the rest of my life. I will need scans every year for them to monitor me. I was healthy until I wasn’t. This is why insurance exists and it breaks my heart how many people don’t understand that. Only to Tammy: I thank you from the bottom of my heart for fighting for me, and the people of Wisconsin. I am willing to share my story with as many people as I need to.
Thank you,
Renee
I went in for my six month scans on Monday morning. Six months from the worst surgery you can imagine. Six months to become myself again, to have my body back. Six months. It’s also a year from when this all started. The worst, scariest, most difficult year of my life. One day while on vacation I actually opened Timehop and found this post. I had no idea how true that stupid tweet was. I had no idea that I had tumor growing inside me, but I did know something was wrong with me. It was only a few weeks after tweeting this that I went in to see my primary care doctor and my life changed forever.
I went to yoga last night. It was a Yin class. Yin yoga is more passive and slow-paced and exactly what I needed. I really thought I wouldn’t be able to do much, but really I was able to do almost everything. My body remembers yoga! I want to take a minute to give a shout out to Robyn at 
I keep being amazed by what my body remembers and what I am able to do. My body remembers how to run. My body remembers how to bike. The human body is an amazing thing. Mine has been through hell and back in the last year, but it’s finally my body again. I’ve moved up to walk 3 minutes/run 2 minutes and am running under a 10:00 minute pace during those 2 minutes. It feels so good to run again. I’m taking it slow and at some point I’ll be fully running again. I’ve decided to be reasonable and nice to my body and mind and not even try to run a half marathon until spring 2018. I’m running the 
I didn’t get to run Ragnar Chicago this year. It would have been year 7 for me. It got difficult for me when race week hit. I volunteered for my team instead. That was a lot of fun and made me not miss running it as much. Plus at 9:30 I got to go have a beer with my fellow volunteers, then go home and sleep in a bed. It was fun and I’m really glad I volunteered for it. I’m still part of the running community and that never went away.
On Monday I was sore from yard work. That has to be one of the most normal things I’ve said in months. I mowed my own lawn. I planted flowers. I cleaned my house. I did laundry. All on my own. This is a big step. I still had to sit down and rest a few times. And watch an episode of Billions. But I was able to do all of that.
