18/08/2021
**Posted from Maya’s personal page**
Hello Friends,
I’m back.
I’ll tell you where I’ve been.
When last we tuned in, Adam and I had to close Venice Bites Food Tours because of the pandemic.
I was also hospitalized twice in Venice— April 2020 and July 2020 with pneumonia, Bell’s Palsy and sepsis-induced tachycardia. It is assumed that I had Covid, even though in those days there were lots of false negative tests.
By August 2020, we knew that tourism was not going to bounce back in Venice, and with my health scares… well, we just decided (for many reasons) to move to Ireland. The weather is more pleasant, no language barrier, etc. September 2020 we moved to County Cork.
In October, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had Stage II invasive ductal carcinoma in my right breast. The surgeons were fairly positive I could have a lumpectomy. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the margins they wanted and a micro cancer cell was found in one lymph node. I had a re-excision and 35 lymph nodes removed. Happily, all the lymph nodes were clear, meaning the cancer likely did not travel, but my surgeons saw more “suspicious” tissue so in the end, I had a right mastectomy.
Three months of chemotherapy and 15 rounds of radiation followed. I have completed all active treatment and will be taking tamoxifen for 5 - 10 years.
Prognosis is excellent. Likelihood of recurrence is incredibly low.
I’m coming out now because I’m strong enough to do so. Previous to this, as you can imagine, I didn’t have the mental, emotional or physical strength to put myself out here. I cried every day. I was terrified of dying. I was also on an endless treadmill of doctor appointments, biopsies, tests, surgeries, treatments, etc. I just went where the doctors pointed.
During all of this, I had Adam by my side, who did absolutely everything, but most importantly kept me laughing when I needed it most. If there is one thing I have learned, marry the funny one.
Even though we lost our business and our home in Venice, we both still feel so incredibly blessed.
We’re blessed that we have each other (divorce rates are sky high for cancer patients), we’re blessed that we are living in the most peaceful country with the kindest people imaginable, we’re blessed that we found an affordable, comfortable home to rent in the countryside, surrounded by happy cows. We’re blessed that in Ireland, all of my cancer treatments were/are free. We’re blessed by our family who helped us financially, we are blessed by support from the Federico family and by my dear grade school friend and fellow survivor Heidi. By the support from six truly amazing women, Linda, Mary, Susie , Barbara, Marjorie and Esther.
I could go on and on about being blessed, my heart just overflows with gratitude.
We have no idea what we are going to do in the future. We’d love to start another food tour, but tourism obviously is not the industry to be in right now, so we’re at a bit of a loss there. We miss our work, we miss meeting people from all over the world, we miss being hosts. We loved it and it was fulfilling and gave us purpose. Hopefully, we’ll figure out what to do in the future to bring us those feelings again.
But for now, I wanted to say hello, I’m well, and I’m back, bi***es.
