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Hello. I’m Kim Wieneke, living in Portland, Oregon. I am 36, former athlete, and have stage 4 lung cancer. I learned about my condition in May of 2011. From that moment on, life has been drastically different.
I’ve been though standard chemotherapy, chest radiation, targeted chemotherapy, and whole brain radiation to keep the cancer managed. I hope, as all cancer patients do, that the treatment continues to work and that I’m always at least one step behind medical research.
Each day I get better at living with cancer. I still enjoy an active lifestyle. Pre-diagnosis activities like rock climbing, running, and working as a project manager in civil engineering have been replaced with walking, meditation, and blogging about my lung cancer experience at Aquarius vs Cancer. I’m determined to enjoy the life I have. It takes endless amounts of effort on my part. I am, as all people should be, accountable for my own happiness.
I hate that cancer has affected my life and those around me whom I love. My greatest fear is that someone I love will be diagnosed with cancer, specifically lung cancer. Like me, more and more, healthy, non-smoking, young people are identified with having this horrible illness.
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