We take getting up out a chair and walking away for granted. But there’s something very special witnessing a friend’s stand up out a chair with no help and take their very first unassisted step with no one near them. I was privileged to see that today. My friend above who I mentioned a few days ago, the one who beat aggressive brain cancer, the kind that kills about 90% of its victims, usually within six to 12 months after diagnosis, did that earlier today. Her 12 month mark came last month and the tumor is in full remission, it’s encapsulated and shrinking with no signs anywhere of another one. This particular form of Glioblastoma happens to the kind that rarely spreads.

They said her odds of people living more than a year with this kind and stage of cancer were 20% or less, and surviving 5 years would be much lower still, almost unheard of. They also said, because of the damage the tumor did, the surgery to take some of it out, and the process of killing it would leave her wheelchair bound for life, paralyzed from the mid-chest down. She would never be load bearing, meaning if someone picked her up and plopped her down on her feet, she would just collapse like a rag doll.

Or, best case scenario with years of lot of therapy, she might be able to briefly stand up with a persons help and maybe, walk with a walker for a few halting steps, as long as someone was standing right beside her holding on to her waist harness.

But today, just a few weeks after the last of the three emergency surgeries that almost killed her and left her almost completely paralyzed on one side and suffering from massive neuro-muscular problems on the other, and a mere three days in intensive rehab, my friend “M” stood up with ease and no help at all, and walked unassisted across her hospital room. What makes this even more startling is she is still bloated from the various meds that saved her, meaning she is weak as a kitten and balancing on atrophied muscles at twice her normal weight. She even raised the cane for those steps to prove she did it all on her own.

The docs now say, with that kind of progress so early on, as her weight returns to normal, and with lots of practice, she probably will learn to walk longer distances completely unattended with little risk of falling. Which frees up whole new possibilities in how much assistance she will need down the road. And that while there’s no way to know for sure, this kind of dramatic rewiring so soon after the damage was done means she might regain the ability to run short distances, maybe even long enough to someday complete a 5K marathon. Something she very much wants to accomplish.

She survived and is now walking without ever giving up or giving into pleas to God for a miracle. Not that anyone would have held that against her including me and I hope, you. It wasn’t my idea to photographed the moment and share it here. But she’s so proud and excited now, that she wants people to see that’s she’s going to be OK. I wanted people to see what kind of moxy this lady has. I’m proud to say I played a small coaching role in this. But it should be pretty obvious who the star player is.

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Remember, any Paypal donations I get at Darksydothemoon-at-aol go to help her from this point on. Thanks for sharing this with me. We’ll keep posting updates as they come.