Once More, Unto the Breach

One year ago, I was desperate to go on our family vacation.

Our then-seven-year-old had developed a deep fascination with motorhomes and campervans. In their enthusiasm—and with a sense of adventure—Tim and I rented a 20-foot Sprinter van, fully outfitted with modular storage and every transient convenience you could imagine. Our destination: Mesa Verde.

But I was falling apart. Again.

Although my bloodwork came back “fine,” I was far from it. A small rash had first appeared in the tender space between my thumb and forefinger back in December. It didn’t seem like much—an angry little patch easy enough to ignore.

So I did.

When the itching spread to my right hand and knee, I doubled down on lotion, changed my supplements, and told myself it would pass. After all, hadn’t I survived worse? My legs had exploded with eczema in the past.

The truth? I was scared.

Years of dealing with Long COVID, followed by Long Vax syndrome, had left me utterly exhausted. I couldn’t imagine facing yet another healing crisis. So, in denial, I fed my care team overly optimistic reports. I pretended things were better than they were. Everything was fine—especially me.

Four days before our road trip, I woke up clawing at my skin. The rash now wept with puritis and swelling, and I was weeping too—from pain, from fear, from the realization that my denial had brought me here.

With the help of antibiotics, antihistamines, and too much ointment, I managed to get my symptoms under control—just enough to make it to the desert and explore the ruins of history.

But white-knuckling a chronic illness behind the mask of pharmaceuticals wasn’t healing—it was survival.

From the dusty corners of memory, Shakespeare whispered to me: “Once more, unto the breach.”

Once more into the fight to reclaim my body as home. Once more into the deep and necessary work of healing. Once more into the impossible hope that I still had strength left.

Hope is not a fragile thing.

It may begin as a flicker—a tiny flame trembling in life’s maelstrom. But every centering breath, every exhausted scream, every act of honest reckoning feeds that fire. It grows.

Hope can feel terrifying in its intensity. It’s not always gentle. It burns down the comfort you built around avoidance. It licks at the walls of what you thought you could handle and forces you to see: there is more. More healing. More life. More strength.

Hope is a wild furnace in the gauntlet of growth.

For the last year, I’ve stoked the fire of that hope. I’ve tended it like a hearth, hands outstretched, as it warmed a body once again labeled “invalid.” That fire pulled me through a multi-organ breakdown. It whispered—I had not run out of chances.

And now, one year later, I carry another ring of healing scarred with fire. Another hard-earned season under my belt.

Last month, we packed up another 20-foot Sprinter van and headed south again.

This time, I carried a clean bill of health and a heart open to possibility.