Quitting Corporate Job Saves Writer’s Life

Learn more about Rachel Stone and her book “The Blue Iris” here.

Born From Fighters

Rachel Stone is a fighter. She comes by it naturally.

Both of my parents were fighters. My mom as a single mom making ends meet, making it work…my dad was a fighter, like in a literal sense, like he was a professional kickboxer, a professional martial martial artist, ran a martial arts school. 

Rachel took martial arts classes from her dad and learned discipline.

He sort of taught me to be tough, you know, feel your feelings, but be tough and there's no room for crybaby stuff around here. Watching my dad in that training and not only one on one with my dad, but in his martial arts classes, you know, there was a lot of push through and you'll get stronger. My grandmother was somebody who never stopped. I mean, her level of energy and output was truly boggling all her life and she never complained. You never heard her say she was tired.

So when Rachel dealt with a serious health scare, she didn’t want to talk about it.

I couldn’t complain I should not feel affected by what happened to me to the extent that I did. Like this idea that because the outcome was good, I wasn't entitled to complain about anything. Like I should be just, lucky and grateful and like it ends there.

This is a story about how Rachel learned that talking about it actually set her free. This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.

Writer From The Start

Rachel was a quiet child but found another way to express herself – through writing. 

It was very commonly noted on every single report card. Like not only that I had strengths or like I seem to have a passion for stories, but that it was a bit of a disconnect between what they were seeing in class. The teacher would always say, ‘well, who knew you had all this in there?’ It was, ‘wow, you're a writer and wow, that's a surprise because we never hear you say anything.’

In college Rachel studied psychology and English literature. And during the summers she worked at a flower market. 

I loved working there. I was having a ball. You know, I was dating was just high on life, you know, just riding high on a great wave.

It was at that flower market where she met Mike and they became close friends

Everybody there it was a really tight-knit group you're working really long hours together in the sweltering heat for like 15 hours and you're exhausted. And, you know, there's no secrets and there's no hiding so I was very very comfortable. 

One day when she was 19 she noticed her right eye started to look puffy. So she went to the doctor, who suggested it could be bacteria in her makeup or an old pillow. She went home and threw those things away. But it only got worse. So her doctor sent her to get a CT scan.

And by the time we got home, there was a message on the answering machine from the hospital asking us to come back and do more scans. They kind of made it sound like they screwed up and we just need to retake some shots, you know, so run back to the hospital, you know, very different type of scan that time. 

The next day she’s working at the flower market when she gets a call from her doctor’s office.

Like you need to leave work and you need to come to see the doctor now. And I'm thinking now, like, I'm in the middle of the day, like in middle of a shift. What do you mean now? And I still was just like, huh, what do you, this is really weird. The whole way through just thinking there's a misunderstanding here.

When she gets there her doctor says they were surprised to discover a mass behind her eye.

Hearing the news and there's, you know, there's a mass in my orbit, which is like your eye socket, but space between your eyeball and your brain. And we don't we don't know was just a whole bunch of we don't know. Now we have to check into it further. It just sort of hit you like whammo, you know, suddenly everything looks very different. Suddenly you're looking at your life going, oh my God, I woke up this morning one way and now nothing feels like it's ever going to be that way again. 

They scheduled surgery to remove the mass. 

It was absolutely terrifying going into it. Everybody was scared. My family was scared... Just, really felt down into a cellular level in my bones scared, like just so scared and really racing thoughts of what ifs. I've always been that what if-er and that overthinker and that worrier. And now it's like, you know, a million things, what if, what if, and even just in meeting with the surgeon planning the surgery. It was like, ‘well, you know, if it's this type of tumor, we've got to do this. And if it's it's malignant, we've got to do this. And well, we don't know. And maybe it's going to involve your brain.’ You sort of went from that invincibility you have at you know, like I got the world in my hand. I'm unstoppable to there are like literally so many what ifs that my brain is just going to overheat from all the what ifs. Just trying to manage those scenarios and again me being totally type A it was like I can't possibly prepare for all these scenarios. I can't get out ahead of this so I didn't sleep. I remember not sleeping. I'd be as soon as those lights went out at night the thoughts would start going and At a certain point I would I put my headphones on and just like play loud music like literally just trying to drown out the internal narrative that what racing in my mind and getting so big. 

LAUREL: What kind of music did you listen to?

RACHEL: Bon Jovi. Those were the songs in those moments where I just wanted to feel happy and fun and, you know, try and rock out in the dark at two in the morning while I was crying. And just, yeah, it was very clearly Bon Jovi literally got me through the nights of that, those couple months.

Then once the surgery was over, Rachel recovered quickly.

It ended up being like a super rare tumor. I think I was case number four. Any like in the literature of that tumor, they sent it, they had to send it to like Iceland to get the biopsy, like it was just like this really rare thing. But at the end they said this is benign, you know, you don't have cancer, don't need radiation. Go on your way. I was just super happy that I sort of felt like I just narrowly escaped this and I was back on track. I was determined not to skip a beat and I didn’t skip a beat.

1% Chance

Looking in the mirror the scar was hardly noticeable.Rachel remembers meeting with her doctor after the surgery.

I remember saying, did you get it all? And he said, yeah, we're pretty sure we got it all. He says, it's a really small area we're working in. There's scar tissue and this and that, but it looks like we got it all. And I said, what if you didn't? …Well, no, should be fine. Don't worry about it. What if it comes back? And he, I remember so clearly he said, ‘there is like a 1% chance of that happening. Do not worry about it.’ ‘But what if it does?’ ‘Well then, you know, and he laid out like this sort of worst case scenario, much more aggressive surgery that they would have to do.’ And that sort of haunted me for a little bit…And then I really did just sort of push it out of my mind and I think we're good.

She was finally able to sleep at night without Bon Jovi drowning out the what ifs.

Five years passed. Each year she’d get an MRI and each year it came back clear. Rachel had just started graduate school for industrial relations. She was back at the flower shop for summer breaks. One day getting ready for work she looked in the mirror and her heart sank. Her right eye was puffy, just like before.

Within like a month or two, this thing was noticeably, oh my God, it's back, right? Like I knew it without even, know, and again, still though funny, like still sort of denying it, like, I'm sure it'll be fine. You know, I have my, my annual MRI, I'll go next year and get my MRI and I'm sure it'll be fine. And my doctor like took one look at it. I would think I was there for something else and he looked at it and said, no, you're checking that now. Like we're going back and checking that right now. And sure enough, we were into that 1% odds scenario. Hit me like a ton of bricks and I would say so much worse. I don't know if it's cause you're that a little bit further past that invincibility of 19. But yeah, that was a lot of nights of a lot of Bon Jovi, a lot of Bon Jovi all night long.

Rachel exhausted herself to the fullest extent possible taking back to back shifts at the flower shop.

This time the doctor told her the surgery would be more intense.

They essentially had to remove a piece of my skull and go at it from two directions. So originally in the first surgery, they just went through the space between my eyeball and my eyebrow, like just sort of in the crease of your eye, like where you would put your eyeshadow. And they sort of tucked the incision in there and it was fine. Second surgery was yes, going through there, but also going through like my orbital bone on the temple and like above my cheekbone to try and get at it from both sides and sort of meet up in the middle to try and make sure that they really did get it all. And of course then there was all this other stuff on the table like we don't know what that then does for your actual eye and your vision. There was nerve damage, permanent nerve damage. I still don't feel like there's a section of my face and my skull that I cannot, I have no feeling. There was a lot of retraining my eyes to work together afterwards.

PTSD

LAUREL: And what was all of that like for you?

RACHEL: Without a doubt the hardest darkest time of my whole life. I was really messed up after that and It was just a whole adjustment to me seeing myself differently…For one thing I thought, my God, my face is ruined. Like my face is ruined and everyone that looks at me is only going to see this for the rest of my life. So there was that whole part of it. But then there was really just this post trauma that I didn't recognize until many years later. Until recently I didn't call it PTSD. Nobody told me I had PTSD. I had studied PTSD in university before that. I knew about PTSD. I just never thought that was me didn't think that I should be feeling the way that I was feeling, but I was most definitely feeling that way in hindsight. Like I would have I think they were night terrors. I would wake up absolutely, like fight or flight doesn't even begin to describe what my body was physically doing at random, like just at random. You know, I'd wake up like that. I'd have the most like horrific grueling nightmare, like grueling, gruesome nightmares, weird, bizarre, know, blood and guts everywhere, like really weird. Sounds. I had a problem with certain sounds. If somebody fired up a saw or like a grinder or that type of a tool or a machine, I was instantly a mess. Like I'm hitting the floor and I didn't understand that at first because I never heard those machines in the operating room. Like I was out. I realized later that I obviously must have heard them and I must have heard them cutting my skull. I started to think there was probably a lot that I heard or felt or whatever while you're under anesthesia that just because I don't remember it and I didn't experience it consciously, probably still might have messed me up a little. 

It took her a long time to accept she had PTSD because she thought she should feel lucky.

Ultimately I came out of that okay there were some deficits yes there's some nerve damage yes my vision's a little wonky sometimes yes my face looks different and people look at me weird sometimes but I'm lucky. It could have been so much worse it it could have turned cancerous and they they ruled that out they said it didn't like I was so grateful and so lucky that I kept thinking well you're fine then like this is fine like you don't have the right to sort of call this PTSD, feeling like I can't really be both. 

So many people had heard she had a tumor and needed surgery so when she saw them they wanted to talk about it. But that was the last thing Rachel wanted to talk about.

Every time I relived that or even just for a minute like brought it up there was sort of like this two-week fallout afterwards you know even just a brief mention in passing of someone who was well-meaningly concerned I was noticing a fallout and and it was called coming back and it was surfacing again so I think my strategy there was to just not like let's just pretend that it didn't happen and let's bury it good and deep. I just stopped bringing it up and stopped and dodged any reminder. It really kind of got extreme. Like it was to the point where I would not be in any pictures. I would run if people were taking pictures. At first it was kind of about being self-conscious of how it looked to other people. But then it really became about, I just don't want to remember.  

I think a lot of women where we are asked a question and we feel obligated to explain I felt like I had to answer them and I would get really uncomfortable. Now I'm having these nightmares again for two weeks every single time.

So for a while Rachel stopped going out – both to avoid the questions and the chronic neck pain that arose from unwittingly tipping her head back, trying to see out of both eyes while awaiting a corrective procedure to restore eyelid function damaged in the surgery.

But I could still feel people wanting to ask like I would walk into a new situation and you I could identify the moment that it registered with them that there was these scars on my face and my eyelid was mal-shapen and misshapen. You saw it the second they realized it. You just knew they kind of changed their demeanor changed. We sort of had this term. that I would say to my mom sometimes, I remember going through the checkout line and I threw some treats or something and I threw on the belt and I could tell the minute the cashier registered that something had happened to my face, her hold made her change and she softened and she was sort of less hurried and then she said, don't worry about those, hon, you don't have to pay for those. And I thought. She's giving me free stuff. Like really?And I would say, my gosh, that's tumor sympathy right there. 

LAUREL: Were you avoiding mirrors as well?

RACHEL: Yeah, to this day, still struggle with like a good look in the mirror. First of all, because if I do, it's if you look long enough, my eyes go a little. But yeah, no, huge, huge. No mirrors, no cameras, no pictures. And don't talk about it. No reminders. We're fine. Everything's fine.

The one person who remained a constant support was Rachel’s friend Mike. 

He's the most solid person I know. He's so calm to my freaking out and worrying all the time. But really in a really understanding way, really lets me sort of play out my worst case scenarios. I'm the goofy one and I make him laugh and I'm all you know acting like a big kid sometimes and he's sort of the more the more serious more grounded person but you know laughs along with me.

Their friendship evolved and in February of 2009 Rachel and Mike got married.

We still talk about how when we did those vows, you know, he'd been through that with me. Like we'd been through it. He was there for me. He'd come home on his lunch hour and help me with my exercises with my eye. He was with me every second of that, that hellish dark period and really held me up and pulled me through and we're taking vows about sickness and health and better and worse. We're going like we already did that and we passed.

Stressful Job

After graduate school Rachel took a job negotiating contracts for labor unions. The fighter in her loved it.

Let's go, let's go, we got this, you know, I'll run it down, give me the ball, I'll run it down coach.

She was often in the middle of stressful deals.

We're talking big dollars, big timelines, big mandates, big pressure, a lot at stake.

There was sort of this idea that if you're drafting a collective agreement clause and you put the comma in the wrong spot, you we'd heard the horror stories like, somebody in the last time put the comma in the wrong spot and it costs like, you know, $100,000 in a settlement because of how it was interpreted.

She never knew if she’d be working late into the night or the weekend.

Being my type A planner and you know, try to stay one step ahead of everything it just didn't jive with me. 

When Rachel was 31 she had a baby and decided her work life didn’t go well with motherhood and they could afford for her to stay home at least until their daughter was in school.

Oh my gosh, yeah, everything changed. I knew that that high stakes corporate life was probably never going to be for me. I could no longer imagine not knowing if I was going to be home that weekend and not knowing if I was going to make it home for dinner or being, you know, in a hotel boardroom until 3 a.m. and not seeing her. I very quickly realized that the career that I had gone to school for, trained for, was qualified for was building and climbing I couldn't reconcile that with being a mom. 

While at home with her daughter Rachel rediscovered how much she loved to write. 

Routine Scan at 36

All the while she was going back for regular scans and avoiding talking about it as much as possible. 

The doctor would say, you know, yeah, it's all good, know, 99% like we're good, you're good, the odds are really good. And I really settled into that. Tat was in the past. And the tumor did feel very, very far away at that point, just like a distant sort of black spot on my past, but really not affecting me in my day-to-day life. 

At 36 she went in for her annual scan. Then a month later she had her physical with her family doctor. 

He said, as he's going through my file, ‘okay, so what's happening with this abnormal result on the scan?’ I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ And so there had been some sort of error where they filed my report, but they didn't tell me or call me in. So I was kind of going along thinking everything was fine. It wasn't fine. It had shown an increase in size from the year before. So I remember instantly in that doctor's office just unraveling inside. I was trying to keep it together but it was very clear to me that as far as I thought I had come and as far as I had thought everything was fine and it was a thing of my past, it was very much right up close again. I was thinking, I can't do that again. I'm not doing that again. I can't go through that, especially now my daughter's young. I have a baby. She needs me. 

She’s told she has to wait to see the specialist and wait to do a follow-up scan. 

What can possibly be the new worst case scenario surgery. So my mind is just racing and nobody wanted to do that surgery again. And I certainly didn't, especially because we did it and here we are again. And so it became sort of very much a waiting game.

Rediscovered Writing

While Rachel waits she desperately needs a distraction.

And I don't want to go jump into a job because again, I'm thinking, I can't let people down. I can't go start something. And then what if I have to get called back to surgery? Where is this going? So this is not the time really to embark on that. So let's park that for a minute. And the other half of me is going, all my life, I really want to be a writer. Like I've always wanted to be a writer Suddenly I was really scared that I blew it. Like I thought my chance is gone. What if my chance is gone? What if if this goes badly and I never got to write that book or chase that dream down that I kept thinking I would do someday? So those two things sort of met in the middle. It was time to take the leap.

Her husband encouraged her to enroll in a creative writing program.

Writing had always been a hobby whenever she could carve out space for it. But having the time to devote herself to writing was a revelation.

It was like meeting myself for the first time in my whole life. My husband even said, I remember him saying to me, ‘I've never seen you more you than you are right now.’ I'd bring my daughter to school. I'd get into it ultimately ended up being a fiction manuscript. But the day would be gone. I mean, in a very eerie, mind blowing way. It was like someone hypnotized me and one minute I was dropping her off and the next minute I was flying out the door because I was late and that bell was going to ring and I wasn't going to be there on time. And I can't even really account for the hours in between. I didn't move. I didn't leave my chair. I didn't eat my breakfast. I was just so locked in and lost in it, which was glorious because I wasn't thinking about this damn tumor. I wasn't thinking about worst case scenarios. And I was also doing something that I knew now without a doubt. I'd always loved to write but really set a whole new bar for what felt right to me. I often describe it as being lit up from the inside. It just felt like everything inside of me was alive and glowing in the most beautiful way. I’m thinking how am I 36 and it’s been this way the whole time.

For the first time in her life Rachel felt sure that this is who she was and what she was supposed to be doing. So she knew she had to keep making space for her writing.

The Incredible Shrinking Tumor

She did another scan a month later, then again at three months and it hadn’t changed. Then a third scan and on the Saturday of Easter weekend Rachel decided she needed to take her mind off of it. 

I mean it was not usual that we were going to Mass, I just wanted to go. I had a lot on my mind. We were waiting for the results of the scan, which I had had earlier that week. 

As they turned into the parking lot her phone rang. It was her doctor.

And I'm thinking, this is five o'clock on a Saturday night and my doctor's calling me. This is bad, okay, here we go, really bracing myself. And I pick up the phone and the first thing that came out of his mouth was ‘you're fine. Everything's fine.’ And you know okay like this huge sigh of relief and not only had the tumor stabilized, and it had been enough time now that we were feeling comfortable that it was stabilized, but it was looking smaller. And that really hit home. And I said, ‘it's smaller? Is this thing shrinking?’ He says, ‘I don't really see how it's possible that it's shrinking. But the point is, it's not growing.’ He's going, that doesn't really that doesn't really make any sense. And granted, like, there's no medical explanation for why a tumor would spontaneously get smaller. I've turned into the church. I'm literally staring at this like stained glass. I'm going, this, is, I on like a reality show that this has been staged almost? And, and I just know, like I'm sitting there and I'm going, this all made sense. The whole thing. Like I thought there I was just trucking along 11 years in the clear, no problem. And this thing comes back out of nowhere with like less than 1 % odds, why? For what reason? And it all just clicked. That's exactly the point of this whole thing because I've changed everything about how I live my life. I've changed everything about how I spend my day. I have unlocked this purpose that I know is for me without having any clue whether I'm doing it right or where it's headed. And now the freaking thing is getting smaller. And I know that that is because of the changes I've made. I know that is because I haven't even thought about this and I haven't stressed out. I haven't done anything but just do what I love, which is write by day and be with my family by night. And I sort of just have this whole moment where I say, that's it. I am never going back.

This book is like my own little miracle. And it's not even a choice anymore. It's not even like a decision. It's a have to. I don't care if it takes me till I'm 108. I'm going to see this through because this now is very clearly for me. 

LAUREL: I love that so much. I have like chills and tears and...

RACHEL: Cool, yeah I still get emotional. It was just so crazy when everything just falls into place. You're like, that's how we got here.

Facing Her Trauma

In 2021 Rachel finished her book “The Blue Iris” set in a flower shop much like the one she worked in. She queried several literary agents in the hopes of publishing it traditionally.

But everybody’s saying no. Rejection after rejection and I go to an editor and say why is everyone rejecting this? What have I done wrong here? And she said well the story that you think you wrote is not what this book is. She said this book is about a group of people. The point of the story is that she is surrounded by a group of people and all of them together are dealing with their past traumas and learning to face what they have been running from for years. And it sort of blew my mind because I was like, that's exactly what I'm doing, isn't it? And really didn't consciously plan that. It is a story of owning your hardest truths and finding what's for you, even if it's not where you've been looking and not where you think it should be, and finding healing and learning to let go. 

So she revised the book, giving voice to the secondary characters and intertwining their journeys of healing from their pasts into the main narrative.

I've never been scared of the hard work. Just give me the plan, right?

It’s the fighter in her. In total she queried 150 different agents over three years before finally approaching small independent publishers and receiving her first offer 

It just didn't feel real like my husband was crying more than I was, but there was just so much crying. I just kept really getting emotional at all stages of it, thinking, oh my god, this is really real. Because for so long, this was just this thing I was holding onto to get me through. And then it was like, my god, it's here and it's real. And then I think the best part was that once it came out, people, the feedback was that I had made the right choice in keeping it, keeping it a larger ensemble point of view and staying true to that. These are fictional people, but they got me through it ... Like my own little miracle, and they defied the odds with me, so I can't I can't of course, I can't turn my back on them.

LAUREL: Can you talk about how it helped you work through your own PTSD?

RACHEL: Yes, I think that obviously the writing it was helping me to face my own sort of trauma. But it was actually when I after I had got the publishing deal and I was now looking to promote and market the book that I really bumped up against the PTSD because the first thing everybody asks you is how did you come to writing the book? Like, what's your story? I'm like freezing up going, well, what am I supposed to say? …So I was kind of freaking out.

Rachel and I met through the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. I’m a newer member but in 2022 Rachel started participating in their writing dates where everyday at specific times she’d log into a zoom meeting and check in with other writers working on their manuscripts. At the beginning of each meeting everyone says what they’re working on, then they turn off their cameras and work for 90 minutes, and there’s usually time for questions or announcements. During one such meeting Rachel mentioned she was worried about sharing her personal story when marketing her book.

One of them encouraged me to write about it first, to share the story in writing. It took me a really long time. It was really hard. I had to keep stopping. It did kick up a lot of things, but I got it down and I got it out there and I did and it got published and it's so funny because you know I think I've probably submitted a bajillion pieces and they've all been rejected but of course the one that's about the thing that I really kind of didn't want anyone to see, that's the one that gets picked up. That was a big step.

 So she sent everyone the link to her published essay about her journey. 

You can't just not market your book because you're scared about the tumor conversation. Do it for the blue iris. So I did. I shared it with just that group and I've been writing alongside them for several months at that point and they had no idea and they all clicked on the link and they came back on and it was like, my God, this is crazy. But then they really started to say, ‘but hold on a second, you have a story that needs to be told. You need to tell people that you prioritize your passion and what lit you up inside and it literally turned your health situation around. Don't you think people need to hear that?’ And was the first time that it really changed gears for me. thought, OK, this isn't even about me and my discomfort. This is about potentially helping somebody else to say enough is enough. Don’t waste time I gotta chase after that thing I know is there for a reason. And so that really was the push. They were so kind to me and so patient. They said like why don't you just tell us a little bit and I did. Then the next day like they were so amazing the next day they said okay can you tell us again and I said but I already told you but they knew that I needed I needed to practice And so they let me tell them again and again and you know, three, four or five times. I thought, my gosh, aren't you guys sick of hearing this? But they knew as writers, most of us are so intuitive, understood that it was helping me to heal. The crazy part was I was talking about it and I was OK and everything was OK I was waiting, I was bracing myself for the nightmares and the flashbacks and all this stuff to come back and I was fine. 

And within a year the Women’s Summit invited her to share her story on stage.

And I'm standing up there thinking, how am I even…? I don't think they realized what it was for me to stand up there and confidently be able to say I had a tumor in my head, it was removed, all these things, because I never used to be able to say that like I was so scared to say that and there was fallout when I said that. And confidently standing up there I knew that wasn't gonna happen like it was just so cool to reach that place where it was like yeah it happened. That's my story and that's okay and I'm not going to wake up tonight you know in terror because of it. 

I really believe it was the talking about it is how I got through it and starting small, starting safe and just repeating that over and over until all of those effects just died out.

Rachel says she’s so grateful for her writing group.

RACHEL: They've given me like my life in so many ways. Like I can, I don't care. I'm looking at you right now. I don't have makeup. I used to have to do this whole thing before I left the house so people wouldn't ask me about my tumor.

LAUREL: Yeah, and knowing firsthand that it's, you know, those are Zoom calls and you have to have your camera, well, you don't have to, but it's encouraged to have your camera on and overcoming that alone and then talking about it again and again, like that's just so…

RACHEL: Yeah, crazy, crazy. But …that's why what you're doing, that's why this work, as I was saying to Valerie, is really so important, right? Because I am the proof that it is in the telling of the story that you heal from the story and you move forward. Like, there's something about verbalizing it that allows you to just own it, but also takes all of the power out of those memories, like it doesn't have that hold over you anymore once you once you share it. 

Hope For Her Daughter

Her daughter will be 13 this summer Rachel says she wants her to understand how to tune into her inner compass.

Don't ignore it when something is lighting you up inside. When you are, you know, for her right now, it's playing the flute and I can see that when she's playing the flute or when she's singing, I can see it in her. And I look at her and I say, ‘do you feel really, really good when you do that?’ She says, ‘yeah, I do.’ And I say, ‘promise me you're going to figure out a way in your life, no matter how busy you get, no matter what's going on, that you're going to always make just a little bit of room for that because that's in you for a reason.’ Like I try to just really drive that home. 

Rachel recalls one night at dinner before landing her publishing contract, she expressed how overwhelmed she was. The next day she found a picture her daughter had drawn.

She was at the dinner table every night for me rejection after rejection. I’ve literally queried everyone in the free world who’s taking anything remotely related. They’ve all said no. I’m running out of road. She kept me going. She made a little picture for me and I found this on my keyboard. I had a meltdown. I have quit my day job and cashed out my pension. And I found this sketch and it's of her and her dad and me. And on my shirt is written, ‘Dream Big Dreams.’ And I found this on my keyboard that morning when I came up to write and I remember thinking, how am I going to get out of this? So that was really where it got me going. Like I thought, okay, I didn't come this far to only come this far. I got to figure this out because I am not going back in front of my little girl and saying that I didn't make this happen because she needs, she's been with me now. It was like a five, six year journey. Like from when she was in kindergarten, now she's 12, right? And, so I hope that the lesson, you know, the dedication in the book is to her and it says all things are possible. I went against 99 % odds twice and then a third time. And then, and then there's like no odds that says a tumor would shrink. Like there are no odds for that. So all things are possible… don't listen when people say like your chances of that are so small because I've proven time and again it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what they say your chances are you just straight up refuse to quit.

Pictures Of You

LAUREL: I'm wondering if getting your photo taken for your book, your author photo, if that was healing in any way for you. I hope you found a photographer who was... 

RACHEL: Yes, I actually ended up. My husband was my photographer. I was not comfortable, I wasn't going to be comfortable with anybody else. The fact that I was letting it get to me so much and that I was all freaked out by this photo, once it was happening and unfolding in real time and my daughter's looking and I like all of a sudden it was just perspective, like, hold on Rach, this is a photo, like, let's not, let's just reel it back in here and now your daughter's looking at you and you're freaking out about a picture. And I didn't want her to think it was for the wrong reasons or different reasons than what I was experiencing. So that really just sort of shrunk it down for me. It came down to like, there was one picture, my husband, swear to God, he took like 250 pictures. He was so patient. was like, kept saying stop looking like your passport. Try and like not look like you absolutely hate this. And then she started getting into it. She was watching, she was making faces and all this. And so we had all these photos and at the end of it, there was one, literally one picture. And it's the only picture where my face looks like pretty symmetrical. Like I'm looking kind of at a certain angle where you can't see scars and you can't see like deformed eyelid. And so I wanted that one and that was the only one I wanted, but I had like this awful resting bitch face. And he's like, that is not the one. And my daughter's like, who doesn't even look like you? And I was like, but it's the only one where you can't see that somebody took a bone saw to my head. My husband, my daughter had a favorite one that is the one on the back cover. Like where I'm smiling and yes, it's totally asymmetrical and you can see that but who cares. I realized, okay, this is how she sees me. And yeah, it's not perfect. And yes, there's been damage and whatever, but it tells the story of my journey. This is me. This is who I am. 

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.