Robyn Warner

About Robyn Warner

Why Cancer Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

September 26, 2016 By Robyn Warner

September is National Blood Cancer Awareness month and the 29th of September is the annual Light the Night walk in Dayton. Sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and held at the Fraze pavilion, this event is the epitome of community. Hundreds of people gather together to support patients & survivors, remember those who have lost the battle, and honor the families and friends who never stop fighting. It also raises hundreds of thousands of dollars every year that is used for research & development of new treatments as well as continued patient care.

As a survivor of blood cancer, I wanted to write something to help raise awareness and attempt to offer a positive take on such a terrible disease…

If you have been anywhere in ear shot of me in the last 5 years, you know that I had cancer. It is one of my favorite things to talk about- not because it gets me attention (well, not entirely), but because it is therapeutic for me. Talking about it so openly has allowed me to face the awful things that come along with fighting and beating and recovering from the cancer. In the last year, though, my 5th year in remission, I realized something: cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me.

The process was long and excruciating, and I wouldn’t wish that pain on anybody. But I do wish more people could see this life through my eyes. I went from an underachieving, lost, young adult to an underachieving, lost, young adult who lives fearlessly, loves deeply, and laughs louder than anyone enjoys listening to. The petty things that once troubled me don’t even appear on my radar anymore. The feelings I was afraid to show to protect myself from being hurt now exude from everything I am. The small things that they say mean everything, do indeed mean everything to me these days. It is liberating to live a life not bound with fear and it has allowed me to feel a kind of happiness that you see on a little kid’s face when the ice cream truck turns onto their street.

In the past, I have described cancer as a tunnel. At the beginning, it is nearly impossible to see the light at the end. Some people, too many people, never make it out. But those of us that do, walk out into the brightest, warmest sunlight we have ever known. The world above is far more beautiful when you have been trapped beneath it for so long.

In my life after cancer, I have learned a few things that define how I live each day:

· Though it is flawed and sometimes disappointing, this world is actually an amazing place. Every single day, beautiful things happen, but so many people miss them because they are hanging their heads. Our time here is too short to let the bad overshadow the good.

· Guilt is consuming- I felt a lot of it because I lived when so many others died. I also felt guilty about being the reason everyone I loved was so sad. But in life, you will make mistakes, hurt people, disappoint yourself and others. Letting the guilt weigh you down makes it so much harder to rise above the pain. The moment I let go of my guilt is the moment I started to find my way back.

· No words are more powerful than the ones that tell others how you feel. Life is defined by the relationships we build and the love that we give. When someone makes your life better, tell them. Tell them why and how much they matter to you. And tell them often.

· Society will try to define us- try to mold us into what is considered “normal”. It will try to influence who we are and what is important to us. Don’t let it. We have an obligation to ourselves and the people who love us to be authentic.

· When I was younger, I used to think being popular mattered. I wanted everyone to like me and I didn’t handle it well when people didn’t. But through this experience I learned that it is not about being loved widely, it is about being loved deeply. And trying everyday to be someone worthy of it.

Cancer is the worst. That is why raising money for the LLS has become a passion for my family and friends. But who I am now, I owe to this disease. My eyes might be the same blue, but the world they see isn’t.

Please consider making a donation to the cause, you have no idea how much of a difference it is making!

I am not the “woman of the year”, but perhaps I could be.

May 11, 2016 By Robyn Warner

My story so far has been one of survival and struggle… one of love and pain… one of family and emptiness… my story so far is only that- a story. When I tell it, it feels like I am telling it about someone else. The only part that has always felt real was the destruction and deconstruction of the life I knew and the person I was. Survival is only half the battle.

I battled Stage IV NHL for 6 months through 6 rounds of chemo and 3 rounds of a clinical trial. As the cancer waged a war on my body and the medicine waged a war on my cancer, my soul was caught in the crossfire. Within months of being diagnosed, 3 other people (friends & acquaintances) around my age were also fighting cancer. Today, I am the only one still alive. It is this that has immobilized me, frozen me in a state of oblivion. I am not driven. I stopped dreaming. I have become so painfully aware that I was not the one worth saving, and it hurts me every day.

But here I am now, with this opportunity for redemption. With this chance to earn the wonderful things people have said about me and be as strong as they think I am… and to believe for the first time that maybe my purpose in this world is one worthy of a second chance.

I am not the “woman of the year”, but perhaps I could be.

It wasn’t until 2013, after I recovered from my last of 10+ post-cancer surgeries to repair a bile duct in my chest that had been crushed by a tumor, that the hardest part of my journey began. The people around me couldn’t understand why I was unable to function now that I was “better”. How could I be so strong for those brutal two years only to fall apart now? How could I be so sad when I had every reason to be happy? I was broken. I was drained.

In 2015, some might say that I found myself again, but that wasn’t the case at all. I was finally able to put together the remnants of my world crashing down and create something new. As I look ahead , I am anxious and excited for what’s to come- it’s been years since I could say that. Maybe this is my year- my year to stop being all talk- my year to fall in love with the world again- my year to dream and achieve- my year to make a difference and earn this second life I have been given that so many others were not.

I say that I am grateful all the time- for the support, the love, the medicine. But when I look into my 3 year old nephews eyes and think about how close I came to never knowing him, I feel like the luckiest person on the planet. I hope what we are doing here will allow so many others to feel that same way.

I am not the “woman of the year”, but perhaps I could be.

If you’d like to help Robyn in her run for Woman of the Year, you can donate now

Falling In Love With Dayton, Ohio

August 9, 2015 By Robyn Warner

When I moved here from New Jersey, the plan was to stay for 6 months then head to Philly… that was nearly a decade ago. Life happened and I ended up stuck, between a rock and a gem city. I have spent many nights in the last 10 years dreaming about the day I could leave this town. But since moving into a new apartment in the Oregon District, something truly unexpected happened- I found myself falling in love with Dayton, Ohio.

As I walked from brewery to brewery, soaked in the summer sun on various patios, and bashed on the unique & eclectic cuisine surrounded by some of the best friends I have ever had, it occurred to me that perhaps I had been missing out all those years.

My first day as a resident began with a Uhaul and ended with a shot at a Tiki bar with good friends and beautiful strangers. I watched the Kentucky derby at the Trolley Stop, then drank some local beers at Warped Wing. Ermal’s- all day, err day. Then we hit the Dub Pub and sat by the fire on the rooftop patio, watching the sun set over our district. From there we headed to Tumbleweed, where we leaned over the New Orleans style balcony and watched the diverse crowds of people get their Saturday night started. It was over to Ned Peppers after that to sit on bar stools that swing from the ceiling and the opportunity to have a cocktail with sand beneath my feet.

And then, just before coherence left me, I walked three blocks home and was in bed before the spins started. CRUSHED IT. I woke up the next morning and thought to myself, maybe this is right where I belong. And it had been quite a while since I felt like I was anywhere near that…..

I moved to NJ when I was 11 after being raised in a suburb of Cincinnati (hence my die hard passion for the Bengals and Reds). I tell people I grew up in NJ because I really did. From 11 – 22 years old, that is when I became who I am. Because of this East Coast lifestyle, Dayton never seemed like it suited me. I felt socially outcast here, but in hindsight it might have been my own doing. I never really gave this city a chance to impress me because I had a preconceived notion of how people from the Midwest viewed people like me. I can’t say I was completely wrong, but I certainly wasn’t completely right.

The Oregon District, which is becoming known for its affiliation with hipsters, offers so much more than that, just like the city around it does. There are four local breweries in walking distance from my porch- how many people in a small town can say that? Often times I end up eating a jar of pickles on my couch because deciding which amazing restaurant to eat at is just so challenging (Salar? Lily’s? Wheat Penny? Olive? I JUST DON’T KNOW!) And I have never brunched so hard in my life. Even the food trucks alone are worth the late night trip down 5th street. I get home from work at 6 PM on Friday and return at 8 AM on Monday- at no time in between do I operate my vehicle- yet I have been on amazing pub crawls, made new friends at block parties, and been exposed to exceptional local music and art.

I have made a ton of mistakes in my life. I have wasted opportunities and it is safe to say that my life at 32 years old is absolutely not what I thought it would be. One thing I did right, though, is not make an irrational decision to bail on Dayton before I got to know it… Look at what I would have missed.