Orange Theory
I stepped back into my favorite work out yesterday. Since Jason died I’ve only stepped foot into the gym, once. I let multiple pay cycles go by, leading to one very expensive class. It all felt like too much. Early October I determined I wasn’t ready to go back and put my membership on a 3 month hold. This time around I feel myself feeling more ready than before. Whatever “ready” really means. I never expected for my gym routine to be something that so drastically changed.
The gym was like my ride or die, especially through 18 months of supporting Jason through Cancer. But I was there, long before Jason was sick, because of him. When I first met Jason I was in such a rut of exercising. Coming out of Covid, where I had been riding my bike at home during the work day. Work was picking up, and I was finding excuses to not ride at home. Jason would try to convince me to go run with him and Nora. When I met Jason, he was running 3-6 miles daily. He would try to get me out to the track with him. I was slower and he’d stay by my side, no matter the pace. If I wanted to walk, he’d run his laps around me and Nora would do diagonals between us, not sure which one of us she wanted to keep pace with. I remember breaking down one evening, feeling frustrated with my fitness levels. He told me how much I deserved to take care of myself, to look into a gym with group classes, it wasn’t about the money, that my health and body deserved that type of self love. So I started Orange Theory. I loved it instantly. The people. The group mentality. It was what I needed.
When Jason was diagnosed with cancer, I leaned into it even more heavily. It was my escape from the mental noise. Though the first 9 months of Jasons cancer story looked nothing like the last 9 months. Even then, it was still hard. Remarkably, Jason maintained his own incredible level of fitness through 6 months of chemo. He was at lifetime, 3-4 weeks post a right hemicolectomy. The only thing slowing him down being the 6” incision on his abdomen. Had they been able to complete the surgery laparoscopically, I imagine he would’ve been itching to get back sooner. He was motived. He also couldn’t sit still. That was Jason. He kept up his running, working towards 3-5 miles a day, while working full time, while receiving Chemotherapy. Literally my hero. Me, I kept my routine best I could too. Balancing full time work, his treatment schedule, planning our wedding, but I made sure to make it to the gym. I’d be on the treadmill and the coach would say something inspirational. The tears would well up in my eyes, for the journey we were on, not having any idea how much harder it would become. I’d tell myself, if Jason can push through all this while fighting cancer, you can finish this workout. He was my motivation. Every damn day. He was also my biggest supporter, he would remember when the mile or another specialty workout was, and always be sure to tell me good luck and immediately ask me how it went. He was competitive and athletic, but always my number one fan.
February 5, 2024, 3 days post Jason’s surgery, 4 days after finding out Jason had cancer, I went to the gym ahead of heading to the hospital. It was a Monday, and the first time I would step foot into the gym after learning my fiancé had cancer. I texted him after my class and I said “This morning my gym coach said ‘every step that you take is making you stronger. Embrace the change.’ Let’s fucking go baby we got this. I love you”. For 17 months, I really did believe we had this. I worked damn hard at the gym to release the pain, the negative energy, the fear. It was 60 minutes of an alternate reality from what I was really living. I was using all the pent up adrenaline in my body to carry me through. It was the only constant, stable thing in my life. For the world outside of that gym, rapidly changed day to day, especially between October 2024 and Jason’s death in August of 2025. I never knew what the day would bring. But I woke up each day at 5:30 am, to get to the 6:15am gym class, because that was stable. I hit 500 classes in June of 2025. Just weeks before Jason was admitted to the hospital and a little over a month before learning the clinical trial, we thought would save his life, was not working.
I watched cancer consume Jason. It is the most painful, heartbreaking thing I have ever witnessed. I watched my strong, fit, active, athlete of a husband lose his entire muscle mass, his ability to even host himself to sit up from laying on the couch. His ability to walk, after cancer consumed his right groin muscles. I will never forget touching his right groin, feeling the dense rock like cancer. It was the first time I personally could feel it. It broke me, just imagining that rock like mass consuming the rest of his body. He was the only one who could feel it for so long. One morning, less than a week before he passed, I picked him up off the floor after he rolled off the couch trying to reach for his meds. It was the first morning I had made the decision to not go to the gym. I used everything I had to lift him back onto the couch. When I got him up he said, you’re so strong, his eyes beaming at me, the gym has been paying off. I tried to laugh but I sobbed hysterically and collapsed next to him.
If I know anything, it is this. It is a God damn blessing to be able to move our bodies. It a blessing to be healthy enough to choose to get up and attend a 6:15am gym class, it is a blessing to choose to need a rest day. My heath, my body, my ability to do the simplest of physical tasks I complete daily, is something I will never take for granted. Jason deserved more and he deserved better. But my promise to him is to continued to take care of her, his wife, the women he loved.
