Music has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. From singing to my dolls at age two, to teaching myself how to play “Flashlight” by Parliament at ten, to arranging my first instrumental piece at twelve, I can honestly say that music is equal parts who I am and what I do.
Over the past several years, I’ve been blessed to work with many talented artists, songwriters, and creatives alike, from Eric Benet to Lyle Lovett to Meghan Trainor, just to name a few. Most recently, I had the opportunity to tour as part of the opening act with Jordan McGraw on The Jonas Brothers "Happiness Begins" tour, which ran from August through December (2019). The experience was, by far, one of the most memorable of my career.
Anyone who has been on tour will tell you that touring is, indeed, not for the faint of heart. The ever-changing time zones and lack of sleep are enough to drive most people bonkers, but the upside is the masses of people, full of excitement and joy, reminding you just how fortunate you are to do what you love each night. For every moment of exhaustion, there’s a friendly face somewhere in the crowd cheering you on and that’s the balance that keeps the magic going. And, thanks to technology, there’s FaceTime and Google Duo for the days when family and friends feel further away than you’d like.
Sometimes, though, things happen that we are not prepared for and cannot quickly remedy. For me, this was being diagnosed with a large ovarian cyst and Endometriosis (a condition in which tissue that normally grows inside the uterus grows outside of the uterus on other organs, sometimes causing them to become attached), all before the start of my last tour. I remember feeling perfectly healthy, then one morning waking up in excruciating pain and barely able to move the left side of my body. I was terrified. I couldn’t imagine what could have possibly changed so drastically in a 24-hour period, and everything I did consider made me all the more concerned. I was rushed to the hospital and given a series of tests, all of which initially provided inconclusive results. After a few days of additional lab work, I was finally given a formal diagnosis and informed that surgery would be necessary to address my condition.
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