Wild Ride, page 17
Jared added a few more.
I became quiet again. It felt like a lot of things could go wrong. During launch we had the safety net of the launch escape system, but during reentry we had no backup plan.
I watched the clock counting down to splashdown time, the number getting smaller and smaller. Then it was time.
We put the visors of our helmets down. Dragon’s burns were rhythmic in my ears. Then I heard a whooshing sound. For the first time in three days, I started feeling weight, and it felt ridiculously heavy.
“Zero point three Gs,” Jared called out.
What? This is only one-third of Earth gravity? It felt like I had people lying on top of me.
“And we have to make it to four point five Gs?” I asked.
After three days of no gravity, just that small amount of gravity felt intense. G-forces continued building. I breathed in the way we had been trained and focused on keeping my lungs inflated. I reminded myself it would be over in less than ten minutes.
As we started entering the atmosphere, from the window I could see bright flashes of light that looked like lightning. Then flashes of red fire. The windows fogged from the plasma on the vehicle, and we couldn’t see anything else. Our capsule, and all of us inside, shook slightly as we made our way through the atmosphere.
I’m not going to lie; in that moment I felt fear. When I was eleven, my mom woke me up one morning to tell me the space shuttle Columbia had broken apart during reentry and all of the astronauts on board had perished. While we were going through reentry, I thought back to that morning.
We were falling, plummeting back to Earth. Our capsule was on fire at about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. We were in a communications blackout, unable to talk to mission control. I thought if I died, I might see my dad’s face at any moment.
There was nothing I could do about it. I just had to trust and pray.
Communication was restored with SpaceX and we were told to brace for the first set of parachutes.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We heard what sounded like explosions. And as the parachutes deployed, our capsule was jolted upward. It started shaking and swaying harder than ever.
Jared told us not to celebrate the first set of parachutes. We needed a healthy second set of parachutes to live.
We were told to brace again, then BOOM!
The force from the second set of parachutes opening was slightly less dramatic, but the whooshing was louder than ever.
“Four healthy mains,” we heard from mission control.
“THANK GOD!” I shouted. I knew at this point we were going to be just fine.
We were in normal Earth gravity as the parachutes glided our capsule down, slowing its velocity. It felt peaceful, and we heard what sounded like a summer breeze outside.
Jared called out how many meters we had until splashdown. We put our arms over our chests in brace position at two hundred meters. He listed off the numbers: “One hundred. Fifty. Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten. Seven. Three. Zero. Umm, negative three. Negative five.”
There was no doubting when we hit the water. BOOM! It was a more intense impact than we had expected, but it didn’t hurt. A wave hit our capsule. We both heard it and felt it jostle us, but we couldn’t see through the windows. Our capsule rocked in the water.
“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome back to planet Earth,” said mission control, as we cheered and fist-bumped.
“Inspiration4 is mission complete,” Jared called back.
We had done it. We were home.
Our capsule was lifted onto the recovery ship, and as the side hatch was opened, Anil entered the capsule.
“Welcome home, earthlings!”
He evaluated each of us medically, assessing the strength of our legs.
“My legs feel really weak. Is this normal?” I asked.
He assured me it was.
I was the first to exit the capsule. Before I did, I stood, and a medical team stood around me. They asked if I felt light-headed. Cautiously I said no.
As I stood there, Kidd came into sight.
“Zero-G-Monster!” he shouted.
“Zero-G-Monster? YES!” I called back. I loved my new nickname.
The medical team assisted me up, and I climbed out the side hatch. I smiled and waved to the camera crew that was waiting and gave them a thumbs-up. I then walked into the medical bay, where I had a nurse waiting for me. I lay on the stretcher.
“I feel drunk,” I said. After the short walk to the medical bay, I felt dizzy and weak. She helped me out of the space suit.
“Where’s the fried chicken?”
It was waiting for us on the recovery boat, and it was cold, but it was more delicious than I could have imagined. I ate lying down, crumbs covering my shirt while the nurse took my vitals. Above us, the moon still danced around the Earth, and I could see the stars, and I still didn’t know which of them were planets.
After we were all evaluated, we were loaded into a helicopter. Our families were waiting for us at Kennedy Space Center.
“OH MY GOODNESS!” my mom screamed when she saw me, squeezing me tight. I squeezed back even tighter.
I was home.
CONCLUSION
I’m Still Me
JANUARY 10, 2022
The summer before I was diagnosed with cancer, twenty years before I was invited to join Inspiration4, when my family and I took a tour of NASA because my little brother was obsessed with space, Mom and Dad and Hayden and I had our picture taken in front of a green screen. It’s still somewhere in my mom’s house, a souvenir photo in which we are floating together as a family in zero gravity. Of course, we weren’t; one of the employees edited it to make it look that way.
It amazes me to think that I got to spend time in a place where I was actually floating, no Photoshop necessary. That experience of weightlessness will be with me forever. That experience of seeing our planet with its constantly shifting cloudscapes, the way the moon moved around her in the blackness, will be with me forever.
So will the feeling I had the evening we landed and found out that we had not only met but surpassed our $200 million fundraising goal for St. Jude. I was overjoyed. I had been able to channel the anger I feel toward cancer—for taking my father and so many of my friends—and do something about it. All that hard work, all those interviews, it was all worth it. We did it. It truly felt like not only mission complete but mission accomplished.
The money we raised will, hopefully, go a long way to helping eradicate cancer. And I am more committed than ever to being a part of this fight until cancer is absolutely a thing of the past.
It was also incredible to learn that despite my fears and worries about the call with St. Jude in orbit, in the end we spoke live with 1,500 families on that call. When I found out that I had been directly communicating with so many kids and families, I couldn’t stop smiling. Two decades after we first walked into St. Jude and Ms. Penny said that we were part of the family, it is still true.
I saw Ms. Penny a few days after we returned to Earth at our welcome-home party, and she had the same kind eyes and sweet voice. She told me how proud she was of me, and I thought back to how much she had meant to a scared ten-year-old and her mom all those years ago, and how grateful I am that I can now offer comfort like that to kids and their parents.
My cancer besties Hannah and Katie were there, still healthy and cancer free, living their best lives. Hannah came with her fiancé and Katie was with her husband and two kids. Dr. Doom wasn’t at my return party, but he was at launch, and I found out later that he brought the model of my prosthesis to show Anil, he was so proud. (I have a photo of the two of them at a bar, holding the prosthesis up in the air.)
So many people I’ve known and loved through the years, who have been with me on the toughest days, showed up to celebrate with me on this most joyous day. All my best friends and families were there, including Gabrielle Corsentino and the rest of the Corsentino crew, and some of my favorite co-workers from the emergency department and St. Jude. Lizzie was there too, watching alongside my family. And a person who was recently added to the mix, Mom’s new boyfriend, was by her side.
In moments like this, life feels beautiful and full circle.
If I’m being honest with you, and I am, I have to tell you that going to space was never really my dream. It’s not something I thought much about. Instead, my whole life has been my dream—just living was my dream. Getting to graduate from high school, to study medicine, to work at St. Jude. Getting to travel, to have adventures, to say yes to things, to keep looking forward. Those were my dreams.
Now my dreams are expanding. In October, a few weeks after our successful mission, we went back to SpaceX and were presented with astronaut wings, a beautiful symbol of an incredible journey. I picked them up for a closer inspection, and the silver Dragon wings glistened in the light.
While I was at SpaceX, Anil invited me to take a walk with him and discuss opportunities to join the SpaceX medical team. He knew I felt passionate about sharing my experience and what I’ve learned with future fliers. Two months after our mission, I became part of the team helping medically train commercial astronauts. It’s not a big commitment of time, so I can continue doing what I have always wanted to do—work with the kids of St. Jude. I feel like the two jobs actually work well together. Both at St. Jude and at SpaceX I went through quite an experience, with treatment and with training. I was supported by both organizations in such a special way when I needed it most, and now I can repay the favor. Now that I’m on the other side, I can give back, share what I learned along the way, and support the current patients and astronauts.
Also, it turns out I love space medicine. Who would have thought?
* * *
—
I walked back into my job at St. Jude on January 7, 2022, just about one year after I first got the call to go to space. I was a little bit nervous and a whole lot excited to be getting back to my dream job. My very first patient of the day, a little boy with big, curious eyes, told me he wanted to be an astronaut, and as it happened, I had some videos on my phone I was happy to share.
My space suit has been donated to St. Jude, and if he wants to visit it, he can. So can all the children and their parents, some on their very first day at the hospital, wrestling with the fear of the unknown. I hope it serves as a symbol of what they can do too, how wonderful life after cancer can be. I’m the first pediatric cancer survivor to go to space, but as I tell my patients, I’m certainly not the last.
Every time I walk onto the St. Jude campus, I see the newest building, which is now named the Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center. I can’t believe how proud I am of a building, but really, I’m so proud of what it represents. When our crew was at the building dedication, Jared said it was to be dedicated to all of the children who went to the stars before their time. My hope is that with the research that Inspiration4 funds, more and more children will have the chance to grow up and discover their dreams right here on Earth. Or in space.
* * *
—
There was a time in my life when I didn’t think I’d get to turn twenty-one. Incredibly, I not only got to turn thirty, but by the time I did, I had spent 10,947 days on Earth and three days in space. What a wild ride.
I’ve been asked several times whether, if I had the opportunity, I would tell my younger self going through cancer treatment that she would one day become an astronaut. The truth is, I would not tell ten-year-old me that she would one day go to space. The beauty of life is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s why, even on your most difficult days, you have to hold on to hope that there will be better ones, so great that you can’t even imagine.
I still have moments, very frequently, when I think to myself, I can’t believe I went to space. I recognize how fortunate I am to have experienced something so few have been able to see and feel. There are times when I hope I’m not going to just wake up and realize it was all a dream. Becoming an astronaut is not something I ever imagined could even be possible. It came in like a wrecking ball.
It wasn’t an easy year, and it wasn’t always easy to stay vulnerable and honest with cameras trained on us at every moment. The result, though, was a documentary that lets the world see what we got to see. The occasional annoyance I felt at constantly being filmed evaporated when I saw the result. When Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space was released on Netflix, I was able to relive the best year of my life. Watching it allows me to feel proud of how hard I worked, how brave I was, and how much I learned about myself. So did the experience of writing this book.
One of my first questions when I found out I was going to space was “Are we going to the moon?” I knew basically nothing about space then, and I am amazed how much I learned over the months that followed, all the way to becoming an astronaut. A few months after our mission, I was writing an email. I casually typed the phrase “the time I went to space,” then laughed out loud.
Going forward, I plan to continue doing what I love the most: traveling the world. Space was an unbelievable experience, and it made me appreciate Earth in a new way, so that I wanted to get back down to continue exploring on the ground. There’s so much to explore on our planet and beauty to see and people to meet and things to learn. I’ve got a long bucket list, but I think that’s how it should be. I’ll never stop daydreaming about my next adventure and having something on the books to look forward to. Plus, I owe it to Australia to check it out.
People keep asking if I’ve changed. Absolutely, yes, I have. I haven’t transformed into a different person, though. I’ve just become more me. This year I’ve seen my confidence and strength grow. I have pushed past the limits I thought I had and learned more about myself in the process. Going forward, I’ll know that the experiences I fear the most can be the most rewarding, and that true toughness means taking uncertain steps exactly as you are.
I believe in saying yes to opportunities that can change your life, even opportunities that scare you. Take the chance and you will feel, and learn, and grow, and become even more you. Following your dreams can take you to dreams you didn’t know you had.
Not everyone has had childhood cancer to overcome, but everyone has had something. Something that hurts to the core, makes you doubt what the future will hold, and even makes you lose hope. What I’ve learned in my life is to not give in to that despair, not to lose hope, no matter what. Happiness and hope are, at the end of the day, choices. And they are worth choosing.
The day after I got back to Memphis, St. Jude threw a parade in my honor. I was loaded onto the back of Dr. Doom’s convertible, with his wife at the wheel, wearing her “Hayley’s Ground Krewe” T-shirt. The first stop on the parade was in front of the main hospital. Patients and their families flocked the sidewalks, holding pom-poms and homemade posters. The St. Jude CEO had the microphone. He asked if I could have imagined when I walked through those front doors nearly twenty years ago that I would one day be welcomed back to St. Jude as an astronaut with a parade.
The truth is, the dreams I had don’t even compare to the glorious, beautiful life I have been given. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I can’t imagine it, not even a little bit. I’m just so excited to see what comes next.
To Mom, Dad, and Hayden
By my side, through it all.
Acknowledgments
I hope this book shows that I am who I am because of the people who have supported me, lifted me up, and made me laugh through it all. I am beyond grateful to have so much love in my life.
Some particular shout-outs as follows:
Thank you.
To Sandra Bark, for helping make my dream of this book a reality, for understanding who I am and helping me share it with the world. You are the type B to my type A, and early mornings to my late nights, and together we made the perfect team.
To Eliza, Cait, Keren, and the entire team at Convergent, for believing in my story, for your wisdom, and for guiding me through this process.
To Ashley Longshore, for the gift of this cover that I love so much and that embodies how I see myself, a badass and feminine astronaut.
To Mom, for cleaning more vomit than anyone ever should, for being our family’s rock, and for being the best friend, travel buddy, and role model. Thank you for always supporting my adventures, even when they make you scared. Because of you, I am me.
To Dad, for teaching me the importance of exploring the world and forming relationships with people along the way. I will always try to live my life in a way that honors your legacy and the deep love you showed our family.
To Hayden and Liz, for answering my innumerable rocket science questions and for always showing up. Hayden, you’ve been there through it all, and you are my go-to now and forever. Liz, I am so grateful for your loving support through Dad’s sickness and launch week and everything in between.
To Aunt Kerryn and Lauren, my extended immediate family. I can’t imagine going through life without the two of you.
To my girls, you know who you are. I became who I am with you all by my side. Thanks for being the best, most ride-or-die, supportive Krewe a girl could have.
To my care team at St. Jude, especially Lizzie, Dr. Neel (Doom), and Dr. Jane. So many people worked together to help me not only survive but have an unbelievably positive experience with cancer that made me want to grow up and do what you do. Thank you for carrying me through the hardest days and helping maintain my spirit.
To Jared Isaacman, I’ll never be able to express my gratitude for your trust in me, for bringing me to the stars, and for your friendship—as well as for your passion and commitment to ending childhood cancer. You’re making the world a better place.
I became quiet again. It felt like a lot of things could go wrong. During launch we had the safety net of the launch escape system, but during reentry we had no backup plan.
I watched the clock counting down to splashdown time, the number getting smaller and smaller. Then it was time.
We put the visors of our helmets down. Dragon’s burns were rhythmic in my ears. Then I heard a whooshing sound. For the first time in three days, I started feeling weight, and it felt ridiculously heavy.
“Zero point three Gs,” Jared called out.
What? This is only one-third of Earth gravity? It felt like I had people lying on top of me.
“And we have to make it to four point five Gs?” I asked.
After three days of no gravity, just that small amount of gravity felt intense. G-forces continued building. I breathed in the way we had been trained and focused on keeping my lungs inflated. I reminded myself it would be over in less than ten minutes.
As we started entering the atmosphere, from the window I could see bright flashes of light that looked like lightning. Then flashes of red fire. The windows fogged from the plasma on the vehicle, and we couldn’t see anything else. Our capsule, and all of us inside, shook slightly as we made our way through the atmosphere.
I’m not going to lie; in that moment I felt fear. When I was eleven, my mom woke me up one morning to tell me the space shuttle Columbia had broken apart during reentry and all of the astronauts on board had perished. While we were going through reentry, I thought back to that morning.
We were falling, plummeting back to Earth. Our capsule was on fire at about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. We were in a communications blackout, unable to talk to mission control. I thought if I died, I might see my dad’s face at any moment.
There was nothing I could do about it. I just had to trust and pray.
Communication was restored with SpaceX and we were told to brace for the first set of parachutes.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We heard what sounded like explosions. And as the parachutes deployed, our capsule was jolted upward. It started shaking and swaying harder than ever.
Jared told us not to celebrate the first set of parachutes. We needed a healthy second set of parachutes to live.
We were told to brace again, then BOOM!
The force from the second set of parachutes opening was slightly less dramatic, but the whooshing was louder than ever.
“Four healthy mains,” we heard from mission control.
“THANK GOD!” I shouted. I knew at this point we were going to be just fine.
We were in normal Earth gravity as the parachutes glided our capsule down, slowing its velocity. It felt peaceful, and we heard what sounded like a summer breeze outside.
Jared called out how many meters we had until splashdown. We put our arms over our chests in brace position at two hundred meters. He listed off the numbers: “One hundred. Fifty. Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten. Seven. Three. Zero. Umm, negative three. Negative five.”
There was no doubting when we hit the water. BOOM! It was a more intense impact than we had expected, but it didn’t hurt. A wave hit our capsule. We both heard it and felt it jostle us, but we couldn’t see through the windows. Our capsule rocked in the water.
“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome back to planet Earth,” said mission control, as we cheered and fist-bumped.
“Inspiration4 is mission complete,” Jared called back.
We had done it. We were home.
Our capsule was lifted onto the recovery ship, and as the side hatch was opened, Anil entered the capsule.
“Welcome home, earthlings!”
He evaluated each of us medically, assessing the strength of our legs.
“My legs feel really weak. Is this normal?” I asked.
He assured me it was.
I was the first to exit the capsule. Before I did, I stood, and a medical team stood around me. They asked if I felt light-headed. Cautiously I said no.
As I stood there, Kidd came into sight.
“Zero-G-Monster!” he shouted.
“Zero-G-Monster? YES!” I called back. I loved my new nickname.
The medical team assisted me up, and I climbed out the side hatch. I smiled and waved to the camera crew that was waiting and gave them a thumbs-up. I then walked into the medical bay, where I had a nurse waiting for me. I lay on the stretcher.
“I feel drunk,” I said. After the short walk to the medical bay, I felt dizzy and weak. She helped me out of the space suit.
“Where’s the fried chicken?”
It was waiting for us on the recovery boat, and it was cold, but it was more delicious than I could have imagined. I ate lying down, crumbs covering my shirt while the nurse took my vitals. Above us, the moon still danced around the Earth, and I could see the stars, and I still didn’t know which of them were planets.
After we were all evaluated, we were loaded into a helicopter. Our families were waiting for us at Kennedy Space Center.
“OH MY GOODNESS!” my mom screamed when she saw me, squeezing me tight. I squeezed back even tighter.
I was home.
CONCLUSION
I’m Still Me
JANUARY 10, 2022
The summer before I was diagnosed with cancer, twenty years before I was invited to join Inspiration4, when my family and I took a tour of NASA because my little brother was obsessed with space, Mom and Dad and Hayden and I had our picture taken in front of a green screen. It’s still somewhere in my mom’s house, a souvenir photo in which we are floating together as a family in zero gravity. Of course, we weren’t; one of the employees edited it to make it look that way.
It amazes me to think that I got to spend time in a place where I was actually floating, no Photoshop necessary. That experience of weightlessness will be with me forever. That experience of seeing our planet with its constantly shifting cloudscapes, the way the moon moved around her in the blackness, will be with me forever.
So will the feeling I had the evening we landed and found out that we had not only met but surpassed our $200 million fundraising goal for St. Jude. I was overjoyed. I had been able to channel the anger I feel toward cancer—for taking my father and so many of my friends—and do something about it. All that hard work, all those interviews, it was all worth it. We did it. It truly felt like not only mission complete but mission accomplished.
The money we raised will, hopefully, go a long way to helping eradicate cancer. And I am more committed than ever to being a part of this fight until cancer is absolutely a thing of the past.
It was also incredible to learn that despite my fears and worries about the call with St. Jude in orbit, in the end we spoke live with 1,500 families on that call. When I found out that I had been directly communicating with so many kids and families, I couldn’t stop smiling. Two decades after we first walked into St. Jude and Ms. Penny said that we were part of the family, it is still true.
I saw Ms. Penny a few days after we returned to Earth at our welcome-home party, and she had the same kind eyes and sweet voice. She told me how proud she was of me, and I thought back to how much she had meant to a scared ten-year-old and her mom all those years ago, and how grateful I am that I can now offer comfort like that to kids and their parents.
My cancer besties Hannah and Katie were there, still healthy and cancer free, living their best lives. Hannah came with her fiancé and Katie was with her husband and two kids. Dr. Doom wasn’t at my return party, but he was at launch, and I found out later that he brought the model of my prosthesis to show Anil, he was so proud. (I have a photo of the two of them at a bar, holding the prosthesis up in the air.)
So many people I’ve known and loved through the years, who have been with me on the toughest days, showed up to celebrate with me on this most joyous day. All my best friends and families were there, including Gabrielle Corsentino and the rest of the Corsentino crew, and some of my favorite co-workers from the emergency department and St. Jude. Lizzie was there too, watching alongside my family. And a person who was recently added to the mix, Mom’s new boyfriend, was by her side.
In moments like this, life feels beautiful and full circle.
If I’m being honest with you, and I am, I have to tell you that going to space was never really my dream. It’s not something I thought much about. Instead, my whole life has been my dream—just living was my dream. Getting to graduate from high school, to study medicine, to work at St. Jude. Getting to travel, to have adventures, to say yes to things, to keep looking forward. Those were my dreams.
Now my dreams are expanding. In October, a few weeks after our successful mission, we went back to SpaceX and were presented with astronaut wings, a beautiful symbol of an incredible journey. I picked them up for a closer inspection, and the silver Dragon wings glistened in the light.
While I was at SpaceX, Anil invited me to take a walk with him and discuss opportunities to join the SpaceX medical team. He knew I felt passionate about sharing my experience and what I’ve learned with future fliers. Two months after our mission, I became part of the team helping medically train commercial astronauts. It’s not a big commitment of time, so I can continue doing what I have always wanted to do—work with the kids of St. Jude. I feel like the two jobs actually work well together. Both at St. Jude and at SpaceX I went through quite an experience, with treatment and with training. I was supported by both organizations in such a special way when I needed it most, and now I can repay the favor. Now that I’m on the other side, I can give back, share what I learned along the way, and support the current patients and astronauts.
Also, it turns out I love space medicine. Who would have thought?
* * *
—
I walked back into my job at St. Jude on January 7, 2022, just about one year after I first got the call to go to space. I was a little bit nervous and a whole lot excited to be getting back to my dream job. My very first patient of the day, a little boy with big, curious eyes, told me he wanted to be an astronaut, and as it happened, I had some videos on my phone I was happy to share.
My space suit has been donated to St. Jude, and if he wants to visit it, he can. So can all the children and their parents, some on their very first day at the hospital, wrestling with the fear of the unknown. I hope it serves as a symbol of what they can do too, how wonderful life after cancer can be. I’m the first pediatric cancer survivor to go to space, but as I tell my patients, I’m certainly not the last.
Every time I walk onto the St. Jude campus, I see the newest building, which is now named the Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center. I can’t believe how proud I am of a building, but really, I’m so proud of what it represents. When our crew was at the building dedication, Jared said it was to be dedicated to all of the children who went to the stars before their time. My hope is that with the research that Inspiration4 funds, more and more children will have the chance to grow up and discover their dreams right here on Earth. Or in space.
* * *
—
There was a time in my life when I didn’t think I’d get to turn twenty-one. Incredibly, I not only got to turn thirty, but by the time I did, I had spent 10,947 days on Earth and three days in space. What a wild ride.
I’ve been asked several times whether, if I had the opportunity, I would tell my younger self going through cancer treatment that she would one day become an astronaut. The truth is, I would not tell ten-year-old me that she would one day go to space. The beauty of life is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s why, even on your most difficult days, you have to hold on to hope that there will be better ones, so great that you can’t even imagine.
I still have moments, very frequently, when I think to myself, I can’t believe I went to space. I recognize how fortunate I am to have experienced something so few have been able to see and feel. There are times when I hope I’m not going to just wake up and realize it was all a dream. Becoming an astronaut is not something I ever imagined could even be possible. It came in like a wrecking ball.
It wasn’t an easy year, and it wasn’t always easy to stay vulnerable and honest with cameras trained on us at every moment. The result, though, was a documentary that lets the world see what we got to see. The occasional annoyance I felt at constantly being filmed evaporated when I saw the result. When Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space was released on Netflix, I was able to relive the best year of my life. Watching it allows me to feel proud of how hard I worked, how brave I was, and how much I learned about myself. So did the experience of writing this book.
One of my first questions when I found out I was going to space was “Are we going to the moon?” I knew basically nothing about space then, and I am amazed how much I learned over the months that followed, all the way to becoming an astronaut. A few months after our mission, I was writing an email. I casually typed the phrase “the time I went to space,” then laughed out loud.
Going forward, I plan to continue doing what I love the most: traveling the world. Space was an unbelievable experience, and it made me appreciate Earth in a new way, so that I wanted to get back down to continue exploring on the ground. There’s so much to explore on our planet and beauty to see and people to meet and things to learn. I’ve got a long bucket list, but I think that’s how it should be. I’ll never stop daydreaming about my next adventure and having something on the books to look forward to. Plus, I owe it to Australia to check it out.
People keep asking if I’ve changed. Absolutely, yes, I have. I haven’t transformed into a different person, though. I’ve just become more me. This year I’ve seen my confidence and strength grow. I have pushed past the limits I thought I had and learned more about myself in the process. Going forward, I’ll know that the experiences I fear the most can be the most rewarding, and that true toughness means taking uncertain steps exactly as you are.
I believe in saying yes to opportunities that can change your life, even opportunities that scare you. Take the chance and you will feel, and learn, and grow, and become even more you. Following your dreams can take you to dreams you didn’t know you had.
Not everyone has had childhood cancer to overcome, but everyone has had something. Something that hurts to the core, makes you doubt what the future will hold, and even makes you lose hope. What I’ve learned in my life is to not give in to that despair, not to lose hope, no matter what. Happiness and hope are, at the end of the day, choices. And they are worth choosing.
The day after I got back to Memphis, St. Jude threw a parade in my honor. I was loaded onto the back of Dr. Doom’s convertible, with his wife at the wheel, wearing her “Hayley’s Ground Krewe” T-shirt. The first stop on the parade was in front of the main hospital. Patients and their families flocked the sidewalks, holding pom-poms and homemade posters. The St. Jude CEO had the microphone. He asked if I could have imagined when I walked through those front doors nearly twenty years ago that I would one day be welcomed back to St. Jude as an astronaut with a parade.
The truth is, the dreams I had don’t even compare to the glorious, beautiful life I have been given. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I can’t imagine it, not even a little bit. I’m just so excited to see what comes next.
To Mom, Dad, and Hayden
By my side, through it all.
Acknowledgments
I hope this book shows that I am who I am because of the people who have supported me, lifted me up, and made me laugh through it all. I am beyond grateful to have so much love in my life.
Some particular shout-outs as follows:
Thank you.
To Sandra Bark, for helping make my dream of this book a reality, for understanding who I am and helping me share it with the world. You are the type B to my type A, and early mornings to my late nights, and together we made the perfect team.
To Eliza, Cait, Keren, and the entire team at Convergent, for believing in my story, for your wisdom, and for guiding me through this process.
To Ashley Longshore, for the gift of this cover that I love so much and that embodies how I see myself, a badass and feminine astronaut.
To Mom, for cleaning more vomit than anyone ever should, for being our family’s rock, and for being the best friend, travel buddy, and role model. Thank you for always supporting my adventures, even when they make you scared. Because of you, I am me.
To Dad, for teaching me the importance of exploring the world and forming relationships with people along the way. I will always try to live my life in a way that honors your legacy and the deep love you showed our family.
To Hayden and Liz, for answering my innumerable rocket science questions and for always showing up. Hayden, you’ve been there through it all, and you are my go-to now and forever. Liz, I am so grateful for your loving support through Dad’s sickness and launch week and everything in between.
To Aunt Kerryn and Lauren, my extended immediate family. I can’t imagine going through life without the two of you.
To my girls, you know who you are. I became who I am with you all by my side. Thanks for being the best, most ride-or-die, supportive Krewe a girl could have.
To my care team at St. Jude, especially Lizzie, Dr. Neel (Doom), and Dr. Jane. So many people worked together to help me not only survive but have an unbelievably positive experience with cancer that made me want to grow up and do what you do. Thank you for carrying me through the hardest days and helping maintain my spirit.
To Jared Isaacman, I’ll never be able to express my gratitude for your trust in me, for bringing me to the stars, and for your friendship—as well as for your passion and commitment to ending childhood cancer. You’re making the world a better place.
