This is it — first chemo treatment begins in less than two hours. I will admit that I didn’t get much sleep last night. There was too much swirling around in my head. Apparently it was rough night for mom, too. We agree that as long as we know what to expect, as long as we know what we are dealing with, we can handle anything.

But life doesn’t always provide you with a clear path forward. I like this quote, since it sums up how I’ve lived most of my adult life. I’m a planner, and I have long-term goals, but there have been several pivotal moments in my life where I’ve taken a HUGE leap of faith: Leaving a 23-year career with Marriott to work for a crazy, quirky little telecom, walking away from a well-paying job to forge out on my own as a PR Indie, and uprooting my life in DC to move to South Carolina. As it turns out, all three of these decisions turned out to be the right ones for me.

I’m taking another leap of faith now. I’m trusting my health, my very mortality, to a group of unknown medical professionals. All the signs are positive: The facility is the highest-rated cancer treatment centers in the South, my GYN oncologist has treated hundreds of similar cases in the past year, and the staff at the GHS Cancer Center is experienced, dedicated and empathetic. So while it is difficult for me to give up control, I’m going to take this leap and embrace the chaos of the unknown for the next six months.

As I was lying in my bed last night, I kept thinking of my favorite quote, something Conan O’Brien said when signing off on his final episode of “The Tonight Show” in 2010:

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Here’s looking forward to amazing things…whatever the road ahead has in store for me.