One year ago today the picture on the left was taken on Mount Shuksan in Washington’s North Cascades National Park on a hiking trip with my college girlfriends.

Being offline in the mountains or the ocean is where I am happiest.

In the instant last August 24th when Meg snapped the picture of me cooling off in the icy snowmelt creek, I was trying to savor the moment and not think about the surgical procedure I was getting the day after our hiking trip.

I was scheduled for a mammogram-guided needle core biopsy to determine if the abnormal mass found at the back of my breast during a routine mammogram was malignant.

All week hiking, I blotted that big scary uncertainty from my mind by scrambling up to glaciated alpine lakes with my girlfriends and jumping into the freezing water. Rinse and repeat.

Fast forward to now.

The picture on the right was taken today in Northern California’s Granite Chief Wilderness – exactly one year after my laying down in a snowmelt creek on Mount Shuksan. Again, I am trying hard to blot out big scary uncertainty by jumping into alpine lakes and surfing the Pacific Ocean swell.

But it’s not breast cancer dwelling heavily on my mind. I conquered that like a champ: recovered from a double mastectomy, surfed through 12 rounds of chemotherapy, went back to work full time, landed two big milestones at work (published a book written by colleagues on AI Safety, and ran a successful 2-day AI Safety customer summit), and got through nine immunotherapy treatments with no side effects. Five more and I’m done.

The big scary unknown looming over me since I was laid off July 6 is unemployment: When will I find a new job? Did I bomb that interview? Will I advance to the next round? What will it be like to start over at a new place with new colleagues? Will I have to work 9 hours a day, six days a week to prove myself?

The déjà vu and commonalities of facing a cancer diagnosis and a tech layoff are eerily similar: your future is uncertain; the process and timing are beyond your control; it overshadows everything else in your life; it can be hard to stay positive when you have no idea when or where you will end up.

But now that I am one year past grappling with the cancer uncertainty, I recognize that the takeaway lesson of cancer and a layoff are also the same: Trust the process. Trust yourself. You are stronger than you know.

And what better way to test my strength than to put on the green linen blouse that matches my eyes, put on earrings and lipstick, and try to emanate amazingness through a 30-minute job interview via video, then ride seven miles straight up from Lake Tahoe to the Pacific Crest Trail at 7,783 feet elevation and lay down in the icy snowmelt of Blackwood Creek?

photo: enjoying unemployed free time to celebrate my mom’s 85th birthday, and take her swimming in Lake Washington.

One month ago today, I was laid off from Microsoft after 6.5 years filled with outstanding performance reviews.

That first week was absolutely brutal: I was told on Monday July 6 to wrap up my work by Friday July 10 when I would lose access to Microsoft email and files.

It felt like having your life partner suddenly announce they want to end your relationship, but you are not allowed to leave their side for another five days. Microsoft didn’t love me anymore. I wanted to flee immediately and not wait until Friday.

But the following week — my first week of freedom! — I was driving north on Highway 1 in West Marin on a sunny Wednesday morning when suddenly the PTSD echo of “your role has been eliminated” was replaced with the realization that this layoff was a gift from the universe.

“I am getting paid through the summer to figure out what I want to do next with my career! I am so lucky!” the excited voice in my head said.

As part of that discovery process, I have learned that while I was heads down the last eight years working on AI ethics and safety at Microsoft and Workday, many cool AI safety startups and nonprofits were sprouting up in Berkeley and San Francisco.

So, I have been spending a lot of time the last two weeks talking with these awesome organizations and companies who focus on ensuring that frontier AI labs build AI that is secure, trustworthy and beneficial.

I’ve also been spending time obsessively updating my resume for random jobs I see on LinkedIn. Applying to one job a day helps keep my nagging fear at bay that no one will hire a middle-aged woman with gray hair who just went through breast cancer.

Biggest lesson, biggest gift

And speaking of Linkedin, the biggest lesson I’ve learned since being laid off? Be nice to everyone who messages you on LinkedIn to ask for introductions and coffee dates to “pick your brains for career advice.” You never know when one of those people will be in a position to give you a job.

The biggest gift of my layoff? Having free time to spend several days in Seattle celebrating my mom‘s 85th birthday with my sisters and parents, including taking Mom for a swim in Lake Washington. It was her first time swimming since she and my Dad left Sarasota two years ago for Seattle when Hurricanes Milton and Helene ended their 28 years of retirement Florida bliss.

Free time also meant I was able spend time in Lake Tahoe with Guy and Pluto, learn new songs on my new guitar, and surf during last week’s epic swell.

Check out some videos here of Lake Tahoe, my new guitar, and surfing.

video: montage from Lake Tahoe weekend with Guy and Pluto

video: selfie-rant after crazy surf session in big swell

photo: me surrounded by my colleagues last summer after launching an AI Safety & Security customer event series that I conceived and orchestrated.

On Monday, I was laid off from Microsoft, one of 5,000 employees whose jobs were eliminated.

Getting the news that I had cancer last September and getting the news that I was laid off feel eerily alike: both arrived without warning, and both made a mockery of the idea that if you just do everything right, you’re safe.

I always kept a healthy diet. I wore sunscreen. I exercised. I never smoked. I got every recommended screening. I still got cancer. I was a top performer at work with a track record any manager would want. I still got laid off.

And now I am going to face my jobless uncertainty the same way I tackled cancer: surfing. (check out video below of my first paddle out after getting the layoff news.)

If you have followed this Substack blog you know that seven weeks after my double mastectomy surgery and three days after my first chemotherapy infusion, I paddled out into the Pacific and resumed surfing. I didn’t want surgery and treatment to rob me of the feeling that my body could still carry me into something bigger than fear.

I surfed through 12 rounds of chemo, through the coldest months of winter, in 50-degree water when the ocean swells were at their strongest and least forgiving.

Somewhere in those months I stopped being the woman with cancer and became the woman who surfed through it. That shift — from patient to protagonist – got me through days that otherwise felt unsurvivable because of my side effects.

I’m trying to summon that same shift now.

Instead of waiting to feel ready, I’m leaning on the network of colleagues and friends to help me find my next role that will draw on what I do best: building partnerships that make people and organizations better at what they do.

To be sure, just like with breast cancer, I feel tremendous grief right now.

I had been with Microsoft 6.5 years helping advance Responsible AI and AI Safety & Security education for engineering teams, field sellers, and customers. After a long and winding career in the tech industry, the public sector, the healthcare industry, non-profits and newspapers, I had hoped Microsoft would be the last company I worked for.

But if this layoff had happened before I got cancer, I would have been devastated.

Now I know how resilient I am. And how precious life is.

In the early weeks after my cancer diagnosis, I was overwhelmed by the sequence ahead: scans, genetic testing, surgery, recovery, a chemotherapy port, infusions and side effects. If I looked at the whole road ahead, I froze. So I learned to narrow the frame. One appointment. One walk around the block. One conversation with a friend. One surf session.

Now I am doing the same as I face unemployment. If I think about the entire search — résumé revisions, job listings, cover letters, interviews, long silences after applications disappear into portals — I feel the familiar wave rise and swamp me. So I return to the practice. Update the résumé. Ask for one introduction. Write one email. Publish this Substack essay.

Cancer taught me that a life can be interrupted and still continue. Surfing taught me that when waves are bigger than you, the task is not to control the ocean. It is to stay present long enough to choose the next wave.

I do not know yet when or where I will find my next job. But I do know this: I am not the version of myself who was gob-smacked Monday by the words “your role has been eliminated.”

I am the woman who surfed through cancer, now paddling into another cold and uncertain sea. I am grieving. I am afraid. And I am still moving.

photo: me with Oakland-based clothing designer Lesley Evers, whose dresses I have worn the last 15 years to all big occasions in my life, at her warehouse picking out a dress for a wedding.

Last September, I decided to take time off from Microsoft where I work on AI safety and security education. I wanted time and space to focus on healing from my double mastectomy and staying strong through chemotherapy.

I told myself: “Don’t worry about what it will be like when I go back to work. At least I won’t be dead.”

I assured myself that while AI safety and security risks proliferate at warp speed, I would soon catch up on new risks and approaches that evolved during my six-month leave.

But when chemo ended and I went back to work, I did worry. I worried about how my colleagues would react when they saw me in person for the first time.

My body looked different. I felt different. Would I still be me?

So much of my identity before I got cancer was wrapped up in my job, and my appearance. Cancer took my identity away.

I carried a similar worry all winter each time I glanced at the wedding invite tacked up to our refrigerator in our house in Berkeley.

The invite had been up there since last autumn when Guy’s college roommate Derek (they still golf together each weekend) announced that his daughter was getting married in Maine in June.

We booked a motel with eight of our friends – all college roommates from UC Santa Cruz. We bought the airline tickets. Rented the car.

But what would I wear? All my dresses bunched awkwardly where my breasts used to be. Would I still feel pretty with my flat chest and post-chemo hair?

Turns out I had nothing to worry about.

At the AI Safety & Security Summit I helped organize two weeks ago, my colleagues enveloped me in bear hugs the minute I stepped back onto campus in Redmond for the first time.

Each teary greeting and hug reminded me of my rightful place amongst my team members. And each conversation made me smarter and more tuned in to our mission of keeping AI safe and secure.

video: highlight reel of hugs at my return to Microsoft campus for the first time since I got cancer.

Then came the big wedding in Maine.

During the long, dark tunnel that was chemotherapy last winter, the wedding with all our close friends was my light at the end of the tunnel. It would be a celebration of Derek’s daughter and her fiancé Jack, but also a celebration with our friends of my recovering from the mastectomy and ending chemo.

Before I left for Maine, my cancer ride-or-die Yasmin took me to my favorite dress store Lesley Evers. I’ve worn Lesley Evers dresses for 15 years at every big occasion. Then a few days later, I met up with Lesley at her warehouse where she helped me pick out a full-length jacquard design turquoise flowered gown. I felt like beautiful fairytale princess at the wedding.

video: highlight reel of the Maine wedding — including my magic Lesley Evers dress. (When I posted this video on Instagram, I added Noah Kahan’s “Maine” as the soundtrack — don’t know how to do soundtrack on Substack, sorry.)

Paddling back into my body

With these big milestones behind me, I got back to Berkeley this weekend after three weeks of travel. Being on the road busy with work events and visiting family means not exercising every day. Which is the worst thing for cancer patients taking daily Arimidex, an estrogen-blocker for estrogen-positive cancer, because Arimidex causes intense joint pain that makes you feel like an arthritic centarian.

But today I paddled out at my surf break for the first time in weeks. I wanted to find the person I was before I got cancer. Digging my arms into the water and popping up onto my board felt so good. It melted away my joint pain. And the hooting and hollering with my buddies as dawn gave way to sunrise filled my soul with joy.

I am still me.

And I am home.

video: my joyous dawn patrol this morning to shake off joint pain from three weeks of travel — and to find who I was before I got cancer.

It was this time last year that I started getting reminder emails and calls from my doctor’s office to schedule my routine mammogram.

And like many women, I blew it off.

I told myself I had plenty of reasons to postpone:

1. I was busy planning a big work conference in Seattle.

2. I was busy with Ella’s college graduation in Los Angeles.

3. I’d had mammograms for years and the report was always the same: no cancer found but mammogram accuracy was reduced because my breasts were dense and fibrous.

Luckily, Kaiser Permanente is persistent about chasing down women to get their routine mammograms, and finally I booked it for late summer.

Turns out that 5-minute appointment saved my life.

It revealed a fast-growing breast cancer tumor that neither my doctor nor I could feel with our hands. And it caught it before the aggressive cancer cells spread to my lymph nodes.

(I dedicated my first blog post last autumn to the mammography technician who gave me that August 13 mammogram that changed my life: “Thank you, Dolma”)

After an October 13 double mastectomy, followed by three months of chemotherapy and a year of targeted immunotherapy through a port in my chest, and five years of a daily estrogen blocker, my oncologist tells me my personal risk of cancer recurrence will be just two percent.

But you won’t know your breast cancer risk unless you get a mammogram.

If you are due for one, book it now.

Early detection saved my life.

Don’t know where to get a mammogram?

Resources to help get your mammogram scheduled:

The Breast Cancer org has a ‘Where to get a mammogram site' with useful links.

The National Breast Cancer Foundation offers free mammograms to women without health insurance based on eligibility. Start here

If you’re a Kaiser Permanente member, call one of these numbers today to schedule your mammogram:

• California (Northern & Southern): 1-800-464-4000

• Colorado: 1-800-218-1059

• Georgia: 1-888-865-5813

• Hawaii: 1-800-238-5742

• Maryland, Virginia & Wash DC: 1-800-777-7904

• Oregon & Southwest Washington: 1-800-813-2000

photo: walking back from a June 17 dawn patrol surf session in Rockaway, Queens with my surf hero Diane Cardwell

video: check out the two videos at the bottom of this post of her and my surf session

When it comes to midlife surf empowerment, Diane Cardwell is a legend.

After a painful divorce, Diane, an award-winning reporter at the New York Times, learned to surf in her mid-40s, bought a bungalow in Rockaway, Queens a half-block from the beach and embedded herself in Rockaway’s gritty, creative surf culture.

She describes this transition in her groundbreaking memoir “Rockaway: Surfing Headlong into a New Life”, which I discovered right as I was learning to surf.

I devoured her book and began plotting how I too might reorient my 52-year-old life around surfing.

When a mutual friend (thank you, Dave Saltonstall!) connected Diane and me – both former newspaper reporters obsessed with our clumsy surfing – she and I bonded immediately.

She gave me editing advice before I published my first essay on how falling in love with surfing in my 50s changed me.
Because her book had been published in the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020, there was no in-person book tour. So I organized a few in-person panel discussions in 2022 at Traveler Surf Clubs in Santa Cruz and Pacifica for Diane and Mando Levett, a board shaper I had met on a surf trip to Sayulita, Mexico.

When I launched this Substack blog on my surfing through breast cancer, Diane gave me early feedback on how I might shape and extend its reach.

Each time she and I closed out our Zoom video conversations and emails, we always promised each other that someday we would surf together in Rockaway.

The idea of walking barefoot to the beach alongside Diane from her bungalow with a surfboard under my arm seemed like a bucket list dream to me.

And then, it actually happened.

Yesterday, while on my way to Maine for a wedding, I took the A subway train in pre-dawn darkness from Brooklyn where Guy and I were visiting our daughter Ella, to the Beach 90 Street Station in Rockaway, and ambled up to Diane’s adorable bungalow she shares with her partner Todd.

I saw her pile of surfboards before I saw her coming down the flower-lined front steps and a ripple of excitement went through me – capped by a long tight hug when she emerged from the front door.

After a tour of her surfboards and surfskate collection, we walked barefoot to the beach minutes away with our surfboards.

The beach was empty: mellow, glassy ankle-high waves waiting just for her and me.

We were fortunate enough to have photographer Becky Lewis and her husband James capture the magic morning for a photography exhibition coming out next year.

Rockaway surf is a beach break so I was warned it can be daunting and huge, sometimes double overhead during storm season.

But yesterday morning the surf gods were smiling on Diane and me. We traded little gentle waves as exuberance and gratitude flowed between us.
Our joy was infectious because afterwards Becky the photographer sent me this email:

“I learned so much about joy and empowerment this morning from my brief time with you and Diane. It was great seeing you both do something you absolutely love. I love that surfing has created that for both of you!”

As we walked back to Diane’s house after our magic glassy dawn patrol, she said moving to her seaside cottage in Rockaway 14 years ago had helped her become the best version of herself.

I replied that getting cancer had done the same for me – made me the best version of myself. And that’s why I blog and make videos about my experience: to show women with early, treatable diagnoses like mine that cancer doesn’t have to be the worst thing that ever happens to you.

video reel 1: the Diane / Danielle surf reunion

video reel 2: Nine reasons why surfing in Rockaway (with Diane!) is awesome

photo: still from video podcast “Second Breakfast” interview with Holly Beck linked below

When I was wrapping up my 6-month medical leave and getting ready to go back to work, I became obsessed with finding a way to share my story beyond the small circle of friends and family who read this blog.

I wanted to inspire other women to feel empowered to embrace physical activity during cancer treatment as part of their healing regimen.

Recent medical research confirmed my own discovery that physical activity is a powerful antidote that can speed surgery recovery and offset chemo side effects. Even a daily walk around the block can make a difference.

I was egged on to share my story by positive feedback from breast cancer survivors among friends reading my blog: Hilda in Florida, Lisa in Washington DC, Debbie in El Cerrito, Eileen in Berkeley. They kept telling me my writing could help other women going through cancer.

At my final chemo visit, my oncologist Dr. Eva Thomas told me I was the poster child for a physically empowered cancer experience.

“You need to take your show on the road to inspire other women,” were Dr. Thomas’s parting words to me.

After I wrote articles about my surf-thru-cancer journey for The Inertia and Pacific Longboarder magazine, my sister Mishy (who has spent her career in advertising) told me a good way to reach a wider audience was to turn my blog into short videos and posts on the social media platform Instagram.

Fast forward three months, and I now have a following of 6,100+ people on Instagram who respond to my videos and posts with comments and direct messages that leave me in tears. For example:

• The 32-year-old mom and surfer named Lottie from Cornwall, England, who has a 1-year-old and 3-year-old, and is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. My article in The Inertia inspired her to go for a walk on a day when she had been in bed all day with chemo fatigue.

photo: Lottie and her 1-year-old Toby

• The 44-year-old surfer and dad named David from Kent, England who lost his 8-year-old daughter Willow in February to acute myeloid leukemia. After watching my videos on Instagram, David messaged me to say that I was inspiring, that I should keep going, and that I was the kind of person he would “have showed his daughter.”

photo: David and his daughter Willow who died in February from acute myeloid leukemia

Creative friends as a force multiplier

When it comes to expanding the reach of my story, it helps to have surfer friends whose own creativity becomes a force multiplier.

A few days ago my dear friend Matt Berridge, who had photographed me surfing bald during chemo this winter, published his own Instagram post with photos from our magazine article in Pacific Longboarder magazine.

A few days prior I had shared this video on Instagram of Matt and me looking at the magazine together for the first time in my backyard when he drove down from Petaluma an hour away.

video: Matt Berridge, my surfer / photographer friend, and me looking at the Pacific Longboarder magazine together for first time

The next day surf videographer Sachi Cunningham filmed me surfing at dawn with my girlfriends for a film project that my close friend Natasha is doing. So Natasha posted on Instagram this one-minute video of the Sachi film shoot to capture the sense of community we’ve created.

video: Dawn patrol surf shenanigans with my friends captured in a video by Natasha Benjamin

The next day Holly Beck, a former professional surfer who runs surf and yoga retreats in Central America, published a one-hour podcast that she recorded with me about my learning to surf at 52, building a community of women, then surfing through cancer journey.

link: to “Second Breakfast” podcast where Holly Beck interviewed me about my surfing and cancer experience

Social media and real life collide

And then the next day it happened: my social media presence and real life collided in a way that left me teary and speechless with amazement and gratitude.

The morning after Holly’s podcast interview with me published on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, I was surfing at my favorite spot when a young woman paddled over to me.

“Are you Danielle Cass?” the woman said, her surfboard bobbing alongside mine during a lull between sets. “I listened to your podcast last night and have been following you on Instagram. I’ve been hoping someday I would meet you in the lineup so I could tell you how inspiring you are.”

I nodded, speechless, then covered my teary face with my hands.

“I hope it’s not uncouth that I just told you that!” she said when she saw my reaction. During the lull between waves, we were able to chat for a while. Her name was Alexa, she is 26, and that afternoon she sent me this message on Instagram:

“What a special moment today in the water! It was serendipity meeting out there today and I’m so lucky that our paths crossed. Would love to get out again.”

Alexa and I have plans to surf together this Friday.

photo: the cover of the latest Pacific Longboarder magazine with my article inside.

The weeks of waiting are over.

The latest issue of Pacific Longboarder magazine arrived this week — and with it an eight-page, 20 photo spread of a long-form article I wrote about my surfing through cancer experience.

Check out the whole article below — along with the gorgeous photos by the talented Matt Berridge.

Ping me if you want me to send you the PDF for easier reading.

Or better yet, you can buy an actual print copy of the magazine from the editor in Australia’s Gold Coast!

photo: me at yesterday’s immunotherapy infusion at Kaiser Permanente’s Cancer Infusion Center in Oakland after surfing north of San Francisco in the morning.

When people say “Congrats on finishing chemo! When’s your celebration?”, I feel a stab of irritation.

While I am done with chemo (and done being bald and immunocompromised), I am not nearly done with my cancer treatment.

I am tethered to treatment until December when my immunotherapy infusions end and I undergo a surgical procedure to remove the port implanted in my chest.

Until then, I still go to Kaiser Oakland’s Cancer Infusion Center every three weeks to get hooked up to an IV that dispenses the drug Herceptin into my bloodstream for thirty minutes.

Herceptin is a targeted immunotherapy drug that hunts down the HER2 protein fueling my cancer’s growth and teaches my immune system how to destroy cancer cells in my body.

Luckily, the side effects are way less than chemo. And I can keep on surfing.

The best are the days where I can surf before my immunotherapy infusion, like yesterday.

Here’s a 1-minute video of my Memorial Day weekend Sunday: morning surf, then afternoon infusion at Kaiser Oakland. (Thank you, Natasha Benjamin, for filming my infusion.)

And about that long-delayed celebration: Please don’t ever stop reminding me how good it is be back in the real world now that chemo is over. And please consider this your invitation to the biggest, most joyous “Danielle’s cancer treatment is finally over!” celebration this December.

I get giddy with tears right now just imagining it.

The magazine’s content is only available in print. My 15 copies of the magazine are still en route from Australia’s Gold Coast where the magazine is based — so you will have to wait until that box to arrive for me to share the 2,500-word article I wrote about surfing through cancer.

But a photo spread of the article appeared on Instagram and Facebook this week by both Pacific Longboarder and the Keep-a-Breast non-profit, so I am sharing it here for those of you who are not on social media.

Stay tuned for an inside look at the full, 8-page, 20-photograph magazine spread as soon as it reaches our shores.

Photos by the amazing Matt Berridge, a registered nurse and surf photographer who I met in the lineup when I started surfing. Check out more of his incredible work at www.mattberridge.com.

photo: a still from the video below of me surfing into the second half of my comeback story

I am in the middle of my comeback story.

I heard that expression last week in an Instagram video by body positive surfer Elizabeth Sneed, and am shamelessly stealing it here to describe my current state of mind.

When I stepped away from work for my double mastectomy and chemotherapy, I was at the pinnacle of my career at Microsoft.

I returned to work full-time last month – and most days I cry at least once in frustration at how hard it is to claw my way back to the altitude I was before I left.

After being gone for six months to focus only on surgery recovery and 12 rounds of chemotherapy, I find eight hours a day of video conference calls, emails, instant messages, and absorbing / creating content requires a lot of multitasking.

My work colleagues have been unbelievably patient and helpful as I ramp back up.

And though the brain is not a muscle, it operates under the same “use it or lose it” principle as muscle tissue, meaning it gets stronger with active use and mental challenge.

Over the past week, like magic, I am slowly finding my mojo again at work.

Instead of feeling constantly pummeled by information and interactions, I am sparking and sharing ideas with colleagues that help our team cut through the chaos to reach a glide path. My superpowers are slowly returning.

Entering my midlife midlength era

The same is happening for me with my body and surfing.

As cells in my body start to regrow after chemo, and I adapt to the cancer-fighting drugs Herceptin and Arimidex drugs that I’m on long-term, my strength is slowly returning.

To speed the process, I moved to a shorter, more dynamic mid-length surfboard (“Big Red!”) that demands higher intensity cardio.

So far I ride the board rookie-style with my ass hanging out like I’m pooping. I am still learning and have a long way to go. (Exhibit A: watch my latest surfing video below on my new board.)

Just like I am re-learning how to do my job, I have a long way to go before I reach my pre-chemo surfing competence.

This is the midway point of my comeback story.

But the middle is a great place to stop and see how far you’ve come.

Yes, I look like I am squatting to poop when I ride my new board, and my work can feel overwhelming and chaotic.

But things are starting to feel different: I’m no longer just “getting through” the days — I’m finding my place back in the lineup.

video: surfing my way into the second half of my comeback story

photo: Dawn patrol is like paddling into an Impressionist painting of pink, orange and blue

When I started surfing five years ago, I didn’t know anyone who surfed.

I had to build my surf community from scratch.

The first place I looked: dawn patrol.

Dawn patrol is the magic hour that begins at first light, when faint streaks of light appear on the Eastern horizon. Bird cacophony fills the air. As sunrise creeps up, the surface of the ocean turns iridescent pink, orange and blue.

Dawn patrol is also when waves tend to be glassy, with no wind — and no crowd.

But as lovely as this sounds, it takes next-level commitment to rouse yourself from a warm bed in the pitch-black to stand outside your car nearly naked in 40-degree air to wrestle into a clammy wetsuit and walk into 50-degree water.

Those are my people.

Dawn patrol regulars at my break tend to be an older crowd: Mary, DB, Frank, Creighton (“Craybo”), Kathy, Clarky, Donny, Russ, Doug. The eldest is 79 years old.

These are my dawn patrol elders who helped sustain me with text messages and hand-painted cards during my seven weeks of no surfing post-surgery.

“There will always be more waves. Take your time healing and resting.”

“Dawn patrol is not the same without you.”

“The ocean will be there when you are ready to return.”

Knowing my friends were waiting for me in the magic first light was a huge motivator when I was grounded on land. And boy, oh boy, did we rejoice the first time I paddled out with them again for dawn patrol last December, three days after my first chemotherapy session.

Craybo send me this text the day after our first dawn patrol reunion after my seven-week dry spell: “Seeing you exit the session with a solid right yesterday filled me with joy….so glad you’re home again 😎”.

It was this supportive community, as well as the iridescent ocean, that I wanted to capture when I shot this video this morning.

This was my first attempt at filming while surfing with my iPhone around my neck. But the camaraderie and beauty comes across. Enjoy.

video: join me on my dawn patrol routine with some of my favorite surf people

photo: Kate Sheehy accompanies me on my first successful surf with my new board (check out the video footage at bottom of this blog post)

As a reward for getting through my double mastectomy and chemo, I got a new board: a bright red, 8-foot Outlier midlength I bought used from my friend Kevin.

I named her “Big Red.”

She’s a shorter length board than I am used to, and shaped like a dagger: my new weapon to fight the side effects of the two heavy-duty cancer drugs I am taking.

The Herceptin (Trastuzumab) immunotherapy drug that I receive every three weeks through an IV port in my chest can damage heart muscle cells and cause reduced heart function or congestive heart failure. I get echocardiograms (a heart ultrasound) every eight weeks to gauge my heart’s pumping strength, valve health, size, and shape.

The Arimidex (Anastrozole) drug I take every night for the next five years helps stop the growth of cancer cells that rely on estrogen to grow – but also causes bone loss, joint pain, stiffness and fatigue. That’s why I get regular x-rays to measure my bone density. And I stretch every morning when I get out of bed because I feel like an arthritic 90-year-old woman.

My antidote against these side effects is something surfers call: “new feels on the ocean.”

Since I started surfing five years ago, I’ve considered myself a longboarder. I paddle into a wave, stand up on my 9-foot, 2-inch log board, and basically hang out til the wave’s energy passes, then I jump off.

Rinse and repeat.

But just before my surgery in October, I tried surfing on this midlength board (shaped like a shortboard by board makers CJ Nelson and Ryan Engle) and immediately loved how her feather-like weight enabled me to maneuver up and down the face of the wave.

I bought her, but waited until I was done with chemo to take her out because my surfing a midlength board is a more dynamic, aerobic ride that involves pumping my legs and turning my hips.

photo: learning to turn and carve on my new board — check out the video footage at bottom of this blog

Already I find the motion of carving up and down the wave hypnotic and habit-forming.

New Feels on the Ocean: Antidote to cancer drug side effects

The point of today’s blog – in addition to sharing this video footage below of me taking my first successful rides on the board Friday night – is to try to explain why “new feels on the ocean” are so powerful for me right now as my body adjusts to two intense cancer drugs.

I’ve given up so much to fight this fucking cancer: my breasts, my hair, my career momentum, my eyebrows, my kids’ belief that their mom is invincible.

But right now I am gaining something new in the ocean: I am learning how to ride a board shaped like a shortboard, but long enough to support my clumsy, middle-aged frame.

Each time I successfully catch a wave on Big Red, I am subjecting my body to a physical test of strength that tells the Herceptin and Arimidex drugs coursing through my system that they will not succeed as they try to damage my heart and weaken my bones and joints.

When I am able to stand up and ride on this new board, I am telling my cancer that I am still strong and getting stronger each day.

video I shot of me surfing my new lightweight shorter surfboard

photos from my Thursday dawn patrol surf session — click the video below to join my first ride on the waves after 2 1/2 weeks on land

So the last two weeks were kind of tough.

I wasn’t able to get out to surf due to work, travel, weather and my third round of IV immunotherapy.

My beloved dog Pluto was really sick for a week, culminating in two days at the emergency vet hospital to remove a ball of plastic debris that had been accumulating in his stomach the last few months.

Half my eyebrows and eyelashes fell out as a delayed side effect to the chemo drug Taxol. (In dismay, I posted a message on the Facebook group Breast Cancer Straight Talk asking other women going through breast cancer if this happened to them six weeks after chemotherapy ended. I learned that it’s really common - and they will grow back.)

And I am back at work full-time, which is a big adjustment emotionally and physically. The world of generative AI safety and security moves really fast, so it’s taking me a while to get back up to speed. I feel lucky to be surrounded at work by a great team of supportive and understanding colleagues.

Finally, last Thursday morning at sunrise my negative spell of gloom and feeling sorry for myself was broken as I got the chance to paddle out with my friends to surf before work. Nothing hits the reset button for me and puts everything into perspective like catching a wave, and then throwing my body into the ocean at the end of the ride. Doing this on repeat during a 90-minute surf session is a cleansing tonic for my soul.

I captured the experience with my GoPro video camera affixed to my surfboard so I could share with you all. (Apologies to those of you on Instagram and Facebook as you’ve already seen this.)

Stay tuned for more videos later this week of me trying out my new red mid length surfboard. This video was of me surfing on my trusty, 9-foot, 2-inch longboard Violett.

photo on left: my dad Alec (far right) standing in front of his brothers Cecil and Moss and two friends at the beach in West Australia; photo on right: my mom Irene at the beach in Melbourne

When it comes to daring physical pursuits, my mom and dad have always been pretty risk-averse.

Instead, they were elegant tennis players who played tennis several times a week right up until Dad was 88 years old in 2019.

Mom and Dad would never have parachuted from an airplane at 10,000 feet, jumped off a four-story building crane with a bungee cord around their ankle, or backpacked alone into the Sierra Nevada wilderness – all stunts I have performed.

And when I took up surfing at age 52 in Northern California’s frigid Pacific, they worried about me.

But once I got cancer and kept surfing through my double mastectomy recovery, 12 rounds of chemo, and my current 12 rounds of IV immunotherapy, it’s my surfing that reassured Mom and Dad (both of them cancer survivors themselves) I had the mettle to get through it.

I didn’t realize this until last week when I had a chance to talk to them about their own love of the ocean, and what they thought of my surfing.

To be sure, my parents would have been amazing surfers: They grew up in Australia and were raised to be strong swimmers.

They spent most of their free time in their youth and 20s cavorting at Bondi Beach in Sydney where Dad was raised and St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne where Mom was raised.

My dad became a master body surfer at Bondi with his friends. (Check out the video below where he describes how he used to catch the waves at Bondi.)

Fifty years later, he taught my three sisters and me how to body surf in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in 1983. (Mom stayed out of the waves that day because she didn’t like to get her hair wet.)

On that epic afternoon when I was 14, I will never forget how he showed his four daughters how to read the waves, swim out between sets, dive under incoming waves, then time the paddle in to catch the rising wave in to the beach.

It terrified me, but to this day stands out as a rare beautiful memory of my dad being physically adventurous in nature. And a moment where he was able to share with us girls a skill he loved doing as a young man.

photos: the trip to Mexico in 1983 where Dad taught his four daughters to body surf

In her youth, my mom also spent her free time at the beach with friends (check out the video below where she lists her favorite beaches in Melbourne), but she pursued diving and swimming on the Melbourne University High swim and diving team instead of body surfing at the beach.

Something about this photo of her at age 15 at a diving competition in Melbourne takes my breath away. She looks so strong and fearless — like she’s flying.

photo: my mom at age 15 at a diving competition in Melbourne

Last week I spent a couple days with my parents in Seattle where they now live in a senior living facility after 28 years of retirement bliss in a beachfront condo with tennis courts in Sarasota, Florida.

They had believed they would ride out their lives at that condo until Hurricanes Milton and Helene in 2024 ravaged their idyllic island, and confirmed their fears of worsening hurricanes.

So they traded their sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico for sunsets over Seattle’s Elliott Bay – and gained a priceless proximity to my two sisters who live there. And they’ve made a new community of friends in their building with whom they socialize every day.

photo: last sunset over Lido Key in Sarasota, November 2025 before the big move to Seattle

I loved watching how Mom’s and Dad’s faces lit up last week when I asked them to describe what it was like to grow up on the beach in Australia, and their memories and love of the ocean.

I also asked them what they thought of my surfing. And their responses made me teary with pride. See an edited version of my conversation with them below in this video I made.

video I shot of Mom and Dad discussing their love of oceans and what they think of my surfing

Hey friends - Last month I bought a GoPro video camera to attach to the nose of my surfboard so that I could bring you all with me when I surf.

I’m still experimenting with the camera (last week I accidentally deleted footage from two dawn patrol morning surf sessions - d’oh!) but this video below was successfully captured from my first time using the camera.

Those of you on Instagram and Facebook have already seen this video clip but want to make sure all my blog readers got a chance to paddle out with me.

Stay tuned for episode 3 hopefully next week after I get a chance to surf again.

photo: Almond Lemon Ginger muffins pack a punch of ginger and protein

I always enjoyed cooking and baking for my family and friends, but when I was going through chemo, my cooking and baking took on a scientific dimension. I became focused on how different ingredients and recipes could keep me healthy and energetic as the chemo drug Taxol killed both healthy cells growing in my body, along with the cancer cells.

I was armed with dietary knowledge from a Kaiser Permanente registered dietician I met with before chemo. Together she and I mapped out a food plan to get me adequate protein and nutrition – especially important as chemotherapy can cause nausea and GI issues and crater your appetite.
And I became obsessed with a few recipes from Rebecca Katz’ “Cancer-Fighting Kitchen” cookbook that I made on repeat. Such as this recipe for Almond Lemon Ginger muffins that deliver a punch of ginger (that fights nausea) and protein (that can boost low energy.)

The smell of these muffins baking in the oven would always lift my mood, and I rewarded myself during each chemo session with a muffin tucked into my bag.

I still make a dozen of these muffins every weekend to have on hand as energy pick-me-up after I surf.

Here’s the recipe, and below that is a video of me baking a batch in my kitchen last week.

Almond Lemon Ginger Muffins

(Danielle’s version adapted from Rebecca Katz’ “Cancer-Fighting Kitchen” cookbook.

NOTE: the original recipe is for 24 tiny muffins but I prefer larger muffins for a hearty snack, so I use just a single muffin tin to produce 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1⁄2 cups almond flour or almond meal

1⁄2 cup brown rice flour or spelt flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1⁄8 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1⁄3 cup maple syrup (reduce if you’re watching sugar intake)

1 mashed banana

1⁄4 cup organic milk, almond milk, or rice milk

2 organic eggs

1⁄4 cup unrefined virgin coconut oil

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons fresh lemon zest

3 tablespoons fresh grated ginger

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray non-stick cooking spray on a regular-size muffin tin

Combine almond flour, brown rice flour, baking powder, ground ginger and salt in a bowl and stir with a whisk until very well combined. Separately, combine maple syrup, mashed banana, milk, eggs, coconut oil, lemon juice, lemon zest and grated ginger and whisk until smooth. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix well with a rubber spatula.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake for 16 - 18 minutes, until muffin edges are brown and muffin springs back when touched in the center. Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then gently run a knife or small offset spatula around the sides of the muffins to loosen them before turning them out.

photos: top: me drinking tea while gazing at painting of me surfing that Ella made for my birthday, middle: the spices for the tea; bottom: preparing a batch of tea before chemo (last photo by Matt Berridge)

Years ago when I was the Innovation Evangelist on Kaiser Permanente’s future-sensing Advanced Technology team exploring how mobile technology could help patients feel more empowered in their health, I learned that the more involved a patient is in their medical prognosis and treatment, the better their outcome.

But it wasn’t til 14 years later when I found out I had aggressive breast cancer that I understood why.

When you are handed a life-altering diagnosis, you suddenly feel totally powerless.

It doesn’t matter if you always wear sunscreen, never smoke cigarettes, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and avoid sugary soda. You still ended up in this place: sitting across from your oncologist while she outlines treatment options to increase your chance of survival.

For me, one way to regain control of my life – in addition to surfing as much as possible, and saying ‘yes’ to whatever treatment plan my oncologist recommended – was to explore food as medicine as well.
I bought Rebecca Katz’ “Cancer-Fighting Kitchen” cookbook and methodically began trying the recipes in it. Months later, there are a few recipes I still prepare every week on repeat – lemon-ginger almond muffins, magic mineral broth – but the one I want to wax lyrically about here is the recipe for Commonweal’s Most Nourishing and Healing Tea.

Commonweal is a non-profit that’s been hosting in-person retreats in West Marin for cancer patients and their caregivers for several decades, and this is the tea that Katz serves when she is the guest chef at the retreat.

But you don’t have to have cancer to enjoy this tea!

There are so many health benefits to homemade tea made from fresh ginger, cardamom pods, coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, cloves and tangerine peel: it has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and digestive benefits by supporting immune function, reducing bloating, and regulating blood sugar. This tea eases aches, improves circulation, and enhances metabolism.

For me, drinking multiple cups a day during three months of chemo helped offset side effects of fatigue, nausea and stomach distress. And now that I am back at work struggling with stress and anxiety, the tea has a magic calming effect each time I sip it.

Here’s the recipe – feel free to embellish to make it yours. See video below of me preparing a batch.

Commonweal’s Most Nourishing and Healing Tea

Makes 8 mugs / prep time: 5 mins / cook time: 55 mins

1/3 cup sliced peeled fresh ginger, cut 1/4 inch thick
10 cups water
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons cardamom pods
4 cinnamon sticks
5 whole cloves

1 tangerine peel (Danielle’s addition thanks to her acupuncturist Dr. Nina Boeddeker)
1 1/2 cups almond milk or oat milk or soy milk
1 to 3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the ginger and water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, tangerine peel, cloves and continue to simmer for an additional 20 minutes.

Strain the tea through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean saucepan. (I recommend that you save the spices, see NOTE below.) Add the rice milk and maple syrup and gently reheat without boiling for 2 to 3 minutes, until warm. Stir in the vanilla, then taste. Add more milk or sweetener if you like. Serve hot or cold.

NOTE: Recycle the ginger & spices that are strained out of the tea and use them to make another, smaller batch of tea. They’ll keep in the refrigerator for 4 to 5 days.

To make more tea with the recycled spices, combine the spices and 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of peeled fresh ginger slices. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the tea and discard the spices. Add sweetener and milk to taste and reheat without boiling for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla before serving.

video: filmed by Natasha Benjamin, edited by Danielle

photo: walking for dawn patrol with my girlfriends (photo by Matt Berridge - Instagram a_greener_hue)

Soon after I launched this blog last year, a few friends read it and told me: ‘there’s a book in there’ and ‘you should turn it into a book.’

Writing a book felt too overwhelming to tackle at the time, but writing a magazine article felt like something I could manage.

This week my first magazine article published in The Inertia, an online surf and outdoors magazine. You can read the article by clicking on this link here.

My objective with this article — and this blog now that I am sharing it more widely — is to inspire and empower others going through cancer.

Please let me know if you have ideas of other avenues and platforms to get this message out.

My surf videographer friend Nick Paz (Instagram handle: thesaltypaz) shot this gorgeous movie in early September when I surfed with my girlfriends for the first time as we absorbed the news of my diagnosis.

He sent it to me last night so I am sharing it here with you all.

(Though I won’t lie: made me sad to see my long curly hair …but that’s OK. It will eventually grow back.)

Much gratitude to you, Nick, for capturing the beauty and synchronicity of ocean saltwater therapy.