A Personal Note from Kris (and the team), part 2

Greetings! If you’re newer here, I’m Kris, the Doer of Many Things here at NE. We all do a lot of things here, but my general role has been hardware development, repairs, edits, hyphens, money stuff, and probably fifteen other things I am forgetting.

A couple of months ago, I popped into the blog to mention that I’d be stepping away from my role here for a bit. I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. My goals were twofold. First, I wanted to be transparent with the community: in the past, I have had (and enjoyed) a pretty public-facing role here, and I knew that this would mean I’d need to be away for a while. How long I didn’t know. Second, I wanted to help normalize discussion of breast cancer. It seems it is still taboo in many places. While I don’t intend to turn this into a platform about cancer, it was important to me that I could say these words out loud in the community (and privately, I am happy to answer questions should anyone else be facing this sort of thing. Feel free to drop me a line.).

Now, a few months in, I wanted to pop back in again with abundant thanks and an update.

First, enormous and public thanks to the Noise Engineering team who shouldered the majority of my work flawlessly. It was a lot and I wouldn’t want to ask them to do it for any longer than needed, but they rose to the occasion incredibly. I knew they would, but it’s one thing to know it and another to see it in action. While I’ve been out, we have accomplished a LOT here at NE, and I had way less to do with things than I generally do. I consider it an honor to “go to work” every day with these people.

Next, I extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who wrote in, commented on the initial post about this, or even just had a kind thought about the whole situation. The team made sure that I saw every single note. From your emails, I learned that cancer has touched the lives of so many of you, either directly, or indirectly. I heard heartwarming and heartbreaking stories. Cancer, in all its nasty forms, it seems, is everywhere. But I heard tales of hope from people who had been down this extremely well paved road ahead of me. I had people reach out with offers of help, support, and medical information (you all are an exceptionally talented group with an incredible array of training). I received this absolutely epic, handmade pillow from our friends at 1010 Music. In short, I was overwhelmed by the support I got.

The modular community is a special one. There’s no hiding that there is a lot going on and that this is a tough time right now for a lot of us. The support we have gotten this year has buoyed me through what have been among the weirdest few months of my life. I am grateful.

And I’m happy to say that my surgery went very well, my prognosis is exceptionally good, and my treatment is now, for all intents and purposes, done. I am still recovering and not quite back at full strength, but I am back in and doing things. For now, my hours remain a bit reduced while I sleep a lot more than I did before and work through some side effects of some new medications. Sadly, travel is out for me at the moment, so I won’t make it to Knobcon, but you’ll see Markus and Patrick there. Stop by, hang out, buy them a drink! 

I am hoping this is the end of this saga and the blog can now go back to our normally scheduled programming of nerdery and fun. Thanks to the whole community for your support and patience while we worked through this clusterfluffery on top of all of the other mess that the past two years have brought us. I speak for the whole team when I say we can’t tell you how much we appreciate you and your support.