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    The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...
    The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...
    The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...

    Written by Edie Littlefield Sundby

    Narrated by Jaimee Paul

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Audie Award Finalist for best inspirational book!

    IMAGE AWARD (Native Daughters of the Golden West)

    "The Mission Walker is a marvelous book, a moving meditation on the relationships between courage and faith, endurance and transcendence." Randall Sullivan, Creator, The Miracle Detective, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)

    Have you ever wanted to just start walking, and never ever stop? To leave behind "WHO I AM" to find "WHO I AM."

    Walking alone, and with one lung (the other lost to cancer), Edie Littlefield Sundby became the first person in history to walk the 1,600-mile El Camino Real de las California's mission trail through the mountain wilderness of Mexico and one of the hottest deserts on earth, and across the border to Northern California - a walk that elevated her life with meaning and purpose that transcended pain and fear – and healed her broken body.

    THE MISSION WALKER is a first-hand account of harrowing adventure along the old Jesuit mission trail in Baja California Mexico -- desert heat and cold, walls of cactus, sleeplessness, hunger, both physical and spiritual exhaustion, the dangers of wild creatures, and encounters with drug smugglers and weeks with no water other than what a pack mule could carry; and the tortuous agony and transcendent beauty of walking the northern half of the mission trail through California, a trek Edie made six months after losing her right lung to cancer – a journey that restored health and spirit after fighting recurrent stage 4 cancer, including 79 rounds of chemotherapy, four radical surgeries (liver, lung, colon/stomach, and throat), and dozens of radiation treatments.

    Edie's story is both an adventure story and a reflection on the universal experience of confronting our own mortality. It is a story of what we will do when faced with the potential end of our life. What do we do with our time left on earth. And how much do we still really, truly want to live.

    The book cites more than 50 original historical sources and captures the untamed wilderness adventure experienced for centuries along the old Jesuit and Franciscan mission trail that unites California and Mexico and defines the Old West.

    For those who crave a spirit of adventure, who ache like Edie to know what our bodies and spirits are truly capable of, this book is a must-read. A true testament to faith, courage, and the power of hope.

    Editorial Reviews:

    "Edie Sundby's account of her amazing trek along the entirety of the 1,600-mile California Mission Trail is not only captivating and inspiring but also one heck of an outdoors adventure. "Les Standiford, Author and Historian

    "This powerful story of determination and faith will stay with you forever." Ken Budd Journalist/Author

    "...a gripping narrative that takes us through the author's harrowing journeys, inward and outward." JoBeth McDaniel Journalist/Author

    "The Mission Walker is a marvelous book, a moving meditation on the relationships between courage and faith, endurance and transcendence."Randall Sullivan, Creator, The Miracle Detective, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateJul 25, 2017
    ISBN9780718093303
    Author

    Edie Littlefield Sundby

    Edie Littlefield Sundby was born the second youngest of twelve children on an Oklahoma cotton farm without electricity and running water. She went on to graduate from the University of Oklahoma and became one of the first female sales executives at IBM and later a VP for Pacific Telesis. She was diagnosed with stage 4 gallbladder cancer and was given less than three months to live.  Despite 0.9% odds of survival, almost one million milligrams of chemo, and four major surgeries, she is still alive and walking. Her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.    

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    Reviews for The Mission Walker

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      How would you want to live if you were facing death? In reality we are all facing the end of our lives—some just know that time is short; and anyone with a cancer diagnosis must look into the face of death and make life altering decisions. Edie Littlefield Sundby had to make those decisions when she was given 3 months to live after getting a diagnosis of Stage 4 gallbladder cancer. Would she fight? Would she make peace with her remaining time, or would she go into denial and ignore it until it was too late? Edie decided to fight, it was in her genes; a lesson learned from her hardscrabble upbringing with parents who survived the Depression and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Quit wasn’t in her vocabulary; it was how she went from dirt poor to a University graduate who then rose to the top of corporations and was starting her own company with her husband.In San Diego, she was alone when she got her diagnosis; her husband was in Europe on business, her children also far away. Shaken, she left the doctor and drove to a place in the road under a shade tree and as she looked around she saw an old Mission Bell hanging from a rusted pole, and then she called out to God. She had always felt closer to God when she was in Nature, and when the cancer treatments were horrible she would walk and then hike, and in time she remembered that old Mission Bell. She found out that the Mission Bells marked the El Camino Real: the trail that Fr. Junipero Sierra and Franciscan Missionaries walked to build the Missions from Loreto, Mexico to Sonoma, California. She began to dream about walking the El Camino Real. A journey that would push her to her limits of survival. Since finishing this book I’ve repeatedly told my husband about what it meant to me, and to give him some comfort because he just lost his little brother to brain cancer. This book will touch the lives of people in the battle against cancer. The first part is filled with information about treatments. It is also a must read for adventures, hikers and walkers at all levels. I couldn’t get through the Mexico part of her journey without saying out loud “No way! How could she survive this?” over and over; it just is so amazing. 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      It's a funny thing about courage-- it has a malleable nature, and can be applied equally to the mother who lifts a car off of her child or the soldier who who risks his life to save the rest of his unit from enemy fire. Courage is the woman who helped get 2500 Jewish children safe from Nazi-held Poland in WWII, or the 17 year old girl, lone survivor of a plane crash in the wilds of Peru, who followed creeks and rivers, past the piranhas and crocodiles, to get back to civilization. Courage is countless moments in human survival and endurance, against great odds, and incredible hardship. Courage is Edie Littlefield Sundby.Imagine yourself a strong, vibrant, intelligent woman, physically fit, an avid walker, and practitioner of yoga. You are 55, and have just returned from volunteer work in India with one of your daughters. The abdominal difficulties you experienced while there could easily be attributed to the change in diet, but they persist at home. It is then you discover you have stage 4 cancer of the gall bladder. The prognosis is grim. But, you are Edie Littlefield Sundby, and you are determined to fight, determined to live.The Mission Walker is Edie's story, told in her own focused voice. Edie guides the reader through the early days of her diagnosis, into the maze of medical treatment, in which, in her determination not to let cancer claim her quickly, she blazed new trails. She blazed past the predicted three month survival. She kept seeking new options, holding fast to her faith and to her family; through chemotherapy, surgeries, through fighting tumors in different parts of her body, and fighting the side effects of the treatments to save her. And then, in remission and in gratitude, she decided to try to walk the California Mission Trail, grateful, thankful to be alive, hoping to light a candle at each of the 21 missions along the way, and thanking God with every step. Edie recounts the amazing journey of following the bells, not knowing how far she would go, leaving that to God, but determined to try.Yet there's more to The Mission Walker. Edie was determined to walk the portion of El Camino Real that stretched into Mexico, starting from its beginning in Loreto. The mission trail there was not maintained like the one in California; the journey would be very different and very difficult. As she made her plans for this trek, two years after the start of her first walk, her cancer came back. In a three month window between a repeat scan after radiation and surgery, armed with all the information she could find, a well-crafted trail kit, determination, and faith, Edie began the walk that would complete her trek of the mission trail. It's an incredible story, an eye opening journey, also faith filled, but additionally a story of strength of every sort. It is just one more example of Edie's courage.I have to add a disclaimer here: I know Edie. We met in 2012, and though we only spent one day together, it was a joyful one, celebrating the milestones of our children with our families. Edie and I didn't speak much that day. I knew a little of her story, but now realize where in that incredible fight she was. I was preoccupied, fighting my own medical diagnosis, focused more on the precautions I need to take daily to keep safe than on another's needs (which is a little embarrassing to admit, as I am a nurse, so my career has been focused on helping others with their health.) In the intervening years since we met, I followed her following the bells, but still didn't have a real grasp of the scope of her journey. It took this remarkable memoir to bring the journey, the strength of faith and character needed, into focus. Walk on, Edie. You walk strong. You walk with God. Thank you for letting us walk with you.