Cancer fight temporarily grounds globe-trotting couple
Over the past year, Dalene and Pete Heck have travelled throughout Alberta, Canada’s east coast and Nicaragua.
“We try to jam all this really great stuff in between treatments,” says Dalene, who in late 2016 was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. “But I have to say, it’s nice to be back and have roots again.”
For most people, the couple’s travels of late would fall into the “extensive” category. The Hecks, however, aren’t your gardenvariety tourists. Over the past 16 years, they’ve touched down in more than 50 countries around the globe, some of those visits lasting weeks; others, several months.
In late 2014, the pair was featured in National Geographic magazine as one of its annual “Traveler of the Year” honourees. That recognition was no doubt largely due to the engaging, eloquent storytelling, courtesy of Dalene, and the beautiful photography by Pete on their website, ( hecktictravels.com), which chronicles the daily magic of immersing themselves in a wide variety of countries, cultures and communities.
“We were pretty surprised and honoured to be in the magazine,” says Dalene, who with her husband also runs a travel consulting business.
Adds her husband of 17 years: “Travel has taught us what we really need to live.”
Just over a year ago, though, the Hecks were faced with the distinct possibility their nomadic existence — indeed, Dalene’s very life — was in great jeopardy.
“I had been feeling tired and then got this big bruise on my thigh,” she says of the event that caused them to cut short an extended stay in Washington state to come home for treatment.
After being diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia, a rare form of cancer that is deadly if ignored, but has a good survival rate after treatment, Dalene, a University of Calgary graduate, decided she wanted to be based out of Lethbridge for the foreseeable future, where her mom and other family members live.
“I kind of went kicking and screaming into the first few months,” says the 41-year-old of settling back into a relatively grounded life, complete with a newly purchased townhouse. “But I have to say, it’s nice to be back and have roots again.”
When the couple set out in 2009 on their world travels, it was precipitated by not one, but several sad events in their lives two years earlier, or as they write on their website, “a four-month barrage of tragedies.”
First, Dalene’s parents split up. Then Pete’s mom died suddenly after a brief illness. And then, Dalene’s beloved older sister, Nicole, died suddenly, after suffering a pulmonary embolism.
The tsunami of loss nearly overtook Dalene. She was unable to work at her job with a local oil company, spending several months in her pyjamas during the day, watching TV at night when she couldn’t sleep.
Those dark days, though, sparked a conversation that within two years turned into action.
“We’d often say, ‘ let’s quit our jobs and see the world,’” says Pete, 40, who worked as a controller at an oil and gas company.
The mere thought of such an adventure, says Dalene, kickstarted her healing process.
“It was my turning point back to life,” she says of selling their 2,000-square-foot house in Okotoks and buying two oneway plane tickets to Bolivia. “It really gave us a new perspective.”
From 2009 to 2016, they traversed the planet, making friends everywhere they went. There were frightening experiences, the worst being when Pete was robbed at gunpoint while jogging on a Mexican beach.
“He had the gun pressed up against my temple,” he says.
Still, they say the beautiful experiences far outnumbered the negative.
“It was heartbreaking to leave some places,” says Dalene, who with her husband volunteered in Bolivia, studied in Turkey and explored nature in such remote places as Greenland.
The couple, who also produced an e-book filled with travel tips and ideas, aren’t about to put their suitcases in storage anytime soon.
“When I got diagnosed with leukemia, I thought, ‘I’m so glad we had these last 10 years seeing the world,’” says Dalene.
“It’s not a lifestyle for everyone,” Pete says, adding Vietnam and Botswana are just a few places on their to-visit list. “This is the path in life I was meant to take.”
His wife and kindred spirit nods her head.
“We’ve barely touched Asia,” she says. “We’ll do that for sure.”