Dear Cancer
Each year we ask the AYA cancer community to submit letters to cancer to express their feelings about how cancer has changed their lives. People explore an array of emotions in these letters, including anger, sadness, gratitude, and hope.
Want to submit an article or write your own letter to cancer? Click Here.
How Do I Find Life With You?
Dear Cancer,
Here I go again, writing to you. Sometimes it feels like I’m writing to a frenemy who won’t go away because you’ve made the biggest impact on my life.
Read More...Dear Cancer, Remember Me?
Dear Cancer,
Wow, I can’t believe it has been 28 years since I met you. You stopped my life in my teenage tracks and at the same time gave me a perception of gratitude and life I never knew was possible. One day I was playing varsity field hockey and the next I was holed up on the Upper West Side getting chemo.
Read More...Dear Cancer: I Will Never Say Thank You
Dear Cancer,
If I tell you this, promise not to tell anyone else, because I can barely bring myself to write it, and I will never say this out loud.
Read More...To Suffer and to Teach
Dear Cancer,
When you entered my life, I couldn’t say your name without bursting into big fat alligator tears. “I have cancer.” I hated the very phrase, as if you were something that belonged to me.
Read More...Dear Cancer, I Might Miss You
Dear Cancer,
I have written this letter to you a thousand times in my head. Each time, I argued about how I felt about you. How could I be angry at something that takes such an impersonal form? You aren’t even real. You don’t have a soul.
Read More...I’m Positive I Hate You
Dear ALK Positive,
I guess it’s time we became acquainted.
You’ve chosen this body to be your vessel. It would have been nice if you’d asked before rudely invading. Even trying to hide while you spread yourself out across more space than you needed.
Read More...Dearest Cancer
Dear Cancer,
July 1, 2020. You entered my life like a subway train speeding to its next stop. You brought so many words. Terrifying words. Confusing words. Complicated words. Hormones. Invasive ductal carcinoma. Margins. Stages. Lymph nodes. Metastasis. Surgery.
Read More...Dear Cancer (Circling Back)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are spinning on the record player
I dance to Suite Judy Blue Eyes and remember who I am
Just a few weeks ago this scene would have been near impossible
Dear Cancer
Dear Cancer,
you probably don’t remember me.
you’ve probably seen a million kids since you met me.
there are thousands of kids that they couldn’t save,
Two Ribbons
Dear Cancer, I never would have thought that December 31, 2019, would be a day I would receive news that would change my life forever. I was in a complete state of denial, shock, and disbelief as I sat in my car in a parking lot.
Read More...