The Elephant in the Room is Cancer. Tea is the Relief Conversation Provides.

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Patients

The stories and experiences in this category are written by people currently going through treatments for cancer. Read these stories to find inspiration and know that you are not alone in your experience with cancer.

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The Give and Take of Cancer

by Kelsie Scorzo November 10, 2025

Cancer is greedy, in the most ravenous and insatiable way. It has taken my energy, my routines, my sense of stability, and any sense of predictability I ever thought I had.

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Cancer Molded Me

by Michelle Lawrence November 3, 2025

I don’t like talking about what I have lost from cancer because it is an enormous reminder that some abnormal cells in my body that I created, which are so tiny, have had such a humongous impact on my life forever.

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The Glorious Gap

by Shalom Cherian October 27, 2025

Heading into the interview, I look into the car mirror one last time, and adjust my head scarf. Hmm…will they discriminate against me for wearing a headscarf?!

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Cancer Never Ends

by Dre Cuellar

I’ve never felt right calling myself a cancer survivor. I say it because it is the most common term people understand. I do not wish to be a dictionary for terminology when I choose to share my experience.

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What’s the Word?

by Cody Morrison September 15, 2025

According to some, we’re survivors after we’re done with treatment. To others, we’re survivors from the second we’re diagnosed.

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The Eye of the Hurricane

by Shreya Athalye September 1, 2025

I ascended the steps of the opera house stiffly, watching as we climbed higher and higher, far away from the stage. We passed rows and rows of red seats, and I took in the towering marble columns, so imposing and grand.

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Negative Results

by Amanda Růžičková August 25, 2025

It hasn’t killed me yet—
but it spreads.
From marrow to memory,
it seeds the femur,
threads the ribs,
scrapes its code into the curve
of my pelvis—
then metastasizes
to the contact list.

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Remodeling My Emotional Kitchen: Healing Through Cancer

by Erica Khamvongsa July 28, 2025

Cancer changed my relationships with others by forcing me to face and process my trauma. Eve Ensler, the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and a cancer survivor herself, reported that she survived cancer by confronting her trauma, along with making lifestyle changes and using traditional Western medicine.

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Why Not You?

by Shannon Davidson July 11, 2025

For some people, when they experience a particularly arduous time in life, or when they are dealt a bad hand, so many think “Why me?” “Why did this awful thing happen to me? Why do I have to deal with this hardship? I think this can be traced to the age-old question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

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Appointment Summary

by Michelle Lawrence July 7, 2025

Dr. Crow is always in the know,
and running the show.
Ensuring everyone is following the memo:

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