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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 Scars That Aren’t There
I haven’t begun treatment. No chemotherapy, no radiation, no surgery. My Oncologists say the cancer swimming through my veins “isn’t that bad yet”. I have all of my blonde hair. I haven’t lost a significant amount of weight. My Irish skin isn’t completely dried out. The soft outlines of my lips aren’t chapped. I have reached an understanding with the dark circles that developed under my eyes, my eyes that are the color of the sea following a storm. And, I do have scars.
Read More...My Cracked Earth
When I woke up from surgery,
Something was amiss.
The monitor beeped,
The plink plink of the dripping ringed,
The tubes were plugged into me
And my head felt numb
Like a dried-up earth
Ripped from nourishment
And cracked in pain.
An Imperfect Metaphor
I recently got unexpected good news within a still terrible situation. I’m 31 years old with metastatic breast cancer.
Read More...Alive and Scarred
Scars – by definition, are “marks left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed. A lasting effect of grief, fear, or other emotion left on a person’s character by a traumatic experience. A mark left on something following damage of some kind.”
Read More...A Concept of Time
My mind feels like the first 10 seconds after waking up from an accidental nap.
Mostly disoriented and mildly questioning reality.
Not quite sure how much time has passed,
Deep Transformation: From Corporate Ambitions to Valuing Life and Purpose
In the fast-paced corporate world, success is often defined by prestigious titles and material achievements. In the culture I grew up in, we are taught from a young age to be productive, suppress our strong emotions, and prioritize certain social relationships that value visible success over genuine human interaction.
Read More...My New Perspective: The Most Valuable Resource
Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. These are some of the measurements we use to explain the passing of time. 36 days. That’s how long it was from the first biopsy to my diagnosis of cancer. 1 week and 2 days. That’s how long from the time of diagnosis until I was seen by Oncology.
Read More...Tattoos and Tumors
I wear a frog on my left arm. It’s a tattoo, a little friend formed one day in the Mojave desert, poke by poke, the small dots of ink lodging in my skin permanently.
Read More...Trusting the Unpredictable
I’ve always had a difficult relationship with my body. For years, I’ve tried to lose weight and tried all sorts of methods, but the stubborn extra pounds just refuse to shed. To maintain an acceptable baseline body shape, I used to spend two hours on rigorous exercises each day and be super careful with my eating.
Read More...