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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Welcome to the Arena
Welcome to the arena. The cancer arena that feels like you are the only one on this battlefield. Especially since you are the young one with cancer. The arena stands are full of people you know and love.
Read More...Beyond Expectations: Gratitude for Those Who Kept Showing Up
As a military spouse, making and keeping friendships is often challenging. The constant moves and short time in any one location often make it hard to make and maintain friendships while moving from base to base. In January 2018, my husband received orders from the Army, notifying us that he’d been reassigned to work in Manhattan, New York.
Read More...A Lonely Journey Ahead
I’ve been surrounded by loved ones from the first moment I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and never been left alone since. They brought me gifts, prepared my favorite food, and took really good care of me day and night. “Are you cold? Do you want food? Are you tired?”
Read More...What Makes a Friend
What makes a friend?
It’s a question you’ve probably been asked before in some hypothetical or philosophical type of way. Have you ever really had to answer the question, “What makes a friend,” though?
Read More...How Church Supported Me During My Diagnosis
I have always been involved in the Christian Community—I went to Christian school my whole life and I’ve been attending my church for over five years now. I didn’t tell many people at Church about my diagnosis until things got really bad.
Read More...Coping in the Present
As a young adult, you have your entire life ahead of you until a cancer diagnosis forces you to consider the harsh reality of your mortality. Like most AYA cancer patients, my first diagnosis was shocking, and my entire world stopped.
Read More...Love and Gratitude Help to Overcome Anxiety
It’s in the fine evening of September 2019 that I had so much confusion and having headache; I already have peptitmal (partial seizures) for the last 15 years and I took anti-seizure medications to control the seizures and I had developed a lot of side effects due to those drugs. I thought it was also due to that and my chronic illness and fatigue effects have been like that for the past 15 years.
Read More...Cancer and Loneliness Are Besties
Cancer and loneliness are besties. They bond over the fact that each cancer journey is unique to the patient. They can gossip about how different we are and how cancer impacts us. The rumors are true; our treatment options, treatment plans, socioeconomic impact, family impact, etc., will all differ.
Read More...Cancer Created Me
Cancer changed everything. Some people like to pretend that it doesn’t change anything, but the raw fact is that it changes everything; life, family, friends, and most importantly yourself. Maybe they are in denial or have not come to terms with this burden. But within the dark crevices of Cancer it has a way of making you feel more deserving and as if you are a more superior being than you were before.
Read More...Confined by the Present
It will never be the same
There are people all around me
They show their love
They show support
But it can only go skin deep