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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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I wish someone told me
I wish someone had told me—Told me how much it would hurt. Not the blade that cleaved my skull, To extract the unwelcome guest, Nor the threads that stitched the wound shut, Or the scar, fracturing my head, Like parched and cracking earth.
Read More...Raspberry Sorbet Swirls in the Sky
I woke from the deepest sleep the doctor was above me what happened? I asked wearily you had a hysterectomy she said
Read More...The Part That Died
When I found out I could not carry a child, a hush fell inside me—not silence, but something colder. A part of me dropped dead.
Read More...The Give and Take of Cancer
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.
Read More...Cancer Molded Me
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.
Read More...The Glorious Gap
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?!
Read More...Cancer Never Ends
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.
Read More...What’s the Word?
According to some, we’re survivors after we’re done with treatment. To others, we’re survivors from the second we’re diagnosed.
Read More...The Eye of the Hurricane
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.
Read More...Negative Results
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.