Survivorship
The stories and experiences are written by people after cancer treatments. These stories are written for those learning how to get back to work, college or just trying to be themselves again. Just getting past treatments isn’t enough, it is surviving and thriving that is key to being you again.
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Just One Puzzle
Imagine this—you are visiting your parents for a weekend trip that your kids have been counting down to for weeks. You are sitting with your family, puzzle on the table and snacks abounding. Your family’s love for puzzles has passed down generations and across marriages, and there are two rules: nothing under 1,000 pieces and you always start with the border.
Read More...From Passion to Purpose: Redefining Success After Cancer
“What would you say is your dream job?”
When I was asked this question in a 2018 job interview, it caught me completely off guard.
Read More...Letting the Scales Fall From My Eyes
After experiencing multiple life-threatening complications as a child and teenager from the hereditary colon cancer syndrome—Familial Adenomatous Polyposis—and developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result, healing has become a lifelong quest for over 20 years now.
Read More...My Ghost Is My Shadow
Ghost.
Noun.
an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.
Read More...Two Cancers One Ball
On February 28th, 2022, after spending hours in a panic upon receiving some out-of-reference range tumor markers in MyChart, my urologist sat me down in his office, my dad sitting a few feet from us, and soberly confirmed that I did in fact have testicular cancer.
Read More...A Specter of Myself
I lost myself. I don’t recall a specific date or time nor a fleeting moment. It happened somewhere between the dozens of oncology appointments, $10,000 bags of poison, the 100,000 hairs I shed, and the 100 pounds of weight I gained.
Read More...a sacred place
my body does not feel like a temple.
the goddess it once served has retreated.
Fear
My body tenses with anxiety. A sharp pinch in my right breast sparks immediate panic. What is that? I wait, analyzing its intensity, and once the feeling subsides, I am left with an agonizing thought. What if my cancer has returned?
Read More...The Invisible Scars
Six months has passed since my cancer diagnosis, and life seems to be back to normal, without a trace of illness or tiredness. In fact, many of my colleagues never found out why I was on sick extended leave, nor would they ever imagine cancer as a possibility knowing how full of energy and liveliness I always am.
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