Survivorship

My Body, My Battle

I’ll pray and then I’ll sleep
I’ll sleep and then I’ll eat
I’ll eat and then I’ll try to do something productive
I’ll do some chores and then I’ll be short of breath
I’ll sit and rest

Cancer Made the People Come Back

They emerged from long silences and came from all times and many different places. They drew as near as possible through words and cards, and so many flowers—so many my small house could not even hold them all.

Swept Away: Healing Lost Trust

I am the parent of a kindergartener. For colorectal cancer, I am early onset. Most people at my facility are elderly. How can they relate to cancer at my age, as a mom of a young boy?

Dear Body

Dear Body,

I don’t know exactly when I began to lose my trust in you, but I vividly remember the moment all trust was shattered. I remember how you had annoyed me with random aches and pains, and a myriad of problems through my teenage years, but you still allowed me to work out intensely at the gym and lift quite a lot of weight in the form of furniture.

(Not Trusting) My Body, (But Trusting) My Self

When I was a little kid, I trusted my body pretty well. I could count on it to run the fastest, land that ollie I was trying to do on my skateboard, send the soccer ball into the net for a goal, land feet-first into the water after flipping around in the air off the high-dive.

The Death of Relatability

Cancer steals a lot from you. Your time, your health, your freedom, sometimes even your life. The day that you’re diagnosed, doors that remain open for many other people slam shut in your face. And other doors—unwanted at best—open and beg to be entered.

Unstable Ground and Holding Hope Gently

Two days before my final treatment, I write myself a letter in my journal. Everything does not happen for a reason, but I can’t deny that I’ve found one anyway.

You Will Be Brave, Too

Human lives are stories, and as such, defined by words. In my own case, like so many other incurable cancer patients, the word “incurable” is coded for “hopeless” and/or “doomed,” in the first weeks after diagnosis.

How Do I Find Life With You?

Dear Cancer,

Here I go again, writing to you. Sometimes it feels like I’m writing to a frenemy who won’t go away because you’ve made the biggest impact on my life.

Dear Cancer, Remember Me?

Dear Cancer,

Wow, I can’t believe it has been 28 years since I met you. You stopped my life in my teenage tracks and at the same time gave me a perception of gratitude and life I never knew was possible. One day I was playing varsity field hockey and the next I was holed up on the Upper West Side getting chemo.