Survivorship

Any Questions?

“You will be 100% infertile… Any more questions?”

The words reverberated in my skull as I took the receipt from the hospital parking deck turnstile. My anger radiating through my knuckles as I gripped the steering wheel tighter with each passing minute. My vexation only heightened by the fact that I just paid $15 for parking. All to be nonchalantly reminded that my new treatment plan would leave me unable to conceive children on my own.

Finding My Voice Again

Going through treatments was incredibly isolating. At the time, I did not really know anyone in the cancer community, so I had no one to talk to who understood what I was going through. I was the youngest patient at the hospital where I was treated. After treatments, I felt driven to start doing things I really enjoyed again that did not have to do with school or work—things that I enjoyed because it was a form of self-care, and it was just fun.

Debts We Don’t Owe

In February, I was faced with a sudden bout of severe pain and imaging that showed significant enlargement in one of my ovaries. Although I’ve since learned it was benign in origin, the debilitating pain and protracted (months-long) screening saga that followed triggered a fuming sense of betrayal that I couldn’t shake for about a week.

When Trauma Triggers…

As a sit here on a hot and humid day in New York City, literally today’s Wordle was “humid.” I see the air quality alert on my Alexa and weather app and am instantly taken back to when I was sick with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s disease in the summer of 1996 when I wasn’t allowed out of the house when there were such alerts.

I am Not A Soldier

You call me warrior, but I do not receive that title
I am a survivor, I am a mother, I am a friend
I am not a soldier

The Unspoken Cancer

Cervical cancer is one of the cancers you don’t hear about. If you haven’t been impacted by cervical cancer, you don’t talk about it.

I want to share my story because I want to make sure every one understands there is no shame in being diagnosed with cervical cancer. In this age and time, it’s hard to find a space and people to talk to who can relate to what you’re about to go through, are going through, or have gone through—to ask questions or to just even have an ear to listen to you.

How the Berating Surgeon Lost Her Power Over Me

Before the vaccine was available to the layperson, when the CDC was recommending double masking in public, in January of 2021, I attended my diagnostic breast biopsy alone. Double masked and still carrying the weight of my postpartum anxiety that caused a debilitating fear of germs, I entered the small, stuffy waiting room, forced to sit very close to my nervous comrades.

Year Three: Mentally I’m… I Don’t Know

Who could ever forget 2020? Certainly not me. It will go down in history as a catastrophic year full of loss, grief, anguish, and unpredictability. If it wasn’t you yourself, you knew someone directly affected by the COVID-19 fallout: illness, job loss, struggling to stay afloat, etc. 2020 was an inescapable year. And I was no different…but for a different reason.

Meeting Myself for the First Time

Boundaries—such a scary term and concept for someone like me who was raised without a solid understanding of healthy boundaries. I grew up being the perpetual “go-to” person in my family and in so many other areas of my life. I was always there for everyone else, regardless of my own needs. This was my way of life for 28 years, until cancer intervened, forcing me to reevaluate everything in my life.

A Way With Words

You never know what you’ll find out about yourself when you put it down in writing; you can learn so much. You can say things you wouldn’t dream of saying out loud. You can be frank with yourself in ways that you can’t be with your partner, your mother, your best friend. You can tell the truth.