Survivorship

Remodeling My Emotional Kitchen: Healing Through Cancer

Cancer changed my relationships with others by forcing me to face and process my trauma. Eve Ensler, the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and a cancer survivor herself, reported that she survived cancer by confronting her trauma, along with making lifestyle changes and using traditional Western medicine.

Am I Human?

They no longer treat me like
I am human.

A human has flaws.
A human can be weak.
But I… I am their warrior—
their cancer warrior.

Life is Too Short Not to Let Yourself Change Your Mind

Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I had always wanted to be a doctor. And honestly, this dream held up for many years after. But cancer shifted my axis. I was in and out of school. I didn’t know if I’d graduate high school.

Everything Happens for a Reason…Or Does It?

I liken this phrase to “God gives you what you can handle”. The first time I heard it was after my grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer and my grandmother informed our minister and the congregation about his condition.

Trapped

Trapped in a bed. In a room. On the oncology floor.
Will they ever let me leave?

What People Need to Know About Cancer

AYA Cancer Awareness week was April 7-11. About 89,000 adolescents and young adults (ages 15-39) are diagnosed with cancer across the United States each year according to the National Cancer Institute, and in 2022 I was one of those young adults diagnosed with cancer.

My Identity After Cancer

My mother is crying in the other room, and I don’t understand why, but I am already trembling. My heart beats faster and faster as the doctors and nurse’s shoes squeak across the hallway floor as they walk swiftly past my hospital room to see what the commotion is.

Why Did I Get Cancer?

I grew up in the Catholic Faith. Everything was all part of God’s plan. I could pinpoint certain things in my life and say without a doubt that it was supposed to happen this way.

Survivor’s Guilt: Remembering Elaine

Survivor’s guilt is a strange and persistent feeling—one that I didn’t have the words for as a child. When I was younger, I knew I had survived retinoblastoma, but I didn’t fully understand what that meant in comparison to others who didn’t have the same outcome.

Meaning in the Rubble

Just a few months before my diagnosis, at 29, I felt like I could do anything. That same year, I was featured in the Pittsburgh Business Times 30 Under 30 issue, served on multiple nonprofit boards, and managed a national network of nonprofits.