January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!
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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Amy’s Rays of Sunshine
Amy’s Rays of Sunshine is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization founded by Amy Steeves to pay forward the love and support that she received from her amazing community during her own bone marrow transplant after a cancer relapse in 2019.
Read More...Today I’m Angry
One year ago today I was diagnosed with Cancer. Freaking cancer. Stage THREE CANCER.
Today I’m angry. Today I’m heartbroken. I’m mad at how my life has changed. How my body and mind are forever different and there are things I still can’t do. I’m mad that I have radiation tattoos that will never go away, a scar where my port was, and an abdominal scar that always looks back at me in the mirror.
Read More...Rise
Through tired eyes
Remains a flicker of life’s sparkle
Dimmed, but never to go out
A new perspective
Emboldened truths
Alive
The boundaries are blurred, so I wait
Observing from a distance,
I consider my fate
In time there’s some meaning
I establish my feelings
A calming naivety, au fait
Unintentionally Sharp
I hate that I loved it most
at its weakest
I did not eat dry toast
or monotonous meals
My secret was dying a little
while trying not to die a lot
My Days
Hospital visits Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Blood transfusions, Spinal Taps, Chemo,
Needles, Pills, Procedures,
Doctors, Nurses, Patients, Parents.
Forty Thousand Feet
forty thousand feet.
a terrifying height.
at least it was,
it used to be.
every bump,
every shake would send me
over the edge.
Dear Cancer, Thank You for Teaching Me Patience
Dear Cancer,
I would often think of you before I knew you. When I was a child, I would think to myself, “I was one of six children. What are the odds that none of us got cancer?” As I got into my teenage years, the question then became “Which one of us?”
Read More...Dear Cancer, You Try to Take Away
Dear Cancer,
I have honestly feared you for as long as I can remember. A feeling of you meeting me along the way was consistently looming over me. So much so, that I can recall telling friends and family that I felt you would come for me, and I wondered if you already had.
Read More...Dear Cancer, You Took the Best Parts of Me
Cancer,
I cannot even begin to describe the absolute void that lives within me because of you. I have been physically rid of you for almost six years now, and yet somehow you still manage to wreak havoc on my soul.
Read More...