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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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Everything Doesn’t Happen for a Reason
It may be common to tell someone struggling with a cancer diagnosis that “everything happens for a reason,” but I don’t agree and think it is a rather rude thing to say, at least for my type of cancer.
Read More...He Laughed
He laughed. How could he laugh? I just divulged my most kept secret and he laughed. When someone tells you they have cancer, laughing should not be your first response. Well, I guess this isn’t going anywhere…
Read More...Two Hospital Rooms
One welcomes a baby,
filled with soft cries and loud joy.
The other says goodbye to her breasts,
stitched in silence, wrapped in loss.
Survivorship After Having the “Good Cancer”
Patrick. Cait. Casey. Kevin. Jim. Chris. Mike. Alden. Vinnie. Adam. Those are the people I think of most throughout every day I remain cancer-free. Since I have been in my survivorship journey, those ten people have died, all undeserving of what this disease took from them and their loved ones.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
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