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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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if someone told me…
I wish someone told me that survivorship would be the hardest part…
that it’s like a rollercoaster,
except the track changes every time you start the ride again.
Life Goes On?
I looked in the mirror as I furiously brushed my hair. It reached down maybe a third down my back. It’s taken 12 years to get this long. I’ve only ever trimmed and shaped it a few times; I worry about cutting a chunk off, in case it won’t grow back.
Read More...Skin
You took the skin off my back, literally.
You left me numb, emotionally and physically.
Young Breast Cancer Your Story and Mine: A Compact Guide
Due to the problem of omission of public breast health education, I believed that “it couldn’t be cancer.” I didn’t know my risk factors, and I believed I was too young. This belief fueled my own delay in seeking care for some months, which could have been detrimental to my survival due to the extra aggressive nature of my tumor being Triple Negative breast cancer.
Read More...Ode to H.E.R. (Holding Every Reality)
It feels like it took a lifetime to find you… this body of mine. All her shapes, curves, and ombre moods of brown.
I was sort of lost without understanding how powerful you are, so I’ve fought hard for you to stay.
Read More...Internal and External Scars
I am two years into cancer
Or rather –
Cancer is two years into me –
and my body is Scarred.
No,
Not just where they sliced open my neck and removed the cancer
(twice).
No,
not just where they implanted a port into the middle of my chest,
just below my once-cushioned
(now-protruding)
collar bone.
No,
Scar tissue is
where my heart is
and
Scar tissue is
where my words are
and
Scar tissue has taken over
the Happiness Center in my brain.
My Dance with Cancer
In 2021 it felt as if my whole world was coming to an end. I had received a phone call from my doctor that no one expects or only sees in movies. She would then go on to explain, as I clung to my railing, that I had what she believed to be a rare form of leukemia, BPDCN.
Read More...Cancer Treatment Doesn’t End After Chemotherapy
It was March 3, 2022 and I was checking my online chart to see what was going on with me.
I went through a sonogram, a biopsy, and various other blood tests to check out the large growth on my neck. “The immunophenotypic features of the large, atypical cells are consistent with the diagnosis of classic Hodgkin lymphoma,” the words hit me like a train running me over at 100 miles an hour.
Read More...Does Cancer Ever Really Go Away?
That’s a great question. The day I was told “this looks like a malignancy” is far more memorable than the day I was told “your scans and labs are clean, and we shouldn’t need to continue treatment.” During my first visit back to the cancer center for a follow up, I was given the familiar wrist band that all patients receive.
Read More...What I Wish Someone Told Me About Thyroid Cancer
I think there is nothing that anyone, including myself, could do to prepare ourselves for thyroid cancer. How can we give advice, share information about our own past, validation and self-awareness pre-diagnosis with thyroid cancer? Sometimes I wish I knew about thyroid cancer right before I had my total thyroidectomy surgery. Since I was diagnosed […]
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