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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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Cancer and Cookies
My advice as an elevator pitch:
Cancer fucking sucks, but you don’t!!!! This cancer journey is about you. Keep that in mind. Balance will be the key. Knowledge is power; take notes, ask questions, and be curious. You don’t have to do this alone.
Read More...Turning Loss to Lemonade
Turning thirty is a big deal. It’s one of the milestones we celebrate. “The end of a chapter, and the start of a new one,” is what people love to say. It’s Real Adulthood, the period of wedding planning, pumping and dumping, and racing to pick up at daycare. It coincides with how a woman’s biological clock ticks louder as she gets closer to her thirties.
Read More...Hostage
i wanted to run away-
trapped by a body
that no longer felt safe.
it was inside of me.
there was no way to escape.
Darkest Hours
A year away in California, a dream unfolding
Training, motivated, hungry for College
In the best shape of my life, smiling and at peace
Life crashes down, sickness strikes at twenty
Shoo Cancer, Don’t Bother Me
Death tally: one mother, one father, one marriage, one brother, another brother—nearly. For 45 years I thought of myself as a survivor, but when you don’t have any visible scars to show for it, nobody really acknowledges your wounds.
Read More...The Now
In 2019, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 33. I had surgery and treatment in Boston and then moved home to Hudson Valley, New York to live close to my family. I met the love of my life shortly thereafter. After about two and a half years together, in October 2023, he was diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer.
Read More...Your Treatment Team: A Focus on Mental Health
Having a psychologist and/or counselor as part of the treatment team is becoming more common, although not as common as necessary. Often, it is seen as an optional add-on, but it should be considered essential.
Read More...Dating and Sex After Cancer
It was always going to be hard—deciding when to start dating after cancer. I waited until I had my NED (no evidence of disease) results and then made a conscious effort to start talking to people on Bumble, as if I was a “normal” 34-year-old in the dating pool. I’m sure I speak for an entire generation when I say I hate Bumble.
Read More...Time Cannot Stand Still
Have you ever stopped to notice the way time stands still when a fire truck or an ambulance passes by? Cars in the intersection and pedestrians in the road all freeze. I know that it is required by law, but at the same time, it is a beautiful thing, a display of the good that humanity can be.
Read More...Can You Hear Me? Do You See Me?
I will not leave my bed this morning. Unshowered and in my PJs, I lay. My body is too heavy—laden with pain and sorrow. These later years are so different in my cancer journey than my earlier years. My cancer stayed, but in 15 years, the support has faded.
Read More...