January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!
AYA Cancer
My Identity After Cancer
After being diagnosed with cancer and overcoming it, a new label was added to my identity: cancer survivor. While this label carries a positive connotation, it also brings a sense of uncertainty.
Read More...I May Not Know Who I Am, But I Know What I Want
In popular lore, there is the cliche that before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. When I was 24, I was told I had stage III cancer, and what flashed before my eyes was all the life I should have lived: the wedding I would never have, the kids I would never raise, the dreams I was working toward—everything I thought I had time for could vanish in an instant.
Read More...Cancer is Not My Identity
Life after cancer isn’t what I, or many, expect it to be like. Like a lot of others, it’s believed that once your treatment is over and you are disease-free, your life will go back to how it once was.
Read More...What I Wish MyChart Notifications Told Me
I wish someone told me that doing my best each day is enough. I don’t have to be some superhero and maintain the capacity I had before cancer crept into my life.
Read More...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...A Kinder Way to Life
Cancer, like a death sentence, was pronounced on me at the age of 33. I guess I can be only thankful that I didn’t know I had it until long after my operation was over.
Read More...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...