AYA Cancer
Actions Are Greater Than Words
It warms my heart when I hear people call me “Brave” or “ Strong.” However, I don’t feel brave or strong…at all. I feel weak and broken. I feel like a rug was pulled from underneath me. I feel like a beginner magic act where the magician removes the tablecloth from under the dishes, and instead of standing up straight like it’s supposed to, they all fall down and break into pieces.
Read More...Meeting Myself for the First Time
Boundaries—such a scary term and concept for someone like me who was raised without a solid understanding of healthy boundaries. I grew up being the perpetual “go-to” person in my family and in so many other areas of my life. I was always there for everyone else, regardless of my own needs. This was my way of life for 28 years, until cancer intervened, forcing me to reevaluate everything in my life.
Read More...A Way With Words
You never know what you’ll find out about yourself when you put it down in writing; you can learn so much. You can say things you wouldn’t dream of saying out loud. You can be frank with yourself in ways that you can’t be with your partner, your mother, your best friend. You can tell the truth.
Read More...The Language of Cancer: “Stay Strong” and Other Meaningless Platitudes
Navigating the language of cancer is one side effect of diagnosis that no doctor or checklist mentions. A cancer diagnosis becomes an exploration of identity, one that seems to evolve constantly. Survivor versus patient. Warrior versus, well, we’re still looking for an alternate care-forward word. That’s the crux of it.
Read More...Loneliness Creeps In But Can’t Stay
Have you ever felt as if you were surrounded by people but still felt like you were alone? I never would have thought that I would feel that way but I did when I was told I had cancer. Those who haven’t experienced a cancer diagnosis will never understand.
Read More...Sex and Relationships
How exactly do you tell someone, “Oh, by the way, my eggs got blasted from chemo therapy, and I will never be able to have my own kids”? And when exactly is the best time to bring this up? First date? Third date? Right before or in the middle of getting busy?
Read More...Cancer and A Broken Heart
I spent most of my life before cancer on the outside. I was an observer rather than a participant. Much of that was the severe anxiety I was drowning in, but that’s not all of it. All of the things I enjoy most could be easily considered documenting. I’m a writer. I’m a photographer. I am even something of a musician.
Read More...Cancer is Cancer
Cancer is cancer. It doesn’t matter whether it’s below the belt or above the belt. The toxicity around word usage related to it is a problem. People get, and too often die, following silence and embarrassment from lack of validation either from themselves, others, or both.
Read More...Reconstruction: A Never-Ending Story
My mastectomy scars started out as the midnight blue of my surgeon’s pen, deftly scrawling the path of his scalpel on the white canvas of my chest. After he came, drew, and left, I found myself in front of the mirror over the sink of the pre-op bathroom, staring at the roadmap he’d sketched. I was met with an array of curved and straight lines; dictating symmetry, outlining what would be kept and not kept, and measuring how long, how wide, and how far down.
Read More...I Hate Thursdays
I hate Thursdays. I can’t say there isn’t a day in the week where I’m not reminded about my experience, where I’m not facing the reality of everything I’ve been through, where a simple butterfly motif or a duck waddling past won’t bring tears to my eyes or where a small bruise won’t send me into a panic. But Thursdays, Thursdays are the worst.
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