brain cancer

The Part That Died

When I found out I could not carry a child, a hush fell inside me—not silence, but something colder. A part of me dropped dead.

My Identity After Cancer

My mother is crying in the other room, and I don’t understand why, but I am already trembling. My heart beats faster and faster as the doctors and nurse’s shoes squeak across the hallway floor as they walk swiftly past my hospital room to see what the commotion is.

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.

My Cancer Story

I was diagnosed with Brain Cancer in December 2012. My anesthesia level was full. My treatment was five days a week for chemotherapy and one day a week for radiation therapy. I will not mention the name of the hospital that treated me, but I will say that it needs to be closed down.

You Will Be Brave, Too

Human lives are stories, and as such, defined by words. In my own case, like so many other incurable cancer patients, the word “incurable” is coded for “hopeless” and/or “doomed,” in the first weeks after diagnosis.

The Impossibilities of Life in the Mind of Someone Healthy

Dear Cancer, 

What do I want to say to you at our ten year anniversary? Like many patients, I still remember when we were introduced in 2014 like I had selective hyperthymesia for that day. At the time I received brain tumor diagnoses of grades I, II, III, and IV, with no member of my medical team able or willing to tell me anything about my prognosis.

Everyone Deserves to Date

One of the things they don’t tell you about when you’re single and have a cancer diagnosis is that it can be very difficult to date. This seems to be a sentiment shared among the AYA (adolescent and young adult) cancer community.

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.

Welcome to the Arena

Welcome to the arena. The cancer arena that feels like you are the only one on this battlefield. Especially since you are the young one with cancer. The arena stands are full of people you know and love.

Love and Gratitude Help to Overcome Anxiety

It’s in the fine evening of September 2019 that I had so much confusion and having headache; I already have peptitmal (partial seizures) for the last 15 years and I took anti-seizure medications to control the seizures and I had developed a lot of side effects due to those drugs. I thought it was also due to that and my chronic illness and fatigue effects have been like that for the past 15 years.