The Elephant in the Room is Cancer. Tea is the Relief Conversation Provides.

January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!

brain cancer

You Will Be Brave, Too

by Patrick Koske-McBride July 22, 2024

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.

Read More...

The Impossibilities of Life in the Mind of Someone Healthy

by Siobhan Hebron June 18, 2024

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.

Read More...

Everyone Deserves to Date

by Doron Losky May 23, 2024

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.

Read More...

Time Cannot Stand Still

by Hedda Phan May 16, 2024

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...

Welcome to the Arena

by Jacki Mjoen March 27, 2024

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.

Read More...

Love and Gratitude Help to Overcome Anxiety

by Anbumani S. N. February 13, 2024

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.

Read More...

What a Thief

by Savannah Mason October 19, 2023

Cancer is a thief. It steals away time, happiness, relationships, experiences, and energy. Prior to my diagnosis of grade III RELA+ Anaplastic Ependymoma, I experienced what we now know were absence seizures. When my seizures started, they were only about 20 seconds or so in length, and they only occurred a couple of times a week.

Read More...

I Captured the Flag, Now What?

by Taylor Roth August 29, 2023

I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment I went from “cancer patient” to “cancer survivor.” It’d be nice to post an annual ribbon on Facebook with a triumphant, inspirational message. After all, survivors are done with all the yucky parts of cancer, right? Survivorship is the ultimate “good vibes only” party and I’d like to know when I was invited.

Read More...

We Understand Each Other

by Logan Steenbergen August 3, 2023

There are times in each of our lives that we feel isolated from the people around us. We feel left out, struggle making friends, finding our purpose, but that’s life, right?

Read More...

Finding Friends Who Understand

by Anonymous April 26, 2023

When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t want cancer friends. At the time I was still processing my diagnosis and trying to wrap my head around the fact that in a few weeks, I would be having awake brain surgery, chemo, and radiation. My brain tumor was an incidental find from a car accident, meaning I didn’t feel sick at all.

Read More...