January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!
Cancer
Cancer Follows Me Everywhere
I’m heading home after my first date in Boston. Normally my dating app M.O. has ten steps that include texting, phone calls, and other precautions before an in-person meeting. But something was different with this guy.
Read More...“Silenzio, Bruno!”
My mom died from pancreatic cancer three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, a short three and a half years after my dad died from AML. My husband, two daughters, and I slipped into isolation and grief through all the COVID headlines, trying to keep our heads above water through a funeral, cleaning out her house, and figuring out where the line was on being safe and keeping sane.
Read More...Supergirl
It’s Tuesday, and I’m scheduled for another chemo day. I look excited, happy and hopeful, which shows in my cute outfits for chemo, how I carry a lot of energy filming and taking pictures trying to document the entire experience, and how I just look like an innocent lady who has no idea how cruel the world can be since I am the youngest patient in the room.
Read More...What To Expect When You’re Not Expecting Cancer
Dear self that walked into the ER with abdominal pains not expecting the outcome to be cancer: First, I need you to take a deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath. Exhale.
Read More...The Ouch Factor
Why Sexual Pain Happens After Cancer, and What Can Be Done. If you experience discomfort with sexual activity, you’re not alone. Sexual pain happens to be the most commonly reported sexual complaint for women after cancer (Bober & Krapf, 2021).
Read More...We’re All a Little Lost
It’s the holiday season, and Santa Claus is coming ‘round… so begin the lyrics to a very cheerful Christmas song, about Santa helping us celebrate the holidays. But sitting here, in a borrowed house because my family is quarantined due to breakthrough COVID and I can’t be with them, with sunlight streaming through the window onto the artificial hyacinth, I’m feeling anything but cheer.
Read More...New Year, New Me…
New year, new me… I have always absolutely hated that saying. However, this year I literally am a “new me.” Most of my cells have been killed and replaced to generate a “new me.” Living most of six months in the hospital for intensive chemotherapy has formed a “new me.”
Read More...Surviving Cancer: My Life’s Retrospective
Four years have passed since my initial cancer diagnosis, and reflecting back on that Halloween evening of 2017 does not get any easier. I still remember the clothes I was wearing and the pink eyeshadow that made me feel like a million bucks as I walked into the endocrinology department at the local hospital.
Read More...What Do the Holidays Mean to Me Now?
If I had custom ornaments made to commemorate my last three Christmases they would read: Christmas 2018 — “The one where I had cancer.” Christmas 2019 — “The one where I had cancer… again.”
Read More...Musings on a Cancery Christmas
December 21, 2018. Winter solstice. It was the darkest day of the year, and also turned out to be one of the darkest days of my life. The day I was told I had breast cancer. I received the news over the phone from a doctor I barely knew.
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