caregiver

The Power of Faith: Overcoming Feelings of Loneliness and Isolation

As I reflect on our experience with cancer, I’m reminded of how isolating that season of my life was. Enter the pandemic that forced us into physical isolation.

Dear Cancer, Do You Remember Me?

Dear Cancer,

I wish I could start with, “Hello old friend, and thank you for all the ways you’ve shaped my growth,” as I have written before, but today that feels like a lie. One thing I’ve lost the ability to do is lie to protect you. Today I am still grieving and angry. Today I can’t see past all you have taken from me.

Can you even remember me? You took my mother in ‘88 when I was just a kid, and yet I thanked you. I thought my debt had been paid. You taught me to love every day, not just on good days, and I thanked you.

Dear Cancer, You Taught Me Loss and Light

Dear Cancer,

For a long time, I thought you only came into other people’s homes. You certainly would never enter mine and wreak havoc. Until you did. When I was fifteen you filled my home and apparently my dad’s bloodstream as well. Leukemia. When we told people the news they would cry, and I never understood why. What’s wrong? This won’t take him down. Do you know my dad? He is as tough as nails!

Facing the Unseen Challenges of Survivorship with Positivity

My daughter, Cecilia, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) at the tender age of three, and just like that, my world (and hers) was turned upside down. In an instant, I became not only her attentive Mama but a ferocious Caregiver—two very different jobs.

Complicated Grief

Complicated Grief: When Losing a Parent to Cancer and Parental Alienation Collide

When my husband died from complications of cancer 13 years ago, I endured the relentless waves of grief that young widows and widowers are forced to ride when we lose a partner and the parent to our young children. Not only do we mourn their partnership and all our shared future dreams, but we also mourn the parent our kids have lost, and the significance of that parent/child relationship our children will never get to experience.

A Horrible Nightmare

May 24th started like any other regular Sunday morning. I had just returned from a trip and was catching up with my dad, stepmom, and younger sister, telling stories while drinking a cup of coffee. Our light and giggly conversations about the weather and our dinner plans for that night quickly took a turn as I heard the words, “There is something we have to tell you.”

Toolbox Tips for Establishing Your New Normal

When our three and a half year old little girl was diagnosed with ALL we had all of those feelings. Overwhelm. Denial. Despair at the three years of treatment and five years of follow up ahead of us.

What A Journey It Has Been

What a journey it has been, all it took was one day back in 2007 that has since changed the path in which my life would go. I did not know back then what to expect. I did not understand what the balance of a cancer diagnosis would be.

A Father’s Love

As a father, I have experienced the heartbreaking agony of losing my precious 13 year old daughter from brain cancer. When my daughter, Ashley, was first diagnosed with cancer, we were shocked, felt helpless and like most parents we trusted her doctors to cure her disease.

Braving the Storm

As I sit here looking out the window at the snow that is beginning to fall, I am transported back to January 2011 when I was 28 and my 35 year old husband was diagnosed with leukemia. I was thrown into a snow storm I was definitely not prepared for nor did I think I’d be in.