January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!
Survivor
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.
Read More...Expected Losses, Unexpected Gains
I don’t like surprises. As a child, I was told that when I received a gift I didn’t like, I had to swallow my disappointment and pretend that I liked the gift. I found this immensely difficult to do, and would often say “thank you, I love it,” with a grimace and tears threatening to spill over the edges of my eyelids.
Read More...The Mission Behind My Journey
Life often throws unforeseen challenges our way. As the saying goes, “Life be lifing.” For me, that challenge came in the form of a peritoneal mesothelioma diagnosis. This rare and aggressive cancer, usually associated with asbestos exposure, dramatically changed my life when I was just 21.
Read More...Alive and Scarred
Scars – by definition, are “marks left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed. A lasting effect of grief, fear, or other emotion left on a person’s character by a traumatic experience. A mark left on something following damage of some kind.”
Read More...“I Won’t Let This Define Me.”
I remember very clearly driving home from my second-to-last chemo. My brother was driving us to his house, which he was trying to sell. He had his own way of being supportive during my treatment, which included occasionally being my support person during chemo.
Read More...Not So Great Expectations
I’ve had many expectations for what I thought my life would become. I expected to get through school with good grades in a subject that would be useful to me in my future career.
Read More...I Need You to Stay
On May 2nd, 2017, one week before my total thyroidectomy and the official start of my cancer treatment, I laid on my kitchen floor crying. I remember every single detail. How hard and cold the floor felt, the tears that pooled near my face, and the biggest thing: The sound of my now ex-boyfriend’s boots walking out the back door and his car starting.
Read More...Cancer and the Definition of Health
Are we ever truly healthy after a cancer diagnosis or treatment, especially as young adults? Can we take this current definition of health and use it to be “healthy” as a cancer patient’s, survivors, thrivers, warriors? Can we use a disease state to classify a new health term?
Read More...The Second Wind: Surviving Cancer
When I think of the word “survivor”, it doesn’t feel like it applies to me. Although I’ve been in remission for nearly three months, it’s still like, holy shit, I had cancer.
Read More...Welcome to Elephants and Tea: A Letter from a Mother
IMAGINE you are told your child has cancer. They survive. And then they get diagnosed a second time. And they survive.
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