Survivor

Dear Cancer, You Are Just a Chapter

You tried it. You came in loud, messy, and ruthless—thinking you could scare me into silence, into surrender. You thought the diagnosis was the end of the story. Plot twist: I’m still here.

Dear Cancer, Stay Away

Addressing you with an endearing title like “dear” seems inappropriate, and you also get the lowercase “c” most deservingly earned. Let’s not beat around the bush: I hate you.

The Quiet Battle: Navigating Life After Cancer

“The end of treatment isn’t the end of cancer—it’s the beginning of everything no one warned you about.” I used to think survivorship was the finish line. That once treatment ended, I’d be “back to normal.” I imagined life picking up right where I left it.

The Second Battle: Rebuilding After Cancer

We spend more than a year—sometimes even longer—fighting every day for our lives through cancer. Then, in remission, our bodies remain on high alert, bracing for the next blow.

The Unspoken Guilt of Living

Twice.

I’ve survived cancer twice.

It’s a statement that still feels unreal—unreal and grotesque.

Two Hospital Rooms

One welcomes a baby,
filled with soft cries and loud joy.
The other says goodbye to her breasts,
stitched in silence, wrapped in loss.

Remodeling My Emotional Kitchen: Healing Through Cancer

Cancer changed my relationships with others by forcing me to face and process my trauma. Eve Ensler, the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and a cancer survivor herself, reported that she survived cancer by confronting her trauma, along with making lifestyle changes and using traditional Western medicine.

Everything Happens for a Reason…Or Does It?

I liken this phrase to “God gives you what you can handle”. The first time I heard it was after my grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer and my grandmother informed our minister and the congregation about his condition.

Dancing Through the Rain with Cancer

Words painted on the wall of my first infusion center. I never imagined how much power and importance these words would have in my life that first day I sat in an infusion chair for my eight-hour long infusion of alpha interferon, intron A.

The Adulting You Can’t See

There always seems to be a buzzword for a time period in one’s life that sticks. The current word is “adulting”. It’s the word that doesn’t need explaining and represents more than the word itself.