Survivorship Archives - Elephants and Tea

My Invisible Illness

by Kristen Stewart March 2, 2026

While it’s been 6 years since my emergency brain surgery and discovery of my rare brain tumor, whenever I unexpectedly hear the word cancer in the media or in a conversation nearby, I cringe. It’s a surreal reaction.

Uninvited

by Wendi Korth February 23, 2026

Dear Cancer, I never invited you in. You barged into my life unannounced, unwelcomed, and completely unraveled the world I had worked so hard to hold together.

A Shadow of My Shadow

by Annamaria Scaccia

Sept. 30, 2020. 11:30 a.m. “It’s cancer” Death, For the last five years, I have thought about nothing but death, death, dying, the act of dying

Growing Pains

by Kat Jackson February 2, 2026

I thank you yet despise you for the aftermath of hell you reign over my life. Down to fragments, I hardly recognize what used to even be my life before abolishing everything I once used to know about myself.

You Knew Me First

by Adrienne Holland Hubbard January 26, 2026

There’s so much to say, isn’t there? You knew me long before I knew you. An invisible string was always there, binding us to one another.

From Ghost to Girl

by Chelsey Gomez

Fight, flight, or freeze—they’re natural reactions to things that scare us. A tornado bearing down, a shadowy figure in the night, or, perhaps scariest of all, the thought of dying. For most people, death is just a passing thought, something far off in the future—until it’s not.

Dear Cancer, Enough is Enough

by Vikki Ramdass

If I were to write a letter to cancer, where would I start. Well guess what, I started. To Cancer, the big C word that causes the most amount of panic in a person.

Dear Cancer, I am a Survivor

by Jonell Deshotel January 21, 2026

You came into my life like a storm I never asked for. Uninvited, destructive, and determined to shake the very foundation of my world. You thought you could silence me, strip me of my identity, my confidence, my beauty.

Dear Leukemia

by Amelia Ruiz

Dear Cancer, If I could ask you one question, it would be a single word: why? Why did you storm into my life four years ago? Do you even know the darkness you brought? The way you made my heart tremble, my body ache, my mind scream for peace.

The Quiet Battle: Navigating Life After Cancer

by Selina Roxin Ponce January 12, 2026

“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.