January, 18th 2025: Join us for food, drinks, dancing, and author sharing — all to support our mission. Learn more here!
Survivorship
9th Life
2 years 4 walls and it’s all that I know, Never thought, I’d find myself here living back home, Feels like I’m losing myself hearing get well soons
Read More...Lifelines Through a Keyboard
Shock permeated my breast cancer diagnosis. I was too young and healthy for this disease, or so I thought. I was fooled by the longevity that ran in my family. Now chemotherapy ran through my veins, and radiation also took its toll on my body.
Read More...the timeless passages of my mind and soul
Every now and then I think about shaving my head again and
how maybe if I shave my head again,
flowers will start to grow out of my eyes, blinding me with the beauty
Still Here: The Weight and Wonder of Life After Cancer
I used to think survivorship meant the hard part was over. That once the chemotherapy ended and the surgeries were done, I’d step into something brighter. Something easier. I thought I’d wake up one day and feel like myself again.
Read More...Becoming More Than Okay
“No one will ever understand.” “Just pretend to fit in.” “Why can’t I just be normal?” And more hyperbolic, rhetorical questions to harass myself with over the years.
Read More...The Give and Take of Cancer
I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 39 – a time in my life when everything finally felt steady. Life had a rhythm, a sense of peace I had worked so hard to build. I had a stable job I genuinely enjoyed, daily routines that grounded me, and a grown, independent daughter who had become her own beautiful person.
Read More...Thick is Beautiful
Thicker skin doesn’t suggest overweight, A bigger size doesn’t mean too big, The size of a waist doesn’t define beauty, Hair doesn’t define me though history is attached to it, Cancer made me believe that I had lost myself due to losing my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes
Read More...Why Wouldn’t Cancer Radicalize You?
Walkers, wheelchairs, canes. Tattoos, skin grafts, port scars. Those just-growing-in chemo bobs and badass wigs. Jackets, handheld fans, water bottles.
Read More...The Emotions of Cancer
Let’s begin by listing the emotions that I have experienced since diagnosis. Before diagnosis, I was a quiet girl, never said much, kept to myself. Upon diagnosis, I became scared, fearful and disenchanted with life and everyone around me.
Read More...Rebuilding Myself, Rebuilding Others
There’s a line by Taylor Swift that has stuck with me: “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.” For me, that saddest story began in March of 2021, when a sudden pain in my right breast sent me to the doctor. I was 39, busy with work and raising two young girls, and my OBGYN thought it would be nothing more than a cyst.
Read More...