Survivorship
The stories and experiences are written by people after cancer treatments. These stories are written for those learning how to get back to work, college or just trying to be themselves again. Just getting past treatments isn’t enough, it is surviving and thriving that is key to being you again.
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I Am the (Cancer-y) Lorax. I Speak for the (Cannabis) Trees.
In a world where I’ve dedicated my life to caring for others, it took a cancer diagnosis to realize that sometimes I needed to be taken care of. Who would have thought? As an INFJ-T Myers Briggs personality type, the turbulent “T” has only intensified post-cancer.
Read More...How to Support Friends Through Survivor’s Guilt
I think it is important to support cancer patients who are going through their cancer journey. There are many cancer survivors who are struggling with survivor’s guilt and have lost someone who has been through cancer.
Read More...I Found My Inner Voice Again
Do you occasionally look in the mirror and say to yourself, “I love you?” Honestly, I still find it difficult to say those three words to myself today. Five years ago, before I developed breast cancer, I would occasionally stop restlessly in front of the mirror.
Read More...Deciduous: A Poem for Processing Chemo Hair Loss
This year, I get to be deciduous.
Drop my cells to the floor, prep the soil for this post-traumatic growth that I’m sowing.
Read More...My Path to “Re–”
It has been nearly two years since diagnosis, and I feel so far from rediscovering myself.
Reclaiming my body.
Resuming my life.
Recapturing lost time.
Or repairing broken relationships.
Read More...After Cancer You 2.0
It’s not always straightforward. It doesn’t “end after treatment ends.” Of course, treatment doesn’t always end. Even when it does, the wonder at whether treatment will be needed again flickers continuously on and off in my brain. On. Off. On.
As an active young mom, writer, contemplative, and AYA cancer survivor, I think a lot.
Read More...Cancer Free!?
Is it possible to ever be free of cancer? The mutated cells can be erradicated, health can return, life can move forward, but the grip cancer holds in my mind will remain. The fear that it could come back. That I must be on my guard, on the lookout for signs.
Read More...Bring It On, Boys
I found out I had cancer on a Thursday. Approximately 26 hours later, I was single.
Not only did he end things the day after my diagnosis, he removed me from his life via social media while I was still hospitalized after my surgery two weeks later. I had just received a “get well soon” card the day before I went under the knife and both he and his mother checked on me following surgery, so shock did not begin to describe what I felt.
Read More...Inevitable Change
Change.
Auburn leaves fall to the ground.
Magenta skies fade to black.
A lotus thrives in muddy water.
A caterpillar transitions.
Finding and Losing Myself
In 2012 I was invited to a celebration for cancer survivors at which I spoke about finding my sense of self again after cancer. I still have a printed photograph from the event. On that glossy paper I was captured wearing a sleeveless white dress with a red sash. I looked healthy, and I was smiling. I was 22 years old.
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