There are countless things to say about going through cancer treatment and testing, but in my experience, it was the challenges of what comes next that took me by surprise.
Cancer Survivorship
Cat is a graduate student, a dog owner, an academic fraternity member and much more. Nothing can slow her down – not even a cancer diagnosis.
A solid ten years of dreaming and planning finally came to fruition only to go up in flames thanks to a 30-minute doctor appointment on the Upper West Side. The culprit? Cancer.
I have been battling cancer successfully for 11 years. Looking back at my first diagnosis — stage 2 breast cancer, at age 42 — I downplay it now, because what happened next was so tragic.
Regardless of how or when you choose to share your experience, remember that your voice could make a difference in someone’s life. All I can hope is that my words might reach another survivor and remind them that they are not alone.
What if a simple daily practice of clearing your mind and breathing slowly could help you feel better, sleep better, reduce pain and anxiety and reduce your risk of cancer recurrence?
Everybody has bad days, but nobody tells you how to handle them. The times where you feel hopeless, anxious or paranoid. When you feel angry that cancer will always be a part of your life, scared that it may come back or frustrated that side effects from treatment might never go away.
I hope you will take a moment to write down what you want your 2017 to be. And whether you are in the middle of treatment, completing treatment, or newly diagnosed, trust that you will get to a place where you can say, “I'm happy, and I am alive.”
With only a few days until Christmas, I’m doing everything I can to channel that strength and use it to begin 2017 on a grateful and optimistic note.
There are certain times of year when my cancer story makes me feel incredibly isolated. There’s the time surrounding April 14, the day I was diagnosed, July 29, the day I was deemed “in remission” and, the one I’ve experienced most recently, the month of October.
FOMO, the abbreviated slang meaning “fear of missing out,” is a huge mental and emotional side effect of being a young adult cancer survivor and represents just a sliver of the unique challenges we have to face during and well after the fight of our lives.
Most cancer survivors will tell you they have two extremely vivid memories: the moment they received their diagnosis and the moment they finally finished treatment. However, in between, and for people who may never finish treatment, there are many types of victories worth celebrating.