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My Experience

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The Five Tiers of Hope

One of the quick lessons that you learn when you're diagnosed with cancer is just how important it is to hold hope as you navigate the gauntlet of tests, scans, and treatments. For those living with cancer, hope is a concept that can change rapidly and unexpectedly. When cancer becomes metastatic, hope looks a lot different than it does with less advanced cancers.
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It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint

I'm marching toward the last of my planned chemotherapy treatments, carefully counting the days until I no longer feel like trash due to the wonderful, awful drugs being pumped into my veins every two weeks. It's hard to believe that, in eight months minus one day, I'll have been diagnosed, had surgery, and completed my planned treatments.
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Lessons from Cancerland

When I was attending the Gathering of Wolves, I really wanted to learn more about what people experience so that I can include some of the thinking in my advocacy work, which is quickly becoming more than supporting and engaging with people on social media. For this piece, I've also drawn from conversations I've had with people in support groups and on social media. I'm not going to attribute the lessons to specific people out of privacy and respect, but I do think a lot of these are valuable to share.
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Meat Sleeve Betrayal

I'll let you in on a secret that nobody tells you when you're diagnosed with cancer: you feel like you lose your body autonomy. If you want to be treated, anyways. That's not to say there's no choice in the matter. You can proceed with treatment, which means consenting to an array of testing, needles, surgeries, and drugs being thrown at you. Alternately, you can do nothing and allow your body to be overrun with disease.
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Let’s get heavy: What’s the prognosis?

I'm asked often if I know whether treatment is working. With so many appointments and professionals involved, you'd think that it would be straightforward enough to know whether chemotherapy is having a positive effect. But cancer treatment, like the disease itself, is complex and—at times—unpredictable. Sure, there are statistics (which are scary as hell) and likelihoods that help inform outcomes, but the efficacy on a case-by-case basis is variable and only so predictable.
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What Does Chemotherapy Feel Like? Pt. 2

Many of the folks in the cancer community have told me that the third time is when you find out how chemotherapy will really go. The reason being that the drugs build up over time. Anyone who takes long-term prescriptions will be able to relate. You take your drugs daily and build a maintenance level—an amount of the drug persists in your system—in order to receive the benefits.
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An Unfiltered View

Over the last three and a half months, I've reflected regularly on the impact that storytelling has had on my experience with cancer. Today I want to touch on some of the more difficult topics.
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What Does Chemotherapy Feel Like? Pt. 1

Receiving chemotherapy for the first time is exhausting. The buildup to the day, with the associated tests, appointments, and procedures, leaves treatment day as the final boss in a weeklong gauntlet of physical and mental torment.