Do You Have a Survivorship Care Plan?
Fortunately, the number of cancer survivors are increasing. However, cancer treatments are not without consequence and survivors must deal with …
Living
When Someone Says the Wrong Thing
It seems like every cancer patient I know can tell the same story. Someone hears that the patient has cancer, …
Babies… Will They Ever Be Mine?
This is a very emotional subject for me. I can’t think about it too much or I get too upset. …
Teaching Hospitals: The Good and the Bad
The benefit of being at a teaching hospital is that you get access to a wealth of knowledge and many …
Life After Cancer: The Emotional Fall Out
When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my self-esteem was not in great condition. I remember specifically thinking to myself …
Never the Simple Way
It would appear as time goes on that I rarely do things the simple or ‘normal’ way. I don’t even …
Yoga… And Then Some
To categorize this next blog, it’d be under the “health & wellness category” (stay with me) and I give …
An Unexpected Hospitalization
After ten months of a “watch and wait” approach for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, I was faced with enlarging …
Reaching Equilibrium with Your Cancer
Like most of us, the date I was diagnosed with cancer is etched in my memory. May 2, 2011. In …
Telling the Children Requires a Certain State of Mind
A brochure called “What Do I Tell the Children?” caught my eye at Dana-Farber’s Blum Patient and Family Resource Center …
MGUS and the Multiple Myeloma Connection
Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is a medical condition characterized by increased levels of M protein in the …
Dating After Cancer
I think we can all agree that dating can be tough, but dating after cancer is on a completely different …
Fertility, Fatigue, and Figuring Out the Right Treatment Regimen
After graduating from Edinburgh and leaving consultant number 1 behind (very happily!), I came under the care of consultant number …
Deciding if a Support Group is Right for You
Cancer patients often experience significant distress and can have a reduced quality of life. Cancer support groups involve the provision …
After Transplant, Missing, Then Savoring, Strawberries
Strawberry season in Massachusetts – late June to early July – makes me think of the times after transplant when …
Happiness…That Fickle Thing of Mine
Happiness. That thing that we crave and look for. It’s there and then in a heartbeat, it’s gone. I often …
Differences in Blood Cancer Experience
In our 2018 Blood Cancer In America survey, over 2,500 people impacted by blood cancer shared their experiences about diagnosis, …
Managing My Compromised Immune System
Cancer patients may be susceptible to infections from their disease and from the treatment, which can destroy white blood …
Saying No to a Clinical Trial
The first week was spent in hospital – I don’t remember all that much. I remember my drip who I …
Surviving Survivorship
Everything about cancer sucks, we all know that. I wasn’t unusually surprised by how hard cancer treatment was, but I …