Living

The Holidays with cancer. Of course, that’s a phrase no one wants to hear. Or say. Or even read, but for those of us here, it’s probably a reality. Blood...

His name is Vegas, which is appropriate. I gambled on him and lost - if you choose to look at it that way. My heart placed a bet that, after...

People are often surprised when I mention that I am a cancer patient. People say, “You don’t look like a cancer patient.” But what does that mean? I’m not too...

When you are 12 years out – meaning 12 years from the date of your stem cell transplant – you’re not going to have the same checkup anxiety as when...

When I went to elementary school I was not a big fan of Santa Claus. My neighborhood was diverse. We had social housing, low-income housing, and some lovely and pricey...

Last week, I had several medical appointments, two of which were with practitioners I had never seen before. To be clear, neither of them had anything to do with blood...

My oncologist works in a large research hospital that is attached to a medical school. When I go to an appointment with him to check on my follicular lymphoma, there...

When I think of my difficult cancer journey, a Bible verse from Hebrews 12:1 comes to mind. Keep running the race set before you with endurance. I was a runner...

It's bad enough coping with blood cancer, as the number of decisions are endless, and depending on the disease, the options are a lot to absorb. But what happens when...

Diet. If there is one thing that you can pretty much be assured of when you get cancer, it’s that at some point, someone is going to tell you about...

When you are fresh out of transplant, the fear of relapse can storm into your mind with a shout. “I’M RELAPSING!” you might think when feeling tired or out of...

Exercising was like eating vegetables. I knew it was good for me, but I couldn’t seem to keep at it. Casually walking for fun was great, but walking regularly was...

Having cancer and living during the COVID-19 pandemic has been quite a roller coaster. Cancer already makes you immunocompromised and then there was COVID to worry about. In my case...

Well, the last few weeks have been pretty horrific really. The dog's owner and I had a major blow out which wasn’t even an argument it just all exploded over a...

"I'm living the dream!" my friend Julia would say when asked how she was. I met Julia at church when she and her husband Bob started attending with his mother. Julia...

A person you know and maybe even love has received the devastating news that she has blood cancer. In my case, it’s chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) or, the lingering kind...

A cancer diagnosis can overwhelm all aspects of your life. We experience different stages of grieving in our attempt to return to normalcy. One area of concern that might need...

I used to tell my third-grade students, "Thanksgiving is not about eating turkey and pumpkin pie. The purpose of Thanksgiving is to give thanks." We Americans think we know everything...

In case you missed it, check out Part 1 of this series! It had been five years of chronic myeloid leukemia. I started one TKI oral chemotherapy, then a chemo...

In Part 1, I wrote about how playing in a symphonic band presented challenges for me to overcome in the wake of my chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). In overcoming those...