Living

Once a caregiver, always a caregiver. Right? Now that we are blood cancer patients, we may or may not have someone looking after us – a spouse, child, friend, etc...

I marked my sixth year 'cancerversary’ last week and believe me, there was no party. Made it through the day so that was enough. A lot has happened since that...

Well, something quite monumental happened recently, in a positive way! I received my LAST chemo prescription for hopefully a REALLY long time! I was quite sad when I took, what...

Stress. Ugh. Just the word itself causes us to tense up a bit. It’s something that all of us dread and yet we still experience it on a regular basis...

It’s been a hard day. Honestly, it has been a hard week. My numbers are all looking pretty good, but my body somehow missed the memo. I feel poorly, and...

When living with cancer, whether active cancer or not, there are some instructions that we all can live by. At times they are not evident words of wisdom, as we’re...

A family is a family. Families live together, grow together, have fun together, and cry together. When there is no one else to depend on, family is there. Family is...

Time for a guessing game! Pick which one is true. You can pick more than one. One of the best days of my life was when: Guess what? They are...

Several years ago, Nora Ephron wrote a book called I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. That's a funny title, I thought. I read the...

Every morning, as soon as I wake up, I do a quick pain inventory. My feet? Yep, still hurt. How about my back, my neck, my forearm? Check, check, check...

Relationships are like gardens - they need to be cultivated. Chronic illness can affect even the strongest relationships. Cancer and its effects may push each partner to its breaking point...

Editor's note: This article was written in November 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Please remember to follow CDC and local guidelines regarding travel during the pandemic. So, it’s been over...

Within three years of daily oral chemotherapy, I was wearing wide-brimmed hats, long sleeves, and large-rimmed sunglasses. I was losing pigmentation, or so it seemed to me. I was turning...

Unless you have been there, I suspect it is impossible to understand the emotional release one experiences on your last day of chemo treatment. After all the tubes and bags...

Have you ever met someone for the first time, and when the introductions take place, they usually start off with a name and “How are you doing?” Normally we reply...

The long and winding six-year road living with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has had its share of twists and turns. Good thing I buckled up. My hematologist/oncologist, who is a...

My system for refilling pills isn’t much of a system at all: When a bottle is low, I remove it from the pill bag and place it on a windowsill...

Good nutrition can help cancer patients maintain strength, keep healthy body weight, and decrease side effects during and after treatment. Nutrition is a process when food is taken in and...

Welcome to the Myeloma Action Month Self Care Q&A! As part of this year's Myeloma Action Month, Myeloma.org challenged the community to "bolster your resilience with a new self-care activity...

Wait.. I know what you are going to say. Cancer?? Positives?? You must have smoked some bad rainbows there, you chipper idiot. Well, you might be right about the rainbow...