Living

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I riseMaya Angelou The plights we go through...

I’m probably not the only person who ever spaced out while driving. It happens when I’m intensely listening to the radio, or a podcast, or occasionally, though I don’t do...

When I retired from teaching in 2017, I had an exit plan. I recorded my students' grades, printed off a copy of my classroom's inventory, and left notes in my...

I grew up at a bay in Washington State. That’s probably why I find boating in Puget Sound so calming. It’s like I draw my peace from it. Out there...

The future is a wondrous place. Or so we’ve been told. The fact of the matter is that when you have cancer, the future isn’t quite as rosy a picture...

My middle child, my son, seemed to be the one around each time I had a fall. He had to rush some 90 miles when I landed in the hospital...

Life with blood cancer can vary from person to person. Symptoms, treatment, side effects, progression, remission, and more are unique to each situation. For some, symptoms may be disabling and...

All I can say is that it has been interesting to undergo chemotherapy for the first time for blood cancer. As you might imagine, I approached my first treatment with...

At the newspaper where I was a reporter, if you read a too-long story or were making fun of yourself for writing one, you would say that it contained everything...

I am a survivor of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. During chemotherapy, my life was “on hold" while I focused on treatment. What would I do next in this new world post-cancer? Get...

Part of having cancer is facing the inevitable question, “is it terminal?” In some cases, it’s pretty clear from the jump what the prognosis is, but in other cases (aka...

There’s a corkboard at the front of my desk. I see it when I sit down to write, but I seldom notice the things pinned to it. Today though, one...

I quietly turned 50 at the end of May this year. I’ve never been too much into celebrating my yearly milestones. I did have a nice 50th birthday because I...

It’s Blood Cancer Awareness Month again. And once again, I have mixed feelings about it. I am pretty aware of my own blood cancer, thank you very much. I think...

September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month! During this time there are many fundraisers, walks, and information given out about the cancers. The problem is unless you have one of these...

It’s my observation that the “chronic,” part of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is what trips people up. It’s probably why I’ve heard the question: “Aren’t you done with that yet?”...

A friend made a comment that shows some people have no idea. No idea what, you might wonder. No idea what blood cancer patients go through during and after stem...

You’re probably like me. You’re online a lot. You do lots of searches. And once you’ve done those searches, you start to get ads for the things you search for...

Watchful waiting is a form of active surveillance that can be used for people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) when there is no immediate threat to their health. Watchful waiting is...

A friend who has a friend facing a stem cell transplant thought, with good reason, that I could pass on some useful information. When she asked, I said I thought...