Living

When cancer comes calling, it doesn’t exactly leave much time for packing before it rips you out of your normal life and deposits you onto the Poseidon Adventure of medical...

I’ve been on two different steroids for over 8 years. I’ve been taking a baby aspirin every day for over 8 years. Even when I’ve changed my main myeloma drug...

I remember my dad saying to me when I was a little girl, "I think you have your giggle box turned over!" He would often add, "That's okay. I'd rather...

It’s been really rough recently. My energy levels have been declining. I tried to ignore it, to not focus on it, to hope that it was just because I was doing...

For many, managing blood cancer may be the most hectic experience of our lives. What I mean is that there are many layers of our daily lives that most people...

In between chemotherapy sessions, while recovering at home, I could tell when my red blood cell count was so low that I would need a transfusion, or maybe even a...

Last week was a huge milestone for me personally; I was declared ‘cured’ from my lymphoma, after 3 years of treatments and ultimately, the successful treatment in a clinical trial...

It dawned on me after attending a very lively, but gloomy conference that we all have an impending cloud following us. Though I’m sure many of us know, there are...

Often these days, I find myself humming a song of my youth aptly titled “Short People.” In fact, once I start humming, it's hard to get the song out of...

BC. Bad Choice. Be Cautious. Bring Cookies. Blood Cancer. Of course, many of us hear BC and we instantly think about that last one. But for people we interact with...

Letting go of fear is essential to well-being. After a cancer diagnosis, it can feel like it is always looming around every corner. It's hard not to become entrenched in...

I was born in the 50s; came of age in the 60s; went to college and married in the 70s; raised my kids in the 80s; watched them graduate high...

It’s been a funny few weeks in terms of me and how I’ve been feeling with my internal chatter. My blood counts are all fine and my energy levels actually seem...

As a cancer survivor, you can imagine that we can become tired of physician appointments, tests, and treatments. However, we need to take action to maintain our health. Your oncologist...

Once, when I was a boy, I found a little green caterpillar. His many tiny feet tickled as he crawled up my finger and down to my palm. It was...

It wasn’t me who thought of this clever double meaning to a much-beloved word in cancer circles. Instead, it was my high school English teacher, Mrs. Bruns. She has been...

A few days ago I had my final check-up, the one before the long waiting period to be declared “cured,” and it occurred to me that we’ve never discussed exactly...

We’re taking isolation to the next level. I promised myself I wouldn’t write about Covid more than I had to. As a journalist, I’m spending the next few weeks 24/7...

It was not until a recent family brunch at our home that I began to realize the critical role that my husband played in my recovery from cancer. Today, I...

I feel exceptionally lucky! I know that’s probably a rather odd thing for someone to say that has recently been diagnosed with not one… but two cancers… well technically three if...