After Cancer You 2.0

It’s not always straightforward. It doesn’t “end after treatment ends.” Of course, treatment doesn’t always end. Even when it does, the wonder at whether treatment will be needed again flickers continuously on and off in my brain. On. Off. On.

As an active young mom, writer, contemplative, and AYA cancer survivor, I think a lot.

How the Berating Surgeon Lost Her Power Over Me

Before the vaccine was available to the layperson, when the CDC was recommending double masking in public, in January of 2021, I attended my diagnostic breast biopsy alone. Double masked and still carrying the weight of my postpartum anxiety that caused a debilitating fear of germs, I entered the small, stuffy waiting room, forced to sit very close to my nervous comrades.

Dear Cancer, You Try to Take Away

Dear Cancer,

I have honestly feared you for as long as I can remember. A feeling of you meeting me along the way was consistently looming over me. So much so, that I can recall telling friends and family that I felt you would come for me, and I wondered if you already had.

Fear as a Moat, God as My Fortress

This week, on July 9th, I’ll go for my 16th and final round of intravenous chemotherapy. I’m praying to the God I believe hears us, and asking that this is the last one I ever have to do intravenously, but also hopefully, at all.