Dear Cancer
Each year we ask the AYA cancer community to submit letters to cancer to express their feelings about how cancer has changed their lives. People explore an array of emotions in these letters, including anger, sadness, gratitude, and hope.
Want to submit an article or write your own letter to cancer? Click Here.
Forever Grateful
I would assume you have been hanging around in my life for a lot longer than most would anticipate. At least six… maybe seven years. You thought you were a being a sneaky little bastard, didn’t you?
Read More...Perspective Is Everything
You taught me the true meaning of perspective. Perspective is everything. You never know what someone else is going through. Before judging a situation or a person, stop and take a second to appreciate what you have and to do your best to understand where the person is coming from, what may be going on in their lives.
Read More...Friends And The Archenemy
I met you for the first me when I was seventeen, second semester senior in high school and months away from graduating. I had heard whispers about you before; you had met a few of my family members.
Read More...Getting Through the Darkest Days
Dear Cancer, It was right between chemo number five and six. Against everything that you read on the Internet I was going home to visit my dad. This meant one week of airplanes and hospitals, the two places filled with the most germs. As I prepared myself to go home, I packed my steroid pills, […]
Read More...Because Of You, I Know The Best Way To Live
Well, 2007 was going to be a positive, exciting year, at least until you got involved. My oldest son Michael was in his last semester at Regis University. I was so proud of him, and I was looking forward to watching him walk into the next chapter of his world.
Read More...Never Give Up
So much to say about ‘being touched by cancer…’ My letter covers my own cancer journey and that of my son. We were both young adults with cancer…I survived. He didn’t. Here is our story.
Read More...I So Want To Be Around To Wish You A Warm, “Goodbye.”
Shortly before you and I became closely acquainted, I was sixty years old, bouncing back from congestive heart failure, and at a crossroads in my life. I knew I could not continue working for the rest of my life and I wondered what I was going to do after I retired in five, or six more years.
Read More...Without The Bad, How Can There Be Good?
How do I tell someone new that I meet that I’ve been through cancer? Should I? Will it come up naturally? This is one of the ways my battle with cancer plagues me on a daily basis.
Read More...You Give Strangers a Reason to be Friends
Dear Cancer, Sometimes I imagine you as an animated character, like the chef in the Little Mermaid, the one that chases Sebastian the crab everywhere, wanting to boil him alive. You’re unrelenting, like that chef, and you keep coming and coming. It’s not fair. And what’s more, you keep wanting to boil CHILDREN, not crabs. […]
Read More...A Goodbye Letter to my Breasts
I guess I owe you an apology. I’m sorry it took me so damn long to love you for what you were.Remember when I was little, and I ran around with balled up napkins and water balloons under my shirt?
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