The Elephant in the Room is Cancer. Tea is the Relief Conversation Provides.

Survivorship

The stories and experiences are written by people after cancer treatments. These stories are written for those learning how to get back to work, college or just trying to be themselves again. Just getting past treatments isn’t enough, it is surviving and thriving that is key to being you again.

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My AYA Experience

by Cindy Bernard August 23, 2023

Time. The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future is regarded as a whole. The issue with time is that it never stops. It keeps going. On December 21, 2021, I received life-changing news. At 1:32 PM, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and time moved even faster. I was on the brink of being a certified teacher at 29, but instead, I had to fight for my life.

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The Ancient Paths

by Emily Kruse August 21, 2023

I received my diagnosis – salivary gland cancer, a type so rare that it doesn’t have a real name – just two weeks after I moved across the country to start a full-time graduate program. In movies or shows, when someone receives a cancer diagnosis, they’re in the doctor’s office, holding hands with a loved one, sitting across the desk from the physician with scan results in the background. When I received my diagnosis, I was walking home from picking up Korean takeout.

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Pierced by the Light

by Sarah Ammerman August 17, 2023

As somewhat of a cancer pro, I feel like I should be able to articulate the loneliness and isolation of the cancer experience pretty easily. I mean, I’ve done this dance more than once, for Pete’s sake!

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Silence

by Julia Laursen August 16, 2023

Cancer is full of silence, even before diagnosis. The healthy cells that should be loud and destroy cancer cells go silent, allowing cancer to slowly and quietly ravage the bodies. Silently becoming deadly.

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What Happens After the Messy Middle?

by Sabrina Skiles August 10, 2023

The messy middle is what I’ve called the post diagnosis and active treatment era of living with cancer. But survivorship? Being a survivor? Wow, even writing that still seems like a foreign word to me.

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The Hardest Part

by Janessa Ventura-Alvarenga August 9, 2023

I would often get the question: “What was the hardest part about having cancer?” And I never really knew how to answer that. Not because I didn’t have an answer in mind, but because I didn’t think it was the answer people were expecting of me.

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Isolated and Lonely, But Not Alone

by Kimberly Poole August 7, 2023

Being the extroverted introvert that I am when I was diagnosed with cancer April 2021, I didn’t realize exactly how isolating being diagnosed during a Worldwide Pandemic would be.

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We Understand Each Other

by Logan Steenbergen August 3, 2023

There are times in each of our lives that we feel isolated from the people around us. We feel left out, struggle making friends, finding our purpose, but that’s life, right?

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On an Island Far Away From Home

by Mandy Brixey July 31, 2023

I don’t think I can think of anything more isolating than having cancer and ongoing treatment in a foreign land away from home, friends, and family.

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Diagnosis

by Salma Siddiqui July 27, 2023

Everyone’s journey with cancer is different. And yet, everyone’s begins the same. One minute, you’re a person. The next, you’re a patient. A cancer patient. 

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