There is a room for waiting in every doctor's office. White walls. Beige chairs. Climate control that never quite matches the temperature of a human body. As if life itself is on hold and we are just buffering. There is a sign (and sometimes text messages and emails and calls). Arrive fifteen minutes early. As … Continue reading Exploring the Hidden Costs of Waiting for Medical Appointments
Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal perspective. Every person living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) has the right to describe their experience in whatever way feels authentic to them. My concern isn’t with the language people with MBC choose for themselves, it’s with those who haven’t lived this reality using words like “journey” … Continue reading MBC Is Not a Journey
If you’ve never lived with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), congratulations. Really. I hope you never earn membership in this club, but that also means you’re probably an MBC muggle (just a little more specific than a general cancer muggle). Now before you get offended, let me explain. The term “muggle,” borrowed from Harry … Continue reading Cancer Muggles
I remember thinking the infusion room would feel like a place where you simply received medicine. Clinical.Orderly.Temporary. Instead, it feels like crossing a border into another country—one with its own language, its own customs, its own understanding of time. The first morning I walked into an infusion room back in 2017, I thought I was … Continue reading Musings on the Infusion Room
DISCLAIMER/BACKGROUND: This post was inspired by someone in a support group who shared about her struggle with the focus on beauty for women with breast cancer of all stages and how dismissive it feels. We share the same perspective and the words below are my take on the subject and with permission. This post is … Continue reading “Pretty Girl Cancer”
People ask me sometimes why I stay so connected to the Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) Community; why I continue to do the work of advocacy amidst my own struggles. I never really know how to answer that question clearly because the answer feels stitched into me so tightly that it no longer feels … Continue reading Why I Continue to Advocate
People often ask what they should say to someone with cancer, especially since I've written quite a bit about what not to say. The ones who ask say they’re afraid they’ll say the wrong thing. Afraid they’ll make us cry. Afraid they’ll remind us of something we’re desperately trying to forget. The truth is almost … Continue reading Refuse to Disappear
There is something deeply unsettling about being sold "salvation" between commercials for pickup trucks and potato chips. Perhaps that is part of what disturbed me most during the Super Bowl pharmaceutical advertisement that left so many Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) patients recoiling in horror and extreme discomfort (and I've still not forgotten or … Continue reading The Emotional Manipulation in Pharmaceutical Advertising
One of the often hidden burdens of living with terminal cancer is that the decisions never stop. People imagine the hard part is getting the diagnosis or hearing the word progression or running out of treatment options. And yes, those moments are devastating. But there is another kind of burden that receives far less attention: … Continue reading Facing Denials and Decisions with Incomplete Information
Nine (9) years is a strange country to inhabit when you were once told you might only have months. Time changes shape when it is measured not in vacations or promotions or retirement plans, but in scan dates, infusion schedules, pathology reports, and the quiet calculations you do before every holiday, every birthday, every milestone, … Continue reading Nine Year Metaversary
No Half Measures 