This post is a follow up to the first part, which were all the things I recommend doing when there isn't a specific challenge with your health care team. You can access the first part here. I want to reiterate that many of the solutions I've found are available to me because I'm a cis-gendered … Continue reading Managing Healthcare Challenges, Part II
Category: Advocacy
Managing Healthcare Challenges, Part I
If you've followed me on this blog or social media for any length of time, you've likely been exposed to some of the frustrations I've experienced when accessing the United States healthcare system as a terminal cancer patient. Prior to my diagnosis of Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) in 2017, I'd rarely accessed the … Continue reading Managing Healthcare Challenges, Part I
It’s Pride month …
and living here in Florida means this month is especially poignant. I recently wrote this article for AdvancedBreastCancer.net about what being an ally to those in the LGBTQIA+ community looks like from a Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) perspective. Here's the bottom line for me .... we are all different human beings and deserve … Continue reading It’s Pride month …
Prior Authorizations
For anyone who hasn't had to deal with lots of medications and appointments and prior authorizations, please take a moment to be super grateful for this. For those of us who have an ongoing illness (chronic or terminal), I suspect that you might be shuddering or feeling the hairs raise on the back of your … Continue reading Prior Authorizations
Recently, on Twitter …
I should probably go back and count up how many posts I've written that have to do with something I've read or experienced on Twitter. I suspect it's quite a few! While Twitter has changed an awful lot in recent months, it is still a place where I've connected with a lot of doctors and … Continue reading Recently, on Twitter …
AACR Conference 2023
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual conference is in my back yard this year at the the Orange County Convention Center. It started last week, has continued over the weekend and will conclude Wednesday morning. The website for this meeting is extremely robust and you can view all of that here. While I'm … Continue reading AACR Conference 2023
Advocacy; Finding Purpose in Adversity
I hope that some of you have had the opportunity to listen to the OurMBCLife podcast episode that dropped last week with the same title as this post. If not, you can access the episode I had the pleasure of producing here. I'm so thankful to the amazing team at OurMBCLife who allowed me to … Continue reading Advocacy; Finding Purpose in Adversity
Family planning
There was a discussion recently in one of the online support groups where I spend lots of time these days about family planning after discovery of a germline mutation (a/k/a hereditary predisposition for cancer) that got me thinking. As many of you are aware, I discovered in 2017 that I carry the ATM germline/genetic mutation, … Continue reading Family planning
Language, Part II
If you haven't already read the first part of this topic, Language, Part I, you should go read that first. It gives the context for this post and some necessary background. In that first post, I talked about the first of two scenarios where the language utilized in responses to a vulnerable post was (or … Continue reading Language, Part II
Language, Part I
Anyone who has met me knows that I'm often painfully precise. My husband often comments how this tendency has shown up in our marriage and our parenting and now my kids often hold our feet to the fire on the words that come out of our mouths. My parents got me a shirt for my … Continue reading Language, Part I
No Half Measures 