These numbers are scarier every time I read them and they are incomplete. We know a lot about the incidents of diagnosed breast cancer, but not so much about how many have an early stage diagnosis and then progress to Stage IV. We can extrapolate knowing how many are diagnosed and how many die since … Continue reading BCAM 2021; Day #1
Speaking our Truth
Truth is a big deal to me. From a personality and training perspective, I’m wired to look for and speak the truth. What I often forget to do is package the truth. But what other people don’t often understand is that I really do appreciate when others speak their truth, give their perspective, even if … Continue reading Speaking our Truth
Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) 2021
October of 2021 is the fifth (5th) Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) since my Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis in 2017 and that brings me ever closer to the milestone of living five (5) years with MBC. And yet, sometimes I think that looking for the milestones or putting any stock in reaching/achieving … Continue reading Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) 2021
When pain becomes chronic …
Pain. It's such a short word that encompasses so many things. Before Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), I'd experienced some amount of pain. I got into a few car accidents. Dislocated a wrist. I'd had braces, twice, along with some dental surgery. When no longer very young, I had two c-sections and a 26 … Continue reading When pain becomes chronic …
To Pink or Not to Pink, that is the question
Recently, in a metastatic breast cancer support group, a member asked that we discuss how each of us were reacting to the annual pink saturation that is coming up in October. The member who brought up the issue expressed some struggles with the fact that so many of the fundraisers involve bras or other sexualized … Continue reading To Pink or Not to Pink, that is the question
To Boost or Not To Boost, that is the question …
There is so much information in the news, in print, discussed online and seemingly everywhere else about the COVID vaccines, how many doses and when and now the possibility of a booster. The needle seems to move daily on what we know and what we don't know since much of the monitoring of the efficacy … Continue reading To Boost or Not To Boost, that is the question …
ReBlog: Weekly Round-Up from Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer
T for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me …Weekly Round-Up
9/11/2001, 20th anniversary
20 years ago today was an overwhelmingly confusing day. I remember so vividly being on the phone at work, I was a paralegal in a law office in the World Trade Center in Virginia, and a family member called a coworker and told us to turn on the news. We all gathered around and watched … Continue reading 9/11/2001, 20th anniversary
Kids missing out?
I was listening to the radio the other day as I was driving away from dropping off my first grader (he’s 6) and my third grader (he’s 8) and there was a news report about how parents believe kiddos are missing out on some essential experiences at school in light of the pandemic and safety … Continue reading Kids missing out?
Extravasation
Ok, the first time I heard this word, I confess that I was confused. Extra, what? And then I learned more and I knew that I needed to share. The formal definition of "Extravasation" from the National Institute of Cancer is: "The leakage of blood, lymph, or other fluid, such as an anticancer drug, from … Continue reading Extravasation
No Half Measures 