Health | Mesothelioma | Cancer

I’m feeling very grateful tonight. Grateful that I am part of the cancer community. I am grateful for those of you I’ve met and corresponded with and talked to on the phone. Those I’ve met in person in my community. Just since publishing my web site I’ve communicated with over 220 appendiceal cancer patients. I [...]

I am at a kind of new crossroads lately. And I like it. I’m approaching 50 years old. I’m also approaching an empty nest, which I will celebrate as it will mean I’ve lived long enough to complete my greatest and most rewarding goal to date, raising my kids to adulthood.

Being a cancer patient and assuming that identity impacts your thinking in all ways. I’d always been somewhat of a control freak, and I suddenly realized my sense of being control was and always had been an illusion. All of my assumptions about my future had been based on the fact that I would indeed [...]

Maybe this is a bit of a confession in regards to my failings or weaknesses, but here goes. I am a tough women. I have a very high pain threshold. I asked for my morphine PCA to be discontinued within 24 hours of my big surgery as I didn’t need narcotics (I did receive Toradol, [...]

I had an interesting discussion with my husband tonight. A co-worker our age that we both liked and respected passed away a few days ago. When I heard he had a terminal diagnosis, I right away assumed he had cancer. He didn’t. He had something similar to mad cow disease, but an inherited prion disease. [...]

I get frustrated sometimes at how the idea of living “one day at a time” is glamorized. Appreciating what each new day brings and enjoying the good things in your life every day is something many are better at after a cancer diagnosis, but that’s not the same as living “one day at a time”. [...]