Category Archives: Life After Cancer

hopeless/heroic

Tonight, I would rather be sprawled out on the couch, listening to the Phillies game, eating mango sorbet and spacing out.  It has been, to be blunt, kind of a shit week.  Not in any dramatic, existential way, not in … Continue reading

Posted in Life After Cancer, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

JUBILATION

It may be that my current state of health and wellness – which I feel more acutely and intensely each time I go for a long bike ride (which I did yesterday) or push through  a run when I am … Continue reading

Posted in cycling, Life After Cancer, running | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

twice if you’re lucky

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, off I go to the Perleman Center for Advanced Medicine to start my day with a pelvic exam and a CA125.  Ah, the joys of life as a stage III ovarian cancer survivor.  It’s four … Continue reading

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chocolate shakes and ’80’s pop

A wise person once said, “You don’t have to write a thousand words every time you sit down to do a post.”  The same wise person has also said, “One of your great gifts as a writer is how direct … Continue reading

Posted in Infertility, Life After Cancer, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

next time, a lollipop

“You’ve been through a lot.” Simple words, uttered by an attending internist I met for the first time this morning, but it was exactly the straight-forward recognition that I look for from people – especially doctors – when they first … Continue reading

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existential crisis

“What, exactly, am I doing?” In recent weeks, this question has been echoing through my mind.  A few possible explanations for this existential crisis:  summertime.  Lately, the heat in Philadelphia has been otherworldly, leaving me wrung out like a dishrag … Continue reading

Posted in Infertility, Life After Cancer, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

back in the saddle, back from the dead

This morning, as I rode my bike through the corner of South Jersey that I now call home, the sound of the cicadas in the trees took me back to a very particular place:  Main Line YMCA day camp, about … Continue reading

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running for my life

A huge box hastily labeled “CANCER STUFF” was finally opened today, one of the last from the April move.  The room it has inhabited since April 9 is at last turning into the study that I have been dreaming of … Continue reading

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mister mean genes (or, expect the unexpected)

Today I have had the surprising experience of someone else’s good news making me feel like shit.  Are we in middle school again?  I recall, quite starkly, a “profound thought” from my high school notes of the same name, which … Continue reading

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the essence of injustice

Other women with ovarian cancer are dying.  Lots of them.  Young women, women my age.  I don’t understand why they are dying and I am not.  I feel a little guilty.  No, a lot guilty.  I am so fucking alive, … Continue reading

Posted in cancer, Death, Life After Cancer | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments