Strength is a powerful word. Physical strength is very obvious to the human eye. Internal strength is something different and more difficult to define. Not only is it difficult to define it is hard to determine where one finds their internal strength. It varies from person to person. When I …
Read More »Life Moves On
A year ago today, I went for my end of treatment PET scan, which would go on to show that I had reached remission. As I’m sure you can imagine, the relief was wonderful. After seven long months, to find out that I had the all clear was the best news we …
Read More »Surviving The Difficult Days
Some days it feels like there isn’t much fight left in me. Some days I want to crawl in bed and pull the covers up over my head and stop and hope the world forgets about me and just allows me to slink into my safe place and hide. I …
Read More »Kids Interrupted – Children with Pediatric Heart Disease
I went to visit two heart kids the other day at the hospital. My mom and I make an effort to go and visit the kids and their families whenever we can because we know how much it meant to us when people would come to comfort us when we …
Read More »“Hope” by John
I had a strained relationship with hope before my wife was diagnosed with cancer. To me, hope was a high waiting for a low, a fix with a nasty flipside. Far from the precious entity exalted by legions of poets and philosophers, hope was just another coordinate on the pain/pleasure …
Read More »Head, Shoulders, Knees…and Toes?
One Summer evening I was entertaining the kids with different games to tire them out. I came across an oldie but a goodie. We have all heard, danced & chanted along with this wonderful song as a child. Head, shoulders, knees and toes. As a child we do the movements …
Read More »Fibromyalgia and the Change of Seasons
I’m positive that I am not the only one who feels pain differences depending on the weather around me. Winter is a particularly hard season, as the weather here gets terrifyingly cold. My joints just seize up, my temperature regulation becomes a problem, and I just want to spend the …
Read More »Finding Balance When Battling Chronic Illness
One of the hardest things for me is balance. No, I don’t mean walking a beam like some Olympic gymnast. I mean the kind of balance every woman struggles with–work, home, family, friends, and self. There are things we HAVE to do, like make sure the kitchen is clean enough …
Read More »How My Breast Cancer Diagnosis Changed Everything
The one thing I hear is the idea that having cancer changes your outlook on life. One of the first letters we received from a friend when I got my diagnosis of breast cancer contained such sentiment. We were all, not yet 40, with small children, careers, stability finally just …
Read More »Accepting the Word “Disability”
I’ve known that something was wrong with my body since I was able to think. I fought against this theory for a LONG time, especially when I was younger, and had more fight left in me. Sadly, after I finished my education, it was time to face the fact that …
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