Essays

After spending many nights in pain, unable to breathe, Kayla Sanderson was told that the lump in her neck was “nothing” but a bad ear infection. Finally, she found out a tumor was blocking her airways. Read More ›

In May 2019, Kiana Wooten went for a routine check-up. Read about how that routine visit turned into a breast cancer diagnosis for the 34-year-old Kiana, who had to be hospitalized during COVID-19. Read More ›

Sabrina Steinback’s mom died from COVID-19 in 2020, and then Sabrina had a lumpectomy to remove breast cancer at the end of the year. Read More ›

After putting off her neck pain for months, Susan Keller found that she had lymphoma, describing how her loving husband helped her change her attitude and persist through it all. Read More ›

Mark Ryan, RN, is not worried about the impact of climate change on the weather, but on skin cancer, which he knows first-hand. A decrease in stratospheric ozone requires stringent environmental regulations to prevent cancer, he says. Read More ›

Karen Ann Rowe writes an impassioned and funny letter to the doctors who found their way into her life through her many run-ins with cancer. Read More ›

Edward Sawa was waking up with headaches that disrupted his daily activities and ended up being diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia and breast cancer. Read the lessons he’s learned as a male with breast cancer. Read More ›

When Veronica Brent had a constant cough and shortness of breath from walking, her daughter suggested she should have a chest x-ray. The x-ray showed she had lung cancer, and a biopsy showed she had cancer on the pancreas. She was concerned how to break the news to the family. Read More ›

Plunging from nightmare to nightmare, Serena was diagnosed with breast cancer, while her 39-year-old husband, Robert, had a stroke, which claimed his speech and movement, leaving him “trapped in a thoroughly trashed body.” Paying the medical bills added to their struggles during the pandemic. Read More ›

Mary Trouba, who was encouraged by her sister to write about her experience as a patient with metastatic breast cancer, tackles the importance of the words we use when discussing cancer, explaining her problem with the phrase “battling cancer.” Read More ›