We mean well, we really do, but sometimes the words just don’t match what we’re trying to convey.   This is especially true when it comes to cancer, care givers or even patients.  And it can happen during the illness or following the loss of a loved one. I remember it happening to me and to(…)

If you’re in the car, behind an SUV stuffed with beach toys and luggage, I feel your pain; Should have left earlier!! I’m sitting at the computer working on a web cancer series that will hopefully guide those who are looking for cancer care in the Washington Capitol region.  Any information that helps cancer patients get comprehensive(…)

Till death do us part… How do those words fit into real life?  How do they fit into cancer world? If you uttered those exact words, and lost the one you swore to be the love of your life, is there another one out there for you? It’s like precision medicine these days.  Each person’s illness is unique; so(…)

He was working so hard to learn how to walk again.   It was 2008 and his last surgery had taken a toll.  The cancer had required a vertebrae be replaced in his spine.  Somehow a staph infection had attached itself to the new part and emergency surgery resulted in a replacement part and a very(…)

It’s an annual event of the heart. We, who have lost our loved ones to cancer put our hearts on display.  We’re not afraid to put them out there on this night because all of our hearts are bruised.  They all show signs of wear and tear, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Some(…)

I’m remembering our first glimpse into cancer world when Leroy and I first heard the words, “You have cancer.” Actually, his doctor said, “We have a problem.” Then he showed us a color-glossy picture of a large colon cancer tumor taken only minutes before when Leroy had gone in for a routine colonoscopy.  He followed up with the(…)

One of two battling cancer is a full plate.  Two of two is unimaginable.  It’s unfair. It stretches the limits of what a couple can endure. She has just finished her treatment for breast cancer.  She is weak in body, but strong in spirit.  She walks with a slight bend at the waist.  I’m not sure(…)

How did they become our care givers?  How did they seem to always have the right words when the days were the most difficult?  When you needed a hand squeezed or an arm around your shoulder or even a hug, they always seemed to be there, didn’t they? These folks were strangers until we heard the(…)

Late effects cancers are brutal. They not only mess with the body, but with the mind too.  Just when you think you’re out of the woods with a primary cancer that has created havoc in your life not once, but twice and doctors have been wise enough to attack the cancer with the right drugs(…)

We just assume with a cancer diagnosis comes the willingness to go through treatment. That really isn’t true. I write this today, almost exactly 21 years to the minute that my Mom took her last breath.  She died of cancer six months after her diagnosis.  She made the decision not to have treatment. So many(…)