When we think about February, most of us immediately think about Valentine’s Day. For those of us whose lives have been touched by cancer, we realize that each month of the year has a special meaning when it focuses on the kind of cancer that we battle. Awareness months help us to understand the kinds of cancers that others face.

February 4th, 2020 – World Cancer Day

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of World Cancer Day. World Cancer Day began with six cancer experts who met in Paris in...

It seems that every person has advice to give us when we have cancer. One of them is to “stay positive.” Sometimes, we feel guilty when we don’t feel positive. Some folks want us to believe that that we might not have a good outcome from our treatment if we don’t “stay positive.” 

Other people might try to put a guilt trip on us if we don’t find a silver lining in our diagnosis.

There is so much emphasis in our culture on the “power of positive thinking” that some of us are lead to...

How do you get gratitude and humility? First, get yourself a life threatening disease, maybe 4 different versions of it to be sure you get the message that you are not invincible. Then get together with a big group of your closest friends and family just before you go in for a forever life changing, hopefully life saving surgery. 

This is going to take a minute to cover all of this, so get some popcorn and a drink.

First, I should explain a little background for anyone that doesn't...

A Guest Post By Jackie Edwards

How Celebrations Change After A Cancer Diagnosis

Palliative care provides relief for 90% of people living with late stage cancer, which leaves patients free to enjoy life as they always have. This means that you will likely have the privilege of celebrating your birthday, wedding anniversary, Christmas, or any other holiday which you normally mark annually. The cancer diagnosis might diminish your mood to partake in such occasions, but these events are more...

Getting diagnosed with cancer is one of the worst things that can happen to a person in their lifetime. All of the trauma, the expenses, the worry, scars and body deformations, side effects, and a hundred more things to go along with it make for the worst year (or more) of your life. As bad as all this gets, there are some positive things a person can find around them even when they have been diagnosed with cancer. 

But what about after a second diagnosis? Having to do all of that...

When our friends, co-workers and relatives hear about our diagnosis, they are distressed by our bad news and want to reach out and provide comfort. Yet, often they are silent and say nothing. Why? Because they don’t know what to say. So they don’t say anything.

Important Facts to Remember about Those with Cancer

First and foremost, we are still the same person. But we have a serious, potentially fatal disease. That fact doesn’t change who we are — it changes our immediate plans. We have to...

Perhaps you’ve never heard the term – financial toxicity – the National Cancer Institute defines it as the problems a patient encounters due to the cost of medical care. Cancer patients are two to three times more likely to file bankruptcy as healthy people.

Why? Even with insurance, the cost of cancer care, along with related expenses, is beyond what anyone expects. Until we’ve received our first bill, we have no idea what cancer care costs.

Health Insurance – Does It Protect A Family?

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This is the situation. You've been diagnosed with cancer, again, for the 4th time, if that's not bad enough, you have to wait two months to have surgery to remove the tumors from your neck. If you have never had to endure this unfortunate experience you probably don't have any idea how slow time drags on while waiting for your date to show up. For Donna and I, it's Jan. 28th.

While I'm not looking forward to the recovery part of this, I'm past ready to have the surgery since surgery is my...

Winter is here and presents unique challenges for cancer patients. Let’s look at some of the potential problems that we, as cancer patients, might face this winter.

Falls. Chemotherapy affect some patients’ balance, making them more prone to falling. Now add in icy sidewalks, snowy parking lots, and steps, and we have a formula that might lead to a cancer patient being more likely to fall in winter. So how do we avoid falls in winter?
• More lighting for outside areas of your house. With...

The medical profession utilizes the metric system for measurement of tumor sizes. The system is internationally used and is the primary standard of measurement in the healthcare field. In the United States where we use inches, yards and miles along with ounces and pounds, we as patients are confused when our medical team tells us that our tumor is 5 cm in diameter.

For some kinds of cancer, the size of the tumor determines the stage of the cancer. Staging for breast and lung cancer utilize...