Jane Biehl Ph.D.

I try so hard to be positive, but in the back of my mind, I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for my blood counts to worsen, for the results of the next bone marrow biopsy to be haywire, for the chemo with its side effects to be administered, intensified or changed.

A new television show, as well as a recent CURE campaign, gave insight to life with cancer.

It is not the type of fatigue where a good night’s sleep will “cure” us. It just seems to go on and on.

We all have our cracks, and cancer provides a huge one. Perhaps for the first time ever, we present (and look) weak, vulnerable, sick and needing to ask others for help.

Getting older can be seen as a privilidge.

When it comes to routine eye checkups and other appointments not directly related to my cancer, I become lax.

Cancer can affect all areas of life, in both good and bad ways.

Cancer survivors learn to tunnel through the snow. We have a community to help us become stronger mentally and support us through the tough times.

There are dozens of potential side effects, and more are being reported every month.

One problem for all of us cancer patients is just when we think we have learned our limits, they change.

After a cancer diagnosis, is there anyone to blame?

After we have been diagnosed with cancer, our lives will never be the same again. But we need to try to just perform one little service – a phone call, a card, an email to encourage others. The wonderful thing is with or without cancer, we may just live a little bit longer with joy!

Wistfully, I recall the days I could work all day, come home and do things around the house and then go out for dinner! Those days are long gone. I am off the chemo this week, but next week I will feel even more fatigue when I go back on.

It takes a village to support someone through a cancer diagnosis.

Chemotherapy treatment can greatly affect balance. But, there are things that can help.

A lunch out with friends may be more therapeutic than you think.

Sometimes life throws you the curveball of cancer.

Nothing is worse than the long-term effects like chemo fog and going deaf. I do think that we need to report these medications and hope research will try to develop treatments with fewer side effects.

Can cancer actually lift an individual out of the "rabbit hole" of despair?

What you do matters, even in the waiting room of the oncologist's office.

Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "My Shadow" reminds this cancer survivor about her diagnosis.

I laughed after I put my soiled laundry in the wastepaper bin in my bathroom instead of the laundry hamper. When I told my oncologist, she didn’t think it was funny at all.

While getting old and being ill can both cause a person to slow down, they are not the same thing.

I usually got the infections first, so my oncologist loaded me up with antibiotics and off I went. She knows that not going would cause such a depression that I would be worse.

After being diagnosed, my first inclination was to to go to my bedroom, put my head under the covers and ignore the world. Fiends kept calling me and I ignored the calls. Finally, I answered the telephone in frustration.

I know my life will never be the same again. I will not ever be well or free of chemo and treatments and shots and blood counts and bone marrow biopsies. I have slowly become used to my new way of life.

Planting a tree can be a wonderful and lasting way to honor a survivor or a loved one who has passed.

Sometimes the days may be cloudy when we hurt from the chemo and side effects, but there is enough light to keep dancing.

Many people seem programmed to think negatively, but we need to change that.

In our lives before cancer, we have several avenues for our energy including family, work, school, volunteer work and on and on. We were able to juggle it all. But after a diagnosis, we need to choose one or two passions and let the rest go.