Martha Carlson

May 09, 2022

When it comes to both COVID-19 precautions and life with cancer, I feel like I have to sacrifice some privacy to gain understanding from the people around me.

April 15, 2022

When I was first diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, I did not know there were so many other people like me until I attended Living Beyond Breast Cancer’s Conference on Metastatic Breast Cancer.

March 02, 2022

I’ve recently joined the masses in catching up with routine health care that was put off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 08, 2022

After my cancer diagnosis, I was thrust into a world where I rarely understood what was happening to me. An easy-to-understand “cancer vocabulary” would have surely eased my confusions.

December 22, 2021

A patient with cancer writes about trying acupuncture as another potential tool to lessen the effects of chemo-induced peripheral neuropathy and offers advice for other patients on how to possibly deal with the debilitating side effect.

November 30, 2021

A woman with metastatic breast cancer simplifies common terms used in guidelines for privacy of patients in clinical trials. “If we want to take down cancer, we have to find confidence in a system that wasn’t designed to protect us,” she writes.

November 04, 2021

Seven years into a diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer, one woman has also nurtured hope.

October 26, 2021

Even in the doctor’s office, the words patients hear can cover up the realities of stage 4 breast cancer. “He thought he was offering hope but what he was doing was denying my reality and minimizing the deaths of so many people,” writes a woman with metastatic breast cancer.

October 19, 2021

A woman with metastatic breast cancer looks back on the happy memories she made this summer and how she uses them as strength in the face of cancer. “Sometimes, when we’re lucky, the scale tips toward the good,” she writes.

October 13, 2021

I am in awe of what scientists have been able to discover, but we don’t know enough for those 119 women who will die this Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day, nor for the 43,881 others who will die before the next Breast Cancer Awareness Month rolls around. We deserve more.

September 01, 2021

A woman with breast cancer writes about how patient advocates are pushing for better research into optimal treatment in metastatic breast cancer.

July 27, 2021

“Each of us has our own way of marking what cancer brings to our lives, sometimes in a simple three-letter word,” writes a woman with breast cancer.

July 19, 2021

A patient reflects on the comfort and grief within the world of metastatic breast cancer.

May 27, 2021

“Understanding and taking action against racial differences in cancer care and clinical trial participation are made more powerful when we listen to patient voices,” writes one patient with breast cancer.

May 20, 2021

A patient offers advice on getting patient portals, electronic medical records and technology organized and functioning correctly.

April 23, 2021

A patient discusses her experiences with long-term side effects from cancer treatment and details her frustration with the lack of focus on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in patients with advanced cancer.

March 30, 2021

A patient with metastatic cancer writes about how the unknowns of her disease have shaped her life and health experiences, and how she has learned to live with that uncertainty.

March 23, 2021

A patient with metastatic cancer writes what it has been like to face the dilemma of receiving an effective cancer therapy that may put her heart at risk.

February 22, 2021

Vaccine eligibility forces this metastatic breast cancer patient to confront the value society places on her life.

February 15, 2021

To honor National Cancer Prevention Month in February, one patient with cancer offers people some tips on how they certain medical and societal choices may help reduce the risk of cancer.

January 17, 2021

The Breast Cancer Recurrence Project aims to revolutionize and bring accuracy to what we know about who’s living with metastatic breast cancer.

January 04, 2021

Living beyond the statistics and finding a way to celebrate a “cancerversary” with metastatic breast cancer.

December 30, 2020

Sometimes it’s hard to bring up the many side effects of cancer treatment, but talking about them can help your doctor provide the best care.

December 21, 2020

November 23, 2020

We miss each other at this desperate time, and we need each other more than ever. But living with cancer creates an extra challenge when navigating celebrating the holidays during COVID-19.

October 25, 2020

Cancer can magnify problems with sleep and introduce new ones, but there are easy changes you can make to get better sleep tonight.

October 19, 2020

How to turn breast cancer awareness into actions that can improve your life and those of people you love.

October 08, 2020

After a cancer diagnosis, it’s hard to find what “normal” means, but by looking at the answers to the basic goals you want to achieve you can find the “normal” that works best for you.

September 29, 2020

I get asked, a lot, about how to return to normal while living with cancer. I don’t want to be returning to the past since I’d rather be looking toward the future.

September 09, 2020

Supportive and palliative care are critical for people living with cancer to better manage treatment-related side effects.