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You may think that you have faced adversity, but now you’re in for an actual life and death struggle. 

Like your mom before you, you’re going to be diagnosed with breast cancer. You’re later going to lose your mom to metastatic breast cancer, just as you lost your brother to metastatic prostate cancer. And your sister is going to be diagnosed with melanoma. Cancer will become a central animating feature of your life.

You’ll struggle to keep it together when you tell your husband and your two school-aged daughters that you too, have cancer. You’ll have to learn how to give up control and accept help, even from your children. It’s hard when you are used to feeling large and in charge, but you’ll soon discover that you feel the most empowered when you feel the most powerless.

It’ll be tough, taking its toll physically and emotionally. Cancer always leaves its scars.

You’ll pull through though, and the experience will inspire a life-change. 

You will quit your job and seek out an opportunity to help others. You’ll apply all of your life experiences to the challenge of leading the fight to save lives from breast cancer.

It will present its own set of challenges but don’t worry, you were made for this. You’ll meet people who will touch your heart in ways that you never imagined possible – and you’ll have to say goodbye to too many. You’ll learn that it’s okay to cry at meetings. It’s not a show of weakness, but a sign of purpose.

Along this journey, you’ll meet kids who are raising money to honor their mothers. You’ll meet patient navigators, like Susan, who will hold your hand through every step of your treatment. You’ll get to know some of the most brilliant scientists who are discovering how to help people like you. And you’ll partner with some innovative thinkers who want to help make significant changes to how our health care system works to improve the patient experience, accelerate discovery and address racial and geographic disparities.

And despite your family history, all of these people will give you hope for a better future for your daughters.

So, keep your head up and keep walking forward. You never know where the path will take you.

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Paula Schneider, president and CEO of Susan G. Komen®, writes to her younger self on the lessons and challenges she faced as a patient with breast cancer.

A Letter to Myself: You Were Made for This Breast Cancer Journey

As an individual diagnosed more than 5 years ago with multiple myeloma, I have been struck by the reliance on the part of some cancer patients who place significant emphasis on clinical trials and research, and the desire to “battle and fight” the disease in order to seek cure and avoid untimely death. This emphasis also applies to healthcare providers and researchers, many of whom are the very originators of this focus. Offering hope supports that singular human need to achieve another state of being. As a need, hope is more than an emotional state with something that could be different in our lives. 

Hope is a multifaceted human need that drives one to achieve or craft one’s life in a certain direction. More than a guide or roadmap for ourselves, our families, our friends and beyond, hope can influence the essence of very fundamental human behavior from birth to death.

There are many ways of examining the concept of hope as it applies to the cancer patient. At its very core, hope and the patient may be seen through the lens of the quality of life or lifestyle, a religious orientation and faith, and the belief in the human soul.

Hope can produce a quality of life which may be considered a lifestyle. That is, our daily behavior from birth onwards is built around a series of ideas, principles, concepts and other’s thoughts that from a belief system and ultimately organized as a lifestyle. While the concept of lifestyle is a complicated phenomenon, the idea of grouping the many forms of individual human behavior into a set of mostly observable behaviors can have, at its core, the idea of hope. Hope may well be the driving force as we traverse our way through life. And part of this is the idea that hope is an amazing gift from God which underlies the very essence of a positive quality of life or standard by which we live from birth to death.

In many organized religions, hope is part of the foundation of religious faith which is built around the omnipresent force commonly referred as the concept of God. And, as some religions have espoused, the human soul is the person’s window to God, which guides our thoughts and beliefs about our future, and ultimately to our understanding about the hereafter. Hope also helps to form three other aspects of human behavior.

These three beliefs are the belief in the human soul, belief in our own future, and finally, a belief in the hereafter. Aside from biological growth and development, the human being also learns, accepts, and inculcates into our being the beliefs in the human soul, our own future, and the hereafter forming our human core. Hope, then, becomes a primary vehicle for understanding human existence.

So, how do we make sense out of this? My own interest in this topic grew out of my volunteer work as a moderator for a digital support group for people with Blood Cancers.

This group is nationally supported by ANCAN, a cancer information organization. In my moderating work I was struck by the almost exclusive interest on the part of participants in medications they were taking, clinical trials they were participating in, details about their chemotherapy designs, and related topics.

Initially, I was shocked to listen to the conversation. As a psychologist, I had much more anticipated that discussion questions about, “What are you feeling? How are you coping? What is your family doing to help you? Are you ever angry about getting cancer? If so, how do you express yourself?” And to my professional amazement, these discussion points never came up and when asked if they were interested in talking about this, there was only some quiet grumbling.

The good news is that silence almost always works, so after a moment or two, one brave soul said, “you know, I always wanted to know what it will feel like when the “end” for me is near?”Understandably, this generated a good deal of healthy discussion. So, from a hope perspective perhaps what I call 

 organized in a way that is emotionally acceptable to the participants.

As mentioned earlier, hope can also be viewed as a form of quality of life or lifestyle in which some have built their style of living around the concept. Virtually everything they do involves some consideration of hope. One’s personal thinking about self, spouses, extended and close-in family, siblings, employers, friends and acquaintances, neighbors and virtually all others that we have contact with have hope woven into those relationships. Hope that it will remain the same, or that it will change for the better, or somehow be different. Hope is tightly woven into our very essence or being and is the principle upon which we judge and evaluate virtually all our thinking concerning the past, the present, and the future.

From a practical point of view, the concept of hope is difficult to understand, especially in the presence of catastrophic disease. Disease challenges us to live beyond the confines of the disease as we know it or come to understand it. One way of understanding this is to examine the emotional role of medications at the center of disease treatment, most especially cancer treatment. The principal advocates of this are first the practitioner who provides the diagnostic understanding of the disease and prescribes the medication to “fight” the disease.

And second are the patients who often develop an fixation around the current medication, the clinical research around new medications, and the overall effectiveness of both. What is interesting to note is this author’s own experience with his multiple oncology physicians wherein the regular monthly appointments are almost completely focused on the efficacy of the medications that fight the symptoms of the disease itself and the side-effects of the disease fighting medications. Only under a few rare circumstances have we have conversation about feelings, emotional coping strategies, and end-of-life expectations.

Hope is a complex concept that each of us has a multitude of thoughts about. Conceptually, hope may be characterized as a religious phenomenon involving the idea of God and eternal life. On the other hand, but clearly related, hope can be considered a common part of the human ego or the emotional and biological structure of the human person. Finally, while hope is thought to be a universal aspect of all persons, its parts and dimensions certainly have cultural components that differ for all human beings. How one defines hope is both individualistic and group or culturally determined.

Hope does not equal living per se. Some have the idea that if they go through life embracing hope that they are truly living. Yet, hope alone does not and could not define living.If all our ideas, actions, behaviors, thoughts, and the like are based solely on hope, then indeed we are deferring the present reality for the future which is, by definition, hope oriented. While living, meaning the past, present, and future, does contain elements of hope, it is the totality of the hope concept that is problematic as it could keep us from what is happening because we are focused only on hope elements for the future. It is a sort of childhood version of, “when I grow up, I’m going to be…”.Hope for the past, present, and future is necessary, but it is the totality of it that does not constitute living in and of itself.

As mentioned, hope feeds the soul with a sense of identity which enables the person to live beyond the current situation that individuals find themselves in. As humans, we are complex individuals who are relatedly close, but not a copy of one another. We are created with the idea of a soul or a sense of self that combines our past, present, and the future. This is best understood as a combination of behaviors, religious beliefs, thoughts, feelings, guidelines, cultural belief systems and the like that can structure how we think and behave. This is most especially the case as we contemplate future thoughts, wishes, desires, and behaviors. How our soul is developed will determine in part how we will behave in the future. And for many, our souls have an exceptionally large religious or spiritual component which serves to help guide us through all our days on Earth.

This is especially the case for those of us with a terminal illness whose end can and is predicted in terms of time-based sequences and levels of disease. The longer the time with the disease and its level provides a statistical determination of the average life span. Hence, the role of hope and its foundation in God becomes even more important to the cancer patient as one prepares for life hereafter. Perhaps the final and most significant statement about hope is the question about God being eternal life. As cancer patients and others face the probability of near death, the idea that God is about eternal life gathers increasing importance and meaning. As human beings facing imminent death, the idea of the hereafter takes on ever-increasing importance. And, for those of us raised with a concept of God as part of our intellect and being, at the very essence of hope then is an ever-strong belief that God is responsible for our hopeful belief in our daily existence and in the afterlife.

Hope is indeed a complex issue for all human beings to deal with. While this complexity applies to all human beings, it is particularly relevant to those whose illness or age is such that it is likely to be more imperative. Hope provides a livable statement about quality of life. As an alternative to the idea of hope as a pathway for disease-fighting, hope can provide a set of statements or directions to be followed for the living of a quality life. While the concrete approach determining a sort of mechanistic attitude is a normal human process, hope can be useful for conceptualizing a much broader approach to living. The dimensions of this are endless and usually involve other people, family, friends and perhaps even volunteering yourself to assisting others in need.

Even though cancer patients must follow a structured path of treatment for disease resolution, that path does not preclude additional elements which have a broader appeal and usefulness for the patient. In fact, an attitude of belief that the future may be pre-determined because of the disease, adding other dimensions like hope to one’s living can strengthen one’s approach and add richness to their quality living. 

To this end then, hope is a gift and becomes the essence of a quality of life issue for us. We surround ourselves with the idea that hope is a gift, and one which has been nurtured by ourselves over time and often nurtured by other people in our lives. We have been taught or otherwise learned that the idea of hope provides one of the principle ways to achieve happiness in life even within the context of catastrophic disease. As we move through our own individual stages of development, hope is a human quality that enables us to create opportunities for positivity and peace of heart.

Hope is a potent ally for the patient with cancer, and it is a response that helps inform a patient's journey with cancer.

Hope And The Patient With Cancer

I like to call myself a triple threat, but not in the way that you think. First, I am a registered nurse, having practiced oncology nursing for ten years and I currently work at a cancer center.Second, I am a survivorship program coordinator/nurse navigator, meaning I provide ongoing support and resources to cancer survivors through the survivorship program that I have led for the past three and half years. Third, I am a breast Cancer survivor.

Diagnosed in 2019 and am currently having a treatment free interval of one year and three months. To say that I thought I knew about cancer would be an understatement; I always thought I 

 what patients went through from diagnosis to surveillance, but I had 

 idea, until I went through my own cancer journey.

Even though I had never experienced cancer on a personal level, I always knew working in oncology was for me as my love and compassion for people led me to this field. Healthwise, my family has issues with hypertension, heart disease, kidney disease but not cancer. However, that all changed on Valentine’s Day 2019 when I had my yearly mammogram, which was clean; one health screening ticked off my mental checklist for the year. Two months later, in April 2019, I had my yearly gynecology appointment, my second health screening mentally checked off. As my gynecologist proceeded to examine me, he asked if I was doing my breast self-exams.

“Oh no,” I replied smugly, “I wait for you all to do it,” meaning I rely on my yearly mammograms and gynecology breast exams to determine if cancer was in my future. As he moved from one breast to the other, he lingered, and then turned to the nurse, giving her a verbal order, “We need to get a referral for a left breast ultrasound.”

He turned to me and said I had a lump in my outer quadrant of my left breast, but “it was probably nothing” and to take Vitamin E, which would help reduce the inflammation that it probably was, because as he put it, my mammogram was “clean.”This was on a Friday, so of course I worried all weekend, just “knowing” it was cancer…my fingers kept lingering over the “lump” in my breast; mentally thinking how could I have missed this, why wasn’t I doing my breast self-exams, and 

One biopsy, two surgeries, radiation therapy, a Tamoxifen tablet daily for 5 years later and I am a breast cancer survivor. Sure, I am still dealing with treatment side effects, such as breast swelling, axillary web syndrome or “cording,” intermittent hot flashes, depression, and anxiety, but I believe in the power of positive thinking, and have a prayer of gratitude.

In addition to being a breast cancer survivor, I am also a wife to my husband of 31 years, mother to two daughters, grandmother to two granddaughters and one grandson, identical twin to my sister Cindy, and sister to my two brothers. But of course, I am also a daughter, granddaughter, college student in a Nurse Practitioner Program, and a friend to many. I identify with all these things and they all identify with who I am, especially the cancer. However, I do not define my life by having had cancer but it has definitely changed who I am for the better.

As a result, I am an advocate for women to become familiar with their breasts; it’s important to do a breast self-exam. It is also important to know if you have dense breasts, because not all breast cancers show up in mammograms. Therefore, ask your healthcare provider, if you need 3D Mammography (Tomosynthesis) or additional imaging. Life is a gift, not to be taken for granted.

Did I do this prior to my diagnosis? I sure did. I took my health and family for granted and did not fully understand the depth of what cancer patients faced. However, now I face each new day grateful for my health, grateful to still be with my family and grateful to be able to connect with my patients in a more meaningful way.

Understanding cancer as a professional is one thing, but once you go through the journey it takes on a whole different understanding. 

Living As A 'Triple Threat' Breast Cancer Survivor

In the silence of the room, I caught the surgeon’s eye. He had been quiet for some time, just staring at me and back at a paper on his desk. He had asked me why I had come to see him alone, which was uncommon because my husband accompanies me for all my doctor’s appointments.

After a few minutes of staring at each other, I knew the surgeon didn’t know how to tell me that the histology tests that he was looking at showed I had cancer.

I decided to break the silence. I’m never that brave, but I did it.

“Yes, follicular carcinoma, a type of thyroid cancer,” he replied.

What followed later were words that meant nothing to me at the time. I cried uncontrollably. He tried to ask me for my phone to call my husband. I couldn’t hear him.

When you’re told you have cancer, the world around you feels like a bee nest. Actually, thousands of bee nests. Everything buzzes.

He grabbed my phone and luckily the last number called was my husband’s. He told him to come back to the hospital.

I was wailing. I wanted to tear my clothes. I threw my shoes and walked with stockings. I felt numb. I wanted to hit my head on walls or cut myself to see if I was still alive, that it wasn’t a nightmare.

My miracles started at choosing a caring surgeon. I feel like if it wasn’t for him I would be like the thousands of patients who die because they don’t know where to go next after a cancer diagnosis.

In less than one hour that I was in his office, he had booked me an appointment with an oncologist and a counsellor, which rarely happens.

The oncologist told me that I had a ‘good cancer’, that it is an easily treatable kind. That was noise to me, I told myself, “that must be how he consoles to his dying patients.”

I cried throughout, I didn’t hear much. I later learnt why it is important to be accompanied when receiving cancer news. My husband was doing the listening for me.

The second miracle was the surgeon referring me to an oncologist who understood the intrigues of public and private hospitals.

In Kenya, radioiodine treatment is only available in one government hospital that serves patients from over six neighbouring countries.

The oncologist warned us the waiting list was long. We assumed long meant one month or two.

At the government hospital, a clerk removed a black book and wrote my name on it. Then she lifted her head slightly and said I would go back to treatment in April. But they could call me earlier if I was lucky.

I should have been happy at that moment, that at least my name was in the black book awaiting treatment, but I started crying again.

It was September, and I was booked to start treatment in April the next year.

Eight months for cancer to eat my body and leave me dead, I thought.

Cancer makes you lose interest in everything. I wondered why I should shower or eat or comb my hair if I was dying in a few days anyway. I found it hard to resuscitate my maternal self and take care of my son who was eight months old then. I had stopped breastfeeding him, on doctor’s advice, as I waited for treatment.

Focusing on your death is emotionally and physically draining. You spend the nights wondering who will be at your funeral, what they will say, if your child will get a ‘saint’ for a stepmother, and thousands of bad thoughts that pitch a tent in your mind, occasionally making you anxious and miserable throughout.

One day, I realized that death from cancer rarely happens as an accident. It’s not quick. It happens slowly, so is the treatment and the physical and emotional healing that comes after.

My third miracle came a month later. My husband got a phone call from the hospital. I got a slot just after 

The next day I was at the hospital by 4.30 am, waiting to take a radioiodine pill.

The admission process was windy and tiresome. At 3pm, I bid my husband goodbye, it felt like a farewell, and I was ushered into a room with four men wearing hazmat suits, to protect themselves from radiation.

They removed a pill from a casing and gave it to me and another patient to swallow.

They sandwiched us and walked us to a hospital ward up the stairs, and locked the doors behind them.

It was a two-bed ward. It was old, built 13 years ago and no renovations ever done. The toilet seat was half-cracked. The nights were cold as the cracked window freely let in wind. No visitors or nurses or doctors were allowed in. The food and medicine were slipped through the door.

Being in that kind of environment for five days and nights taught me many lessons. We take for granted many things, which to some people are luxuries. When you are told you have cancer, you think that you are very sick, until you see other cancer patients.

I started focusing on the positives. My cancer wasn’t advanced, I wasn’t coughing out blood and I wasn’t being admitted in the ward for the sixth time like the other patient in the room.

At the time I prayed that if I was healed that I would renovate that ward. Cancer can give you a new purpose on earth. So, I struck a 

I told Him if I was never to be admitted to that dilapidated ward again, I’d look for money and make it comfortable for future patients. The bargain was my breakthrough. It gave me a reason to fight my hardest through treatment.

Then God granted my wish and I started wondering where I’d get $40,000 to rebuild the ward. A scan showed cancer had cleared with only one round of radioiodine treatment.

Six years later, I crowdfunded and kept my part of the bargain.

I’m 10 years cancer-free, taking thyroid hormone drugs daily, sometimes battling with post-treatment side-effects like extreme fatigue, but I will never stop focusing on the positives and finding out where they could lead.

Ms Mwango is a Thyroid Cancer Survivor and a mother-of-two. Her seven-year-old daughter was born two years after her cancer treatment. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

One cancer survivor details her winding treatment journey, and how by making herself a deal found the faith to keep moving forward. 

'I Struck a Deal With God': A Cancer Survivor's Story on Finding Faith

­­After months of treatment for stage 4 HPV-related tonsil cancer, I rang the bell to signify my last day of treatment. It’s a moment that many cancer survivors remember and look forward to while undergoing treatment. In that moment, I truly believed that immediately my life would get easier.

But for me and others who have endured cancer treatment, this good news does not reflect the full story of cancer survivorship.

I’m a devoted husband and father of three who lived a healthy life. Being diagnosed with stage 4 head and neck cancer at 44 came as a shock. As I underwent treatment, including radiation and chemotherapy, I recorded end-of-life videos for my children trying to provide them with life advice to best prepare them for my absence. My friends and family deemed me a fighter, giving me the nickname “

” for my strength as I persevered. It’s a nickname that sticks with me today as I advocate for patients, survivors and caregivers worldwide.

Even before treatment began, I chose to have a feeding tube understanding that many head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation end up dehydrated due to third degree burns developing in their throat as treatment progresses. The side effects from radiation lingered throughout and beyond my treatment. After surgery, chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiation delivered to the same area of the mouth and throat, most patients develop third-degree burns and radiation-induced severe oral mucositis, or sores, characterized by significant pain and the inability to eat solid food or drink liquids. The body responds to these burns by producing saliva so thick it’s impossible to swallow. I can vividly recall my constant misery and the fear that the sores, the loss of my sense of taste, my inability to speak normally and the constant choking on my saliva would never subside.

Many of these side effects from therapy lasted up to four months beyond treatment, and some lingered for years, with no treatment options other than available pain killers. For many patients, these side effects can lead to depression as their quality of life has dramatically changed.

Ringing the bell, it felt like I had succeeded, and all would be well. What I didn’t realize was that radiation is the gift that keeps on giving, and that the next few weeks would be the most painful yet. My saliva became increasingly thicker. I choked and gagged at least 20-40 times daily and sleeping became almost impossible. Then, I developed neuropathy from chemotherapy, which presented as a slight numbness in my hands and feet. It was several years post-treatment before my saliva slowly returned.

Three years after my diagnosis, the American Joint Committee on Cancer 

updated the staging system for head and neck cancer

. It effectively downgraded many head and neck cancer stages due to, among other factors, the success of prevention, diagnostics and current treatment approaches (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy). While these are all positive signs of success, it does little for the aftermath of survivors like me.

As treatment outcomes improve and more people live beyond cancer and redefine what survivorship looks like, there is a growing unmet need for therapies to reduce or eliminate the devastating side effects of treatments. Biotech companies are working diligently to improve the challenges of severe oral mucositis (SOM). Galera Therapeutics is one of these companies and its therapy is in a phase 3 trial to assess its ability to reduce the incidence of SOM.

I have hope that surviving the aftereffects of cancer treatment will improve. Throughout my work as a patient advocate, I hear regularly from patients with cancer worldwide that these side effects are among their top fears that will affect their quality of life.

After being diagnosed with cancer, my first thought was to survive. When I realized I would, I wanted to live my best life. I’m fortunate to have a “normal” life – working full time, exercising regularly, traveling and living my life to the fullest with my wife, kids, family and friends. But I still cannot eat most foods without having something readily available to drink. As a result of my neck dissection, I get Charlie horses in my neck regularly from something as simple as flossing my teeth or looking down for too long. Similarly, from radiation, I developed a stiffness in my neck which aches constantly.

Every day, I’m grateful to be here. However, having therapies available that eliminate or lessen these side effects could help cancer survivors do more than just survive. They have the potential to help us live a better life after beating cancer, and we need more of them.

Jason Mendelsohn is a father, husband and cancer survivor. He serves as a patient ambassador for and Secretary of the 

. Jason travels around the world to educate people about HPV-related oral cancer. More information about his work can be found at 

For head and neck cancer survivor Jason Mendelsohn surviving cancer was only the beginning of his journey as handling severe side effects from treatment altered his day-to-day life. 

When Surviving Cancer is only the Beginning

When we meet someone for the first time, the encounter has the power and visual equivalent of a poem, a painting or a song. Life is full of these events that seem random. Instead, they are highly symbolic and meaningful.

Just as a river’s confluences, life’s confluences happen in everyone’s life traveling from some strange places, moving constantly and bumping into our side. As the years pass, they keep reproducing and taking forms of encounters, coincidences or occurrences. I have been blessed with these wonderful invisible connections; we are all spiritually linked.

I have been snowed under with cancer for many years. Consciously, I avoided talking “about it”. Later, when I intended to convey my feelings, my mind was limited to deep brown somber holes. Despite trying to connect with others, my melancholy prevailed.

The liberation came when I had an enlightened encounter with Pamela Worrell-Black, a superb social worker with Fairfax Inova Hospital, who begged me to attend a free retreat offered by a nonprofit organization for breast cancer survivors called Casting for Recovery. I bluntly rejected the idea because I was determined to leave behind everything that had to do with cancer.

However, Pamela’s persuasion was stronger than my rebuff. She described the positive effects of that retreat. Finally, I accepted that someone from the organization would call me and then my second marvelous encounter emerged … enter Carol Stevenson. She is one of the sweetest and kindest volunteer-leaders of Casting for Recovery. Carol — who is also a survivor — talked to me for an hour and a half on the phone. She was so caring and compassionate, and I treasured the loving things that she confessed to me.

It all started on a glorious weekend in a locality appropriately called "A Place Apart"; Shrine Mont was formerly a hotel that dates to the 19th Century and now is retreat and conference center located in Orkney Springs, Virginia. The mountains were waiting with undisturbed silence.

I visited this idyllic place supposedly to infuse my dreams, heal my soul and learn how to fly fish, a therapeutic exercise that would help to minimize the effects of the radiation and chemotherapy received and to prevent and protect from lymphedema, a side effect of breast cancer surgery.

We were just 14 women with a variety of concerns, feelings, reactions, and resentments. To belong to this group, you don’t need a special education or a doctorate. You did not need to have an extraordinary talent nor speak a second language. You could be fat, tall, have curly hair. You could be tan, yellow, Black or white. It did not matter to have a domineering personality or be timid as a bird abandoned in the snow. Here, money or recommendations did not count. The only creepy common denominator was having suffered from breast cancer.

At the retreat center, the discussions were very informal. We had a ritual space near the chimney where each one of us guided by counselors redefined our illness, shaped our hopes and, most importantly, strengthened our connections and humanness. Gradually and slowly, we gave ourselves permission to glimpse into our inner strata.

The group (my first ever) ignited great personal transformation. I did a great deal of confessions. I was forever talking; I could not stop telling happy stories and cracking jokes. I was singing and dancing. I reverted into the person that I used to be. Finally, I was able to reconcile with my younger self, the one that left Chile — the same soul that escaped to America because she could not handle the pain of losing her mother to cancer at age of 49. Now, I know that geographical therapy never works.

During the healing sessions, my mind was filled with restorative thoughts and my quest was expanded. It was an incredible experience that enhanced my life. It taught me that individuals, no matter where they are coming from, are universally connected by love, strength, empathy and spirituality.

I had the privilege of being assigned the experienced river guide, Phil Gay, a master casting instructor that has lead CEOs on fishing excursions to some of the most enthralling rivers in the world.

During my training, Phil, instructed me to watch a group of fish that gathered around the one I had caught with his aid. Utterly astonished, I discovered an entire underwater world of fish bonding. The dynamic of camaraderie was developing just before my eyes; a group of fish surrounded the “unfortunate captive” rushing to his side like sharing perhaps some sort of pain or conveying messages. But even more remarkable was this kind of interspecies attachment — a sort of tacit comprehension, a demonstration of solidarity proper of human beings. They narrowed the circle around him soundless and paused. They seemed to understand what was happening and their conduct struck a poignant chord with me as I visualized a funeral.

Attending this healing retreat gave me a profound emotional perspective with a chance of rediscovery. I sensed a deep passion for life; I felt liberated and pampered.

However, in communion with the valuable lived experience and seeking a meaning to all of this, I believe the most outstanding lesson of this journey was the parallel of the social and emotional affiliation between our group of courageous women and the amazing collective cohesion detected amidst the school of fish.

Nora Massignotti-Cortese, is a journalist, artist and workshop facilitator. She can be reached at bertognott@aol.com

Talking about cancer can be a great burden but sharing one’s story can be liberating. Even if you share it while fishing. 

License to Live: How a Fishing Retreat Liberated Me from Cancer

A dear friend I have known for many years gave me a call on his way home from the hospital on one Saturday night. His wife just had breast cancer surgery. He was uplifting as always and happy to talk, sharing news about her and what they had to do in the following months. We talked about our faith and how our lives have gone through some detours.

As I listened to him, I paused … I was reliving some of the moments of the past year. It has been almost a year since my first appointment with my breast cancer surgeon, Dr. Pat Whitworth. I can still smell the cool October air.

On October 16, 2019, my life drastically changed, and I had to embrace a completely new journey. The past 11 months have brought many transformations with a lot of sweet “aha” moments and pure tears of joy. It has been a year of deep forgiveness and healing. It was my personal journey to find my anchors and evaluate many priorities in my life, let go of the things that did not matter anymore and say yes to the happy me.

Looking back at the past year, my quest was to embrace the change and find love tucked in my heart that I somehow lost a few years ago following my divorce. As I write this, the sunshine that peeks through the curtains reminds me of the good days ahead … Sometimes you might ask yourself, “Why do I go through all these challenges and trials.”

Then I realized, I was providing support to a dear friend and his wife who too had breast cancer. At the end of the call, my friend asked what I did differently that brought me out of the fear zone and into the warrior mode.

There was a pause then I answered, “It was my choice to either let life happen to me or pray for God’s wisdom to make the right decisions and be proactive in my healing journey.”

We have a blind faith and maybe it is important to be faithful, but the truth is that healing does not happen by doing nothing. It takes bold faith and action. It requires discovering who you are and finding your way.

You can choose to find your calm and your anchor. You can choose to stay positive. You can also surround yourself with women who have been in your shoes and could give you solid advice.

There is an amazing level of inner strength that you feel coming from these warriors. They might be fragile and petite, but they are strong.

Every day is a battle. But we have a choice to make things happen every day. We can look at our life as an opportunity to grow even when it hurts, or we can give up and not care.

So, let’s highlight some things you must become to get through any life challenge, especially breast cancer.

Being a strong woman is more than being a female version of a Roman Gladiator. There is nothing that can be compared to the strength you find when cancer attacks your body and you learn to love yourself even more. Being strong is the only choice you have and first you will cry, break down, fall apart and then you will gradually put yourself back together. Every day I would affirm I choose life. Because tomorrow is not guaranteed. You give the best to yourself first.

Speak your desires into existence. Speak healing and love into your life. That is where your strength is hidden. It is the power of your words that changes your mindset, changes your energy, and changes your life. Those words can bring peace or cause stress.

The first time I came to Dr. Whitworth’s office, there was a poster on the wall about managing stress. 

 was an amazing way to identify where you were on your healing journey.

Gratitude has led me to experience more love and the hardest thing I had to do was to learn to accept love as well. Many strong women often do not know how to love themselves fully and they have a hard time accepting love and care from others. Often it is a cultural thing or a family thing. In my Russian culture, women were taught to never complain and take care of their lives. We were taught to survive and get through times of crisis with a smile.

When you learn to accept love, you will feel worthy. And when you feel worthy of being loved and appreciated for who you are, your life will change. Your transformation will happen fast when you learn to accept love and love yourself. Because everything you will do in your life will come from the place of love for who you are, including your healing, your relationships, your career, and your business. Everything will change.

Allowing others to help you and accepting care and love is something I had to learn in the past few years. You want to be Wonder Woman, ready to take on any challenge. When you agree with the idea that having help is totally cool, you finally realize once you accept love you can give more love back into the world. Your heart is finally healing and everything else falls in place. You are more motivated to do things you have delayed for a long time and you are motivated to change your lifestyle.

Good support system and solid medical team

I have been very blessed to have an amazing surgeon. He is an incredible doctor who has been a big blessing in my life and has encouraged me to practice mindfulness and work on reducing stress.

I am grateful for my friends that provided an amazing holistic health education.

I am grateful for my church friends who supported me in so many ways. I am so grateful for my dear friends who reminded me how strong I was and who prayed for me and my healing.

I am grateful for my book agent Julie who inspired me to write and share real life experiences.

I am grateful to my sons who are my rock and joy. They are my miracles. They are my true loves.

I am grateful to my parents from whom I have managed to hide the truth about the breast cancer diagnoses for many months and finally gave in and revealed the news. I am grateful they stayed calm.

I am grateful for this journey and for my life.

Are you grateful for your inner circle? Make sure to tell them today.

When you truly embrace your strength, find gratitude and self-love and surround yourself with loving and positive people, magic things can happen.

Tatyana Gann is a publicity strategist, mindset coach, writer, lifestyle advocate and breast cancer thriver. Her aim is to inspire women to tell their story to heal their mind and body. Tatyana resides in Nashville with her two sons. You can follow her on Instagram 

Looking to change your mindset when facing down breast cancer? Here are 3 hacks to keep you calm and happy. 

3 Mindset Hacks That Can Keep Women Facing Breast Cancer Calm and Happy

Once I called cancer “chocolate,” but it laughed in my face. Later, I got sweet revenge. Here’s my story:

I was diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer in December 2014. I didn’t feel much differently, and my health was consistently good. My PSA numbers were excellent. I felt a little cocky and double-dared cancer to come back.

In the summer of 2015, I suffered a recurrence and couldn’t bear to hear, or utter, the word “cancer.” Even seeing it printed on the page made me feel nauseous.

I decided to counter-attack, belittling cancer and calling it “chocolate.” I even instructed my family to follow suit. Surely, they must have thought I was a little nuts, but God love ‘em, they did grant my crazy request.

“How’s your, uh, ‘chocolate’ treatment going?” they would ask.

Aww, denial! I’m not the only cancer survivor who has used it as a crutch against the sobering reality of our disease. In a 2019 interview with CBS This Morning’s Gayle King, the superstar Olivia Newton-John was asked how she was coping with her breast cancer diagnosis. “Denial really helps,” she said congenially.

Denial brings a breathing spell, as we survivors try to get our hands around the gloom-and-doom of a cancer diagnosis. Denial places us into a welcome holding pattern. Denial, like chocolate, is, well, delicious.

My flirtation with the word chocolate went on for well over a year until a therapist at my Gilda’s Club support group called me on the carpet. Cancer, she argued, was an indisputable fact and no amount of denying would make it go away. “Face it,” she said. “You’re living in a fantasy world.”

I was stung by her bluntness. She had burst my bubble and there was no turning back. I was caught in cancer’s crosshairs and could no longer deny it as my constant companion. Perhaps I could reach out directly to cancer and establish a peaceful co-existence.

But first, I needed to get a load off my mind.

 “Cancer, let’s have a little chat.”

 “OK, Cancer Boy, what’s on your small mind?”

 “Hmm. You jumped when you first heard my name.”

 “I’ll begrudge you that. Most times, I block you out.”

 “I keep popping back up. Never let you rest.”

 “Liar. I’m the king of your nightmares!”

 “Then why did you deny me and call me ‘chocolate’?”

 “To buy me some time. Temporarily. Some peace and quiet. But you love to create chaos.”

 “Cancer Boy, you’re whistling past the graveyard, so to speak (snickers).”

 “Maybe not now. Wait ‘til I start spreading.”

 “My treatments stopped you dead in your tracks.”

 “OK, ‘temporarily—,’ your word. Go stage 4! Go stage 4!

 “Pipe down! OK, blood tests and scans do get me sweating.”

 “Finally, you admit that your ‘scanxiety’ kicks in. What a great word. I thrive on it.”

 “You’re a bully and you don’t define me. So, how about a truce?”

 “Hell, no, I’ll never let my guard down. I shall not be denied, you fool.”

 “No, no, don’t say that. It cuts me to the core. Stop it!”

For once, I had cancer on the ropes and reveled in it.

My biggest takeaway? Cancer can never be “delicious,” but remission is. I’ll be celebrating my perfect-score 0.00 PSA with — what else — a chocolate sundae!

Ron Cooper writes about cancer, caregiving, the novel coronavirus and aging at RonCooperAuthor.com. Cooper recently unfriended cancer on Facebook.

I suffered a recurrence a few years ago and couldn’t bear to hear, or utter, the word “cancer.” So, I decided to counter-attack by belittling the disease and calling it “chocolate.” Then, I got my sweet revenge.

Chatting with Cancer and Getting ‘Sweet’ Revenge

The call that raised the hair on my arms, which is the one I least expected, came at 7:30 a.m. during a sales meeting.

It was during the spring in 2007. At the time, I sold real estate for the Hilton Corporation. I remember the morning vividly. That Tuesday, the sunrise shot pinks and purples across the sky as I drove the 15 miles to work.

I wasn’t in my chair for more than a few moments when my phone rang. Caller ID showed it was Karen, which the sister next to me in age. Karen is the organizer, the accountant, the person who delivers all the news, good or bad, to our large family. I wondered why she was calling me. “This can’t be good,” I can remember thinking. I stepped out of the conference room to take the call.

Karen’s voice was thick and deep. “Pamela, start praying for Claire right now. She’s in the ER and not doing well.”

Before my sister called me, I knew something was happening with my eight-year-old niece, Claire, because my brother, Dan, had called questioning me about my eye disease.

I was born with Brown syndrome, which is a rare condition that affects the muscles in my head. I only see with one eye at a time. Dan mentioned during that call that one of Claire’s eyes would not focus. However, I was born with my disease, and Claire’s was recent. Dan and his wife, Colleen, had taken Claire to an ophthalmologist, but the doctor had no explanation for her condition.

Then shortly after that, Claire started falling. She was such a clown though, everyone thought her behavior was her being a silly eight-year-old, and that her stumbles and spills meant she was kidding around. Dan and Colleen called her an “oops” child. They had no intention of having a fourth child but when Claire entered the world, with her brilliant blue eyes and sunny disposition, she had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand.

That morning, as I stood in the cold hallway at work in Orlando, listening to Karen who lived in Boynton Beach, Claire was having seizures in a hospital somewhere in Dallas.

“Pamela, she may not make it out. They are removing fluid from her brain now,” Karen said. Her words sounding far away and echoey.

A few days later, Claire was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a highly aggressive brain tumor, also known as DIPG. If there is such a thing as worst of the worst cancer, this is it. DIPG grows at the base of the brain stem, which controls many of the body’s vital functions such as breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. This type of cancer is inoperable because of its location in the brain. Treatment is not for a cure but to give the patient more time. Claire was given six months to live.

Claire was taken to every doctor and clinical trial possible.

But ultimately, her little body could not rid itself of the tumor that raged in her. She went to heaven on December 6, 2009. No parent should ever have to endure losing a child to cancer, or any way. I couldn’t imagine if it were my son, James. I struggled with how to console Dan and Colleen, so I did what my mom taught me, and I prayed.