Welcome to My New (Cancer-Related) Blog!

Hello, and welcome!

I didn’t touch my website during my treatment for ovarian cancer from October 2018 – April 2019. It was far outside the realm of what I was concerned with at the time.

A few months after treatment, I went back to look at it. It felt like a relic from my past, and not who I was anymore, after what I’d been through and all the ways I’d changed. So one day that summer, I met up with a friend at a coworking space where she belonged, and I revamped my website to reflect my new focus, and so it would feel like it represented the current me, and not some old, outdated version from my past.

At that time, I detached my blog from my website. I’d written there about writing, and my life before cancer, and I didn’t relate to it anymore. Also, I’d been very unhappy for years before my diagnosis, and those blog posts were written during times of extreme emotional pain and struggle. After cancer, I was clear that I didn’t want to return to my pre-cancer life; I wanted to start fresh. I also didn’t want to write about the same things I’d written about before my diagnosis, or in the same way. So I unlinked the blog that didn’t feel like me anymore, and let it float freely on the internet.

I’ve documented my experiences with cancer—and now life after cancer—on Instagram. And after a years-long hiatus, I returned to Medium shortly after COVID hit, where I’ve written about my experiences during this pandemic. But I’m starting this blog to have a place for my reflections and resources specifically related to cancer, which includes navigating survivorship and all its challenges.

A little over a year ago, I went to an oncology social worker at a cancer nonprofit to help me with the difficult transition from cancer patient to cancer survivor. At some point during the intake process, they specified that this type of therapy was to be used solely for addressing issues related to cancer. To which I responded: “That won’t be a problem for me because EVERYTHING in my life is related to cancer!”

I am a cancer survivor so my whole life now is filtered through this lens. At the time that I signed up for therapy with that oncology social worker, I was looking for work after not having worked for about a year during and immediately following treatment, and wanted to make changes to my career. I was trying to figure out how to integrate back into a world I hadn’t been happy in before my diagnosis. I did not want to unconsciously slip back into my old life; I wanted—and needed—to make deliberate, intentional changes. All of this was informed by my experience with cancer.

Physical fitness, mental health, self-care, and staying on top of the many doctors appointments, tests, and checkups that were now a permanent part of my life—they all tied back to cancer.

A far-off thought—Will I ever date again? What is my relationship to dating and relationships now?—even that was colored by cancer.

This blog is going to be about my life, which is, inextricably, life after cancer. It may be front and center at times, and at others recede to the background, but it’s always there, woven into my experience and who I am.

Thank you for joining me here! Is there anything specific you’d like to see me write about on this blog? (Cancer-related) topics you’d like to learn about, resources that would be helpful to you? Please let me know in the comments!