As you read this we are hiking in the Allegheney Forest in west Pennyslvania.  Hoping for sunny, mild autumn weather.  As I said Friday, we will be celebrating an important anniversary of Tish’s birth.

We cancer survivor’s have own own anniversaries, called cancerversaries.  If you lucky and had a marrow transplant, you even get to have an actual extra birthday.  So today I want to republish a post by Charicie Steuble, a thyroid cancer survivor two years out.  She writes at Charlcie

My Second Cancerversary

First, what is a cancerversary? Some say it is the day you were diagnosed. Some say it is the day you get the “all clear” from cancer. I subscribe to the “day you were diagnosed” theory to mark my cancerversary, especially since I’m still not “all clear”…but that’s another story.

So it’s my 2nd cancerversary. I’m OK with it. Just let me be a little angry at the cancer. I’ll be fine…really.

~ Charlcie

1st day back at pre-school

Disability woes

Sorry I have been away from the computer for a while.  Came down with another viral thing – just a bad cold but without a fever.  Still it slowed me down.  I figured out that my new job – working at a gourmet wine and spirits shop a few hours a week – is mainly for my mental health.  Unnum, the insurance company that I receive my disability income from, figures this is a good time to do a complete review of my case.  I spent an hour in a phone interview with a nice-enough “case specialist”.  The company wants to make sure that I am able to live up to my full potential.  Working three hours three evenings a week pouring wine at the tasting bar has sent up a red flag from them.  Of course I only make 1/3 per hour and 8% a year of what I would be making if I were able to work full-time in my chosen profession, nursing.  And I have had to call in sick a number of days since I started work three months ago.  They plan to contact all of my physicians and get back in touch with me.  I guess they’re just doing their job.  It’s a reasonable enough request.  Yet somehow I sense that their primary agenda has more to do with their financial health than with my reaching my full potential.  I’ll keep you posted.

New thyroid blog

Another email from a new blogger:  Hi,
My name is Ann Dunlap, and I’d like my blog to be included on your wonderful website.  It’s a thyroid cancer blog, and the link is:   Strong in Weakness, Glowin’ in the Dark
I really appreciated finding your website today, as I’ve been recently diagnosed, and looking for anything I can find.

Author, Richard Schimmel, dies

I heard on the news today that Richard Schimmel, author of Cancer on $5 a Day, died of injuries sustained in a car accident.  His book was reviewed as our January Book Club selection.

Site plans

Plans are coalescing for streamlining the look of this site.  I want to put more focus on the Cancer Blog List as it is our most used resource.  I am working on ways to make it easier to navigate.  Coming it soon will be a couple of book reviews.

Here I am writing from my son’s living room in Boston.  The twins are asleep.   I have been reading books about web design, HTML, and CSS alternating with John Irving’s new novel Last Night In Twisted River. Many ideas developing for Being Cancer website in the coming year.

But  what readers are due for is the week’s Guest Post.  Today I looked to the thyroid community for inspiration and soon found my answer.  This week’s guest blogger is a survivor of dual cancers, thyroid and breast.  She writes at Painting 2 cancers .  In this post she offers a lively clarification of just what cancer has done for her approach to life.

~   Aside from fear, chaos, doubt, stress, grief, anger, a changed body, disorientation, confrontation, a sense of loss, loss of people I thought were friends, loss of people I thought would be there for us …. ? The list is long, but I’ll cut to the chase: (Some) people ask whether the experience has changed my outlook on life. No, it hasn’t. I was living quite aware before. It has given me the courage and the strength to act upon that outlook though, to actually do something in going after what I feel is important, to find my people. I’m no longer such a procrastinator at life. I go for what I want (to do), I’m much more selective with the company I keep. I drifted further away from family, but it’s okay, I no longer feel that responsible for contact gone awry, I feel that’s a good thing. I’ve learned to forgive, because I do not want to fret or use up my energy thinking about what went wrong, what I or someone else said wrong, to feel angry or bitter. I’m getting to know my strong points and my pitfalls. I’m getting to know some old patterns I seem to be repeating in my contacts with my doctors, but they’re also happening elsewhere. The latest one is pretty big: if I turn to you for help or support, if I come to ask you something and you ignore me, dismiss me, patronize me, turn me down or away, I will-with loads of pain&frustration, don’t get me wrong!-do it myself, I will not give up until I can solve it myself or until I find someone who can and will help+ I will never turn to you again … That mechanism seems to make me (even) stronger as a human being, it allows me to take good care of my body/myself and I hope I will be able to do that for my life-time!-I can see it now: I will be a long haired, grumpy, tenacious, feisty old woman -I think that, from now on, I will trust those old processes. I think that they make/made me a survivor. So what did these two cancers give me other than …? My two cancers have set me free to celebrate my life!

from: Painting 2 cancers