Jane Biehl Ph.D.

Success with new treatments helped me realize I need to reinforce to myself and to other cancer survivors that hope is just around the corner when we least expect it.

Recovering from cancer and its aftermath is like grief; always changing, undulating and rippling like a tide.

I am thrilled to be enjoying a respite from chemo but afraid to be happy. How can I process this scary new freedom?

Cancer survivors have tremendous issues and fears to go through after an initial diagnosis. Don't add to your distress or lose sleep over self-blame.

My animals have taught me how to accept aging and managing the side-effects of chemo with dignity, as well as how to enjoy naps without feeling guilty.

If we are honest, I think most of us wonder deep down if we are going to live long enough to see the next grandchild, attend an important wedding or anniversary, or finish a project.

I keep fumbling and dropping lids to water bottles and other items. When I climb the stairs to my apartment, I often feel like I am going to fall backwards and grab the rail. If I go out in the cold air, my fingers tingle for hours afterwards. What in the world is wrong with me?

I am a person who always was able to sleep and would generally be out before my head ever hit the pillow. Now I found myself tossing and turning for hours at a time.

The show, “New Amsterdam” features a medical director of a hospital who has cancer. He talks honestly about his cancer journey. One of the statements he made to a colleague was, “Cancer changes everything – and nothing.”

Winter can seem dreary sometimes, but there are benefits to the season, too.

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.