Jane Biehl Ph.D.

Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "My Shadow" reminds this cancer survivor about her diagnosis.

I laughed after I put my soiled laundry in the wastepaper bin in my bathroom instead of the laundry hamper. When I told my oncologist, she didn’t think it was funny at all.

While getting old and being ill can both cause a person to slow down, they are not the same thing.

I usually got the infections first, so my oncologist loaded me up with antibiotics and off I went. She knows that not going would cause such a depression that I would be worse.

After being diagnosed, my first inclination was to to go to my bedroom, put my head under the covers and ignore the world. Fiends kept calling me and I ignored the calls. Finally, I answered the telephone in frustration.

I know my life will never be the same again. I will not ever be well or free of chemo and treatments and shots and blood counts and bone marrow biopsies. I have slowly become used to my new way of life.

Planting a tree can be a wonderful and lasting way to honor a survivor or a loved one who has passed.

Sometimes the days may be cloudy when we hurt from the chemo and side effects, but there is enough light to keep dancing.

Many people seem programmed to think negatively, but we need to change that.

In our lives before cancer, we have several avenues for our energy including family, work, school, volunteer work and on and on. We were able to juggle it all. But after a diagnosis, we need to choose one or two passions and let the rest go.

It may take some time, but finding the right oncologist can be like striking gold.

People may tell me that I look good, but I don't always feel that way.

Patients with cancer are often asked when they’ll be done with chemotherapy or treatment. Those of us with blood cancers and bone marrow type of cancers such as aplastic anemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, lymphoma and leukemia, along with a host of other cancers sadly have to say, “never.”

Often, it is the nurses who hold the hands of the patient who is extremely ill in critical care or dying. It is the nurses left to comfort the grieving families after the devastating loss of a loved one.

Many patients with cancer know of the importance of stepping back and enjoying the little things in life.

It dawned on me that even when I am going though horrible chemo, I feel better when I can be outside in the summer. I enjoy sitting in a lawn chair out in front and chatting with the neighbors.

By cancer standards, 104 months is a long time, but for me, it flew by. As my oncologist has said about all of her patients, it is never long enough. I always want to write more, do more, travel more and live life more.

Sometimes going through cancer makes a person want to scream, and sometimes, it should be OK if they do.

We stumble, we fall, we hear the cancer may have returned, we wait for tests to come back and we have rough times along the way. We need to learn to walk, whether we are limping or not.

Americans have a lot to learn. We need to embrace the importance of not always talking, but of touching. I have been so lucky.

No phase of life is totally good or bad. There is always rain.

Yes, I have a great admiration for the Olympic athletes who fall and get right back up. I know they have to wait another four years. But the cancer survivors I have met on my journey who fall and rebound are real heroes to me.

Yes, some of it is. For years before chemo, I have gone into a room and forgotten why I was there. I have never been good with names, and it has gotten worse. But chemo fog is different.

While hearing loss may not seem as major as a cancer diagnosis, patients and physicians should pay close attention to it, as it can drastically affect quality of life.

Our lives are broken up after a loss, but eventually the pieces are put back together. The hard part is that the new pieces can make a totally different picture.

We don’t need to move mountains, build a house or even clean out every closet in one day. Sometimes we just have to clean one shelf at a time, put one foot in front of the other and remind ourselves that is enough for today.

Sometimes a kind gesture can mean the world to someone going through a tough time.

I feel like the Giving Tree. I like to give, but some of my energy and ability to assist were taken away, not by a boy, but by a disease with consequences.

In the movie, Charlie Brown was asked what his New Year’s resolution was. With typical candor, he answered that instead of dreading the whole year he was dreading only one day at a time.

Cancer changed my life for the worse, but it also opened me to many new experiences I would never have had without it.