The CancerLand Bookshelf: A Taste of Caregiver Poetry

Posted January 18th, 2012

The sun is shining brightly for a wintry day in mid-January, but the wind is howling and the temperature’s dropping. So it seems like a no-brainer to stay home and work on indoor projects today.

CancerLand Bookshelf: When My World Was Very Small: a memoir of family, food, cancer and my couch

Posted December 7th, 2011

How’s it going?” I ask the teenager sitting across from me. I choose my words carefully before speaking them aloud. Consciously avoid saying how are you? Or worse, how are you feeling?

Greetings from CancerLand: Plastic Surgeon Photo Shoot

Posted August 1st, 2011

Alysa Cummings is a certified poetry therapist who focuses her energies full-time in support of cancer survivors using writing as a tool for healing.

Greetings from CancerLand: Sometimes I Almost Forget

Posted March 11th, 2011

Alysa Cummings is a certified poetry therapist who focuses her energies full-time in support of cancer survivors using writing as a tool for healing.

Greetings from CancerLand: Old, She Said

Posted March 1st, 2011

Saturday around noon there was a traffic jam at the Acme; a noticeable back up of shoppers heading southbound down aisle 5, right by the pretzel and candy displays (bags of Hershey miniatures on sale; two for six dollars with Supercard). All because of a slow moving senior citizen using her wagon as a walker, […]

CancerLand Bookshelf: The Summer of Her Baldness

Posted December 30th, 2010

Twelve years later and not much has changed. Not much. Not really. Starting with the entrance. He knocks twice, opens the door and hurriedly strides into the examining room. His energy speaks volumes (Places to go; patients to see. So many patients; so little time. ). I am sitting there, a veteran oncology patient, waiting […]

Greetings from CancerLand: The Last Noel

Posted December 7th, 2010

Alysa Cummings is a certified poetry therapist who focuses her energies full-time in support of cancer survivors using writing as a tool for healing.

A CancerLand Holiday Wishlist…or Please Help Me Get Through the Season

Posted November 22nd, 2010

Holidays can be happy, happy, merry, merry or holidays can get on your last nerve. You know what I mean? Honestly, it’s true. And trust me, cancer may have very little to do with it. The season that starts with Thanksgiving and climaxes with New Year’s Day can drain anyone dry, even if you’re in […]

CancerLand Bookshelf: Her Doctor Prescribes Dancing at Daybreak

Posted November 16th, 2010

I hate patient intake forms, don’t you? Here’s what bothers me: Typically, these forms are delivered to us attached to a clipboard, by a harried front desk person who is busy juggling incoming phone calls and insurance co-pays. These forms have way too many spaces to be filled in. Empty places for the basics: name, […]

CancerLand Bookshelf: Songs from a Lead-Lined Room

Posted November 5th, 2010

Memoirs lined up on the CancerLand Bookshelf are often filled with powerful life lessons, painstakingly learned on the long journey to recovery. Last week, almost twelve years to the day after my own cancer diagnosis, I faced up to a daunting challenge that helped me finally make peace with my biggest cancer-related loss to date. […]