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 [...]

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, [...]

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. [...]

After my first cancer surgery, I woke up hungry. Ravenously hungry. Give-me-something-to-eat-now-or-else hungry. The way my stomach was growling, you would think that I had been fasting for weeks, and not just since midnight the night before being admitted to the hospital. But now it was after 5 pm, I was out of recovery and [...]

The CancerLand journey is made up of moments.  Strange moments.  Defining moments. Once-in-a-lifetime types of encounters, often intensely traumatic experiences that mark and change you:  physically, emotionally, spiritually.  Forever it seems. Ask any cancer survivor.  Some will say it’s the moment of diagnosis – the day that a doctor says those life-changing words, I’m sorry, [...]