WE CAN ALL BE ADVOCATES I have worked in a number of different positions over the years, but my most recent one – as an ovarian cancer research advocate – is the one I have worked at the longest. During the spring of 2006, as I finished my 9th cycle of chemotherapy for stage 3b [...]
RETURN FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON We all have dates in our lives that we celebrate - or at least dates where we pause for a moment to remember what set it apart from any other day: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, children's births, the loss of a loved one, college graduation, etc. For those [...]
LIVING IN MY MEMORY Originally posted at ASCO Connection on 9/29/2017 Starting a new job is always stressful – the move from one institution to another, getting hospital credentials, obtaining provider credentialing for various insurances, meeting new staff, and adjusting to a new work “culture.” Having done my share of moves, these are nearly universal [...]
LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD In January 2006, five months after my diagnosis, I wasn’t really sure what my future would hold. Would I be able to finish all the chemo treatments? Would I be able to travel to all 50 states in my lifetime? (A personal goal of mine.) Would I be able to [...]
A MESSAGE FROM DR. LARRY MAXWELL As a gynecologic oncologist, my life is similar to others in my profession and involves clinical activities, administrative obligations, education related responsibilities and research efforts. After losing my grandmother to ovarian cancer several years ago, I recognized an opportunity to diversify my contributions to my profession further through advocacy. [...]
PHANTOMS Originally posted on ovariancancerisnothing.wordpress.com I've felt all the pinpricks in the last two weeks, piercing and throbbing from things no longer there. I keep wondering if it's the way I've been sleeping on my side or because we reinstalled the three-inch memory foam topper we haven't used in two years. When I called my oncologist's [...]
REGAINING CONTROL THROUGH KNOWLEDGE Like so many other baby boomers, I was raised by parents born in the 1920s who believed that there were certain authority figures you did not question - parents, teachers, doctors. These were experts and you accepted what they said without question. When I was five years old the doctor said [...]
THINKING BEYOND RIBBONS: HOW THIS TEAL GAL SURVIVES PINKTOBER When I returned to work in late 2004 after first-line treatment for ovarian cancer, a coworker said to me, “Welcome back! You’re wearing the wrong ribbon—it should be pink.” I remember thinking, “How presumptuous! Like women don’t get other cancers.” In retrospect, it was the first [...]
RAIDHO I’m of Scandinavian heritage and I’ve always been fascinated by old Norse mythology and the old alphabet called runes. When I was diagnosed with cancer I adopted the Norse rune “Raidho” as my personal symbol and the phrase “we can’t always choose our journey . . . . but we can choose how we [...]
MIRRORS AND WINDOWS A few weeks ago I read this quote by Rudine Sims Bishop. “Books are sometimes windows, offering views of world… When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror… Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.” I started to [...]
