Reading Time: 2 minutes Why? That’s the question in some form or another I have asked since December 6th, 2023. Getting diagnosed with cancer, let alone kidney cancer at the age of 32, wasn’t on my bingo card to start out 2024, but here we are. Here we are indeed. The group of misfits that range from the young to the old. However, being a “YA” brings with it a unique view. You’re old enough to just be able to see the horizon of your life before your eyes, but young enough to not want to see the end quite yet. What deck of cards were you dealt?   I have been told by many folks in the ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes As a stage 3A melanoma skin cancer survivor, I’ve learned valuable lessons about self-advocacy during my journey. Looking back, there are two critical points that underscore the importance of advocating for your own health. Childhood Trauma and Fear of Doctors My relationship with doctors and hospitals began early. Losing my father to multiple sclerosis (MS) when I was just 12 years old left a lasting impact. Hospitals, once places of hope, became triggers for anxiety. Consequently, I avoided checkups and family doctors out of fear. My young mind concluded that doctors ..read more

Reading Time: < 1 minute It was a day I’ll never forget, marking the one-year anniversary of my diagnosis with Polycythemia Vera, a day that seemed cursed with cruel symmetry. Pulmonary hypertension. The words hit me like a freight train, a second blow I never saw coming. Walking into the doctor’s office, I braced myself for bad news, but nothing prepared me for the emotional onslaught that followed. My mother who only has one leg, usually my rock, sat beside me, her face a mask of despair. Her distress only amplified my own confusion and disbelief. Despite her hysteria, I remained outwardl ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes When I was 19 years old, I was diagnosed with Type 2/Stage 2 Hodgkin Lymphoma on June 3, 2016. My life and health was about to take a 360 turn. I honestly never thought I would experience cancer being so young. I had so many plans, goals and dreams for my life that I wanted to pursue in my future.  My symptoms first began on April 24, 2016. My oncologist called us and asked if we wanted to meet in the hospital to talk about everything from my symptoms, biopsy, and PET scan; to be clear about my health and what was going on. So, my mom and I planned to meet them on ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes No chance I was expecting the words, “Nitya, these lesions in your abdomen seem like cancer masses,” when I went to the doctor for a stomach ache. Though I was sick on and off for the past 2 months, and I knew deep inside that something was wrong, this wasn’t the news I was foreseeing. For a person like me who likes to plan everything in her life, this wouldn’t have been on my list for another 500 years. Yet, here I am, talking about my cancer journey 10 months later. I took a quick look outside of the window. It was an ordinary Wednesday morning and the world out there ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes 2020 was by far the worst and scariest year of my life. We were all affected by it in some shape or form. While I understand that COVID put our lives on hold, it was the least  of my worries. To tell you the truth, I struggle to have feelings of sympathy whenever people would say that, “it was a terrible two years.” While the hardship that the pandemic demands from us has taken a toll, the self-isolation and quarantine we all endured is just incomparable with having cancer on top of that. These experiences are nowhere close. This is not to undermine the adversity t ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes This weekend is another milestone in my breast cancer journey. I’ll be cancer free for two years. Queue the celebration music and gifs. These milestones always give me a reason to pause and reflect. I’d like to share some of my reflections with someone who can relate. I don’t personally have someone like that in my life, which I know is a good thing even though it’s difficult. Two years ago I still had my own breasts. Two years ago I still had my ovaries. Two years ago I was bald, and the last time I had hair it was long and straight. Two years ago I finished chemo, and ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes I always thought I wouldn’t make it to 18, wouldn’t make it to see myself graduate, never go to college or have a family of my own. An enemy was coming for me ready to take me down. I truly believed I would lose the fight, but I didn’t. I won the battle against cancer, and now I look back knowing it was never the end. As people, we aren’t always ready for new chapters to begin. The anticipation can be too much to handle. Sometimes we think our previous chapter would have been our last, that our story would end. When I was diagnosed with stage 4 Ewing sarcoma, a rare and ..read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes My name is Erin Coffman, and I am a sixth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health. My career in cancer prevention research began almost ten years ago when as a Master’s student in Exercise Physiology, I had the opportunity to work as an exercise interventionist on a clinical trial at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC). This was my first hands-on research experience and an up-close glimpse into the numerous issues that survivors face during and after treatment ..read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes I was 35 when my first symptom showed up. I was 36 when I was diagnosed, and 37 by the time I did my very last treatment. It all happened over the course of 18 months in the middle of 2018 to until the beginning of 2020. I tell people it’s like Ripley’s wax museum, believe it or not but what I’m about to tell you is true.  I was diagnosed with an extremely rare subtype of melanoma that makes up maybe 1 to 2% of all Melanoma, and with an average age of diagnosis is 70. I was half that. I ended up doing multiple surgeries, targeted radiation, the latest in immunother ..read more