Over the years I have written quite a bit about my experience with lymphedema - secondary lymphedema, from surgery for melanoma skin cancer. Lymphedema (lim-fa-DEE-ma): lymphedema is a lifelong condition caused by a buildup of lymph fluid. This happens when the lymphatic system is either faulty or damaged and cannot function as normal. It leads to chronic (long-lasting) swelling in the tissues where the lymph flow is blocked.*  I've dabbled in pursuing treatment for it, but will admit I have not yet established ongoing management of it. Still on my to-do list. Mike also has lymphedema, f ..read more

Well... honestly I'm not even sure where to start with this one. I've frequently reported how I tend to find myself in interesting situations at the most interesting times. Today is no different! And now Mike and I are "in it" together ?  We have landed on the cover of a magazine! We did submit ourselves to this - after several months of viewing non-local families being featured in our residential-neighbourhood magazine available in print and delivered to our mailbox monthly, we decided to put our voices to task and contribute to the local publication and share our family story to save th ..read more

Claire and Cass came to visit us in Prince George BC! The main annual holiday celebration for the three of us girls has always been New Year's Eve (in addition to our birthdays - we declare holidays on those days too ?). Family fun NYEs being a lifelong favourite of mine, I passed down the tradition, and this year, we were reunited for bringing in 2023. Travel was involved - the girls made the trek from Toronto on the two flights it takes to get here, including "the propeller plane" that Claire hasn't been super impressed with the thought of since I moved to the wild northwest. They arriv ..read more

Note from a reader: Enough gallivanting around Natalie, get back to work!   OK, back to work I go - I have cancer to write about, experience to share, fellow patients and warriors to help through their crappy time the way others helped me through mine (and still do).  Earlier this year I wrote about my most recent surgery (not cancer-related), and the results of that - not anemic anymore - good stuff! But there is more... I have learned a lot in the past couple of years about my health and options. Thanks to a move in provinces, I basically qualified for a whole new round of Phy ..read more

Among my BC-travel highlights are the times I have had the privilege of meeting people who I think are pretty neat. Of course family and friends rank at the very top of my neat-people list! But there are some additional folks that have touched my life that I'd love to mention here, in the name of blog-updating and British-Columbia-life-sharing.  For years I have been honoured to meet, travel, and work with many of our absolute stars in melanoma skin cancer treatment in Canada, namely from Toronto, Edmonton, Victoria, and Vancouver. Last year I even got to pop down to the Okanagan to ..read more

Another check mark on my "wow I never thought that could happen!" list - we went to the Yukon. Commonly known here, the Great Northern Circle Route can be traveled in either direction. We went from PG up to Dawson Creek and north to Fort Nelson, Liard River Hot Springs, then Watson Lake (Yukon), then back down the Stewart-Cassiar highway through Jade City, to an overnight in Stewart and then down and back across through Smithers and hwy 16 eastbound home. We did it in nine days, though really we could have spent weeks and taken more time to go farther north and/or to poke around more at all ..read more

Over the last few days (months) I've been toying with how to title this particular blog - it could easily be "The Evolution of the Journey I Didn't Plan to Take... Ex-Motherhood, Melanoma, and still no Maserati" LOL  but I'll go with the move to BC header. :-)  I do recall earlier this year promising to blog more - a promise to myself as much as anything - and here we are, a bit late but it is still 2022 after all. A health update from that same promising blog - I am happy to report that since hysterectomy and (occasionally reluctantly) increasing my iron intake, I have been determin ..read more

As part of UV Awareness Month, we are excited to announce the launch of The Skinopathy Podcast on Spotify and iTunes, a four part series on Sunscreen, beginning with Part 1 – Skin Cancer has no Caché – featuring three guests including me, from Save Your Skin Foundation. Listen to our thoughts as we discuss the culture of Skin Health. In the meantime, make sure your skin is properly taken care of during these sunny months! Click here to listen on Spotify - and iTunes !  ..read more

For years Claire and Cass were by my side for awareness events and opportunities when we would share our story about how I was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, and how it went from there for our family. Especially with Save Your Skin, we did many video and print advocacy pieces, often making the trip from Meaford to Toronto to meet with journalists and crews, SYSF staff, the La Roche-Posay team - anyone who would listen, really! - to raise the profile of skin cancer and the importance of early detection. The three of us were a melanoma-awareness-posse! And we had some great media hits in ad ..read more

A few years ago I posted about finding this group called Save Your Skin Foundation (SYSF), founded by BC-based melanoma survivor Kathy Barnard, and all about how Kathy and the SYSF team helped me through my cancer experience.  (Click here for a quick re-cap: "Queen's Park Yesterday") Since that time I volunteer-blogged for SYSF, and was a Spokeperson for them at Ontario events and then nationally, until I felt well enough to go back to work, knowing I needed to do something meaningful with my career and help others the way SYSF had helped me. I badgered Kathy into hiring me part-time as a ..read more