2023 – a nine year wonder

While walking through the woods with friends on New Year’s Day, the topic of Pookaride came up. It has been several years since I have written on the blog. My life has been full of many things, and thankfully, cancering has not been one of them. However, The World has experienced a collective ride on…

An update on my new boring life…

My writing on this here blog seems to come to a standstill – languish, and then sputter and start up again for a brief sojourn. This is one such sojourn. In December it will be five years since my breast cancering diagnosis, that arbitrary border of the recurrence danger zone.  Though of course there are…

Recurrence, an Oncoming Train?

(Disclaimer: Many of you know that I just visited my oncology team last week- Just so you know, all tests came back normal. I continue to have no evidence of returning disease. I am feeling happy, humble and very grateful for being in this place in this moment.) I have thought of western treatments like…

What you need to know about Existential Suffering

Pain and Suffering are different things. This is something I have pondered in superficial ways at times. After reading quite an amazing post, Pain vs Suffering: Why they’re not the same for Patients, on the blog Heart Sisters, my mind is whirling. Carolyn Thomas’s well researched article explains so much.  Though she is a longtime cardiology patient, her insights…

Beyond Awareness Month: Lessons from the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909

What follows is an account of the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 as it might relate to Breast Cancer Awareness month. In late September 1909 some brave women, seamstresses actually, organized a general strike that pulled in over 20,000 garment workers.  They were fighting for safer working conditions, a fair wage, regular working hours, and the…

Any way you slice it, the fiscal realities of cancering

Let me start by saying I am immensely blessed. That even though the financial consequences of my cancering extend into the foreseeable future, I get just how lucky I am. I get that the good fortune is inclusive of my financial picture. Despite the fact that my healing sabbatical led to taking on debt to cover my lost wages,…

Portals to ALL ONE!

Recently I connected with a another blogger, after words on her blog sparked a chord within me. She got me to thinking about how our actions and choices and approaches impact others – often inadvertently. Arriving at work today, still thinking about her post, a convertible pulled up beside me with the radio blaring, it was the…

On the Emotional Aftermath of Mastectomy.

This is another post from the draft vault. Written May 2014 a few weeks after my mastectomy and never posted. Though I have written more on the theme of this piece since 2014, I post this now, at the two year anniversary of my surgery, in service to all those who are wrestling with their own feelings either in the…

Using Integrative Medicine

Some books that may lead you to some resources for more integrative, or even an alternative approach to addressing cancer. Click here to go back to the main library.  

The Ocean Within – Part Three

This is part three in a series about the lymph, it deals with some of the ins and outs of lymphedema.   Click here to read Part One-Yin Magic  about the lymph as divine feminine & Part Two- Watersheds about the correlations between the Earth and our bodies. Part Three – Eating Rats The lymph system is…