On Resilience

Not Black. Not White. Just Gray.

It’s a peculiar time. The pandemic, while still real, no longer poses a crisis situation for most of us. By no means is this true for everyone; cancer patients, their families, and caregivers continue to be at serious risk. It’s just that the hysteria surrounding COVID-19 in earlier months has waned as the world now…

The Strength of Surrender

The days begin on a bad note. I’m annoyed by all matter of people and things: my son for stomping around the kitchen late at night and leaving a mess of pots in the sink; the clean laundry that sits in a towering heap waiting to be folded; and the public speaking career I’ve worked…

Choose the Sun, Not the Surrounding Storm

The sun shines nearly every day in Denver. It’s what drew me here 13 years ago after losing my first husband, Brett, to brain cancer when our twins, Rebecca and Casey, weren’t even 3 years old. I needed the sunshine to heal then—and I need it now. The sun is more powerful than cancer, and…

When The World Spins, A Small Gift

I believe in the power of words. The written word and the spoken word. This why I write and speak and coach others to write for a living. Right now, amid all the uncertainty and fear surrounding COVID-19, the written word has the ability to offer a sense of relief and control. Ample research shows…

When Nanoseconds Count

In some ways, the sheer busyness of parenthood was a blessing because you have no choice but to be present when comforting a tiny baby. There’s no room for the merry-go-round of fear and projection that accompanies a cancer diagnosis in such moments; there is only the baby in the crook of your arm. Life must be lived now.

Holding Joy and Pain Together

Cancer caregivers live in the already and not yet. We live in between joy and pain, remission and recurrence. We know any moment can shift us from one side to the other. May 21, 2001, began as the most joyous day of my life. That’s the day I became a mother. I had twins, a…

Living with Cautious Optimism

When your loved one is diagnosed with cancer, and life seems to throw you one bad turn after the next, hope can seem elusive. For me, the randomness of my husband Brett’s medulloblastoma diagnosis, which typically affects children ages five and under, was devastating. We had no idea what to expect, how could we? There…

Caregivers: Don’t Go it Alone

When a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, how do we as caregivers live? Seeking that elusive answer nearly leveled me in the early months of my husband Brett’s brain tumor diagnosiswhen he was diagnosed at 32 in 1998. The sheer volume of medical appointments both overwhelmed and saved us. We had so much to…