rethinkbreastcancer.blogspot.com

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: good riddance, 2011!

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2012/01/good-riddance-2011.html

Sunday, January 1, 2012. Good riddance, 2011! I typically imagine my life- not as a linear strand of events- but rather a complex, landscape of varied terrain. This year, and its subsequent foray into the world of cancer, required some real trailblazing on my part and I found myself donning a new lens through which to view my life. Breast Cancer Survivor Extraordinaire. However, this year will also be remembered as the year I gained greater perspective, finally learned patience, developed greater control...

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: the bald and the beautiful

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2012/01/bald-and-beautiful.html

Monday, January 2, 2012. The bald and the beautiful. Chemo is one of the most dreaded words. There are no positive associations that immediately leap to mind upon hearing the word, "chemo." The word evokes images of emaciated, wearied cancer patients devoid of hair and exuding a sense of utter exhaustion. Gaunt and pallid, their faces haggard and drawn from sleepless nights and varying stages of malnutrition; dusky semi-circles clinging to the underside of blood-shot eyes. I remember my chemo nurse, the ...

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: laugh.out.loud.

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2012/10/so-cancer-without-doubt-was-such.html

Monday, October 29, 2012. So cancer, without a doubt, was such a frustrating experience with which to contend. I've mentioned before how irritating it was to feel like I had gotten myself pointed in the direction I wanted to go only to have cancer waylay me. No one likes feeling powerless and I least of all. The Universe foisting this trial of cancer on me with absolutely no input from me, mind you, was almost too much for this headstrong Hollie to bear. Peace was sometimes just not to be found. But one ...

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: treatment....

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2011/08/treatment.html

Monday, August 22, 2011. Despite my unequivocal trepidation regarding chemo, as I have mentioned more than once, the process was actually surprisingly anti-climactic. As is often the case with our fears, it was an experience that equated to a fraction of what my expectations hitherto had been. Hey No complaints here. Thank God for small favors. :). One day fled into the next and with relative speed, accumulated behind me becoming part of the rich fabric of my mortal experience. Is what chemo felt like.

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: storms and strength

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2012/10/storms-and-strenth.html

Tuesday, October 30, 2012. Sometimes there are such devastating things people endure and we watch from a distance wondering, "How on earth do people go through that? We watch widows mourn their late husbands. We see individuals live with disabilities. We see cancer patients looking pale and bald. But they do. We. We endure. We adapt. We forge a new existence sans partners. We learn new ways of living without the abilities we might have once taken for granted. Because each of us is. But, unlike a store of...

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2011/08/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

Saturday, August 20, 2011. That's a loaded word. One that elicits many emotions:. Insert virtually any of your own negative adjectives). I became familiar with the descriptor, 'a treatment worse than the disease.' My mind formed a conclusion that suffering from cancer and living seemed oftentimes to be only marginally better than dying from it. I was young and it was a formative time for me. I mean, what thirteen-year old girl is rational anyway? So, when my oncologist, the illustrious Dr. Elizabeth ...

longlivetheladies.blogspot.com

Long Live the Ladies: a letter to cancer

http://longlivetheladies.blogspot.com/2011/06/letter-to-cancer.html

Monday, June 20, 2011. A letter to cancer. I've given you a lot of thought lately; it would really be impossible not to as you have endeavored with great success to encroach upon my life- attempting to rob me of opportunities, peace and time. Ahhhhh, but you have greatly underestimated me. ;). I am stubborn. Some might call that a detriment, but I know it for the fortuitous blessing that it is. A lot of traits fall under the umbrella of, "stubborn," chief among them:. But I think you underestimate human ...