I’ve survived the army, cancer… and being hit by lightning. My strength comes from my story, and I can’t be killed by conventional means.
READ MORE >A month of kind, sympathetic, yet relatively passive conversations passed until the wake-up call: I was the only person who could make change happen.
READ MORE >I remember sitting on the sofa with my cat and feeling as though the new uncertainty in my life surrounded me, like dust floating through air lit by a bright sunbeam.
READ MORE >In my son’s Bar Mitzvah speech, he mentioned that I had never complained about my diagnosis and that when he visited me in the hospital, the nurses had told him many times that I was one of their most upbeat patients.
READ MORE >Running a marathon is recognized as the No.1 cancer survivor cliche activity globally. I have a competitive streak and figured why not try it myself?
I was curious to see what all the hype was about.
There’s a Zen Buddhist saying that goes “No Mud, No Lotus.”
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow something beautiful. This wisdom helped me trust the process, even in the darkest hours of my life.
Cancer tried to take me down quite a few times, confirming I was able to fall down seven times and rise eight.
READ MORE >Since I have the privilege of being Not Entirely Dead, I want to advocate for this community. I started NED to help these survivors find agency to move forward with their lives again.
READ MORE >Cancer survivors: you are champions. You've already conquered fighting cancer, the toughest job in the world. You are not strangers to rejection. You know better than anyone how to fight and get knocked down and get back up and fight again.
The unwanted experiences in our lives are usually the most difficult to communicate. It wasn't the cancer that gave you this Super-Ability and general badass-ness. It was the fight against it that taught you to cultivate "soft skills" from hard experiences. The people and organizations you admire deserve to benefit from your competencies.