Category: Living With Cancer

So much of the narrative around cancer is about the battle. We are encouraged to fight the cancer, starve the cancer, battle the disease. People generally refer to the cancer like some outside invader, an enemy to be thwarted and victory thereafter declared. But it is not some foreign invader, it arose out of my…

Teddy Ryder was born in 1916, when type 1 diabetes was 100% fatal. I often think about him when I think about having stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which has only slightly better odds today. When Teddy was diagnosed with diabetes, patients were treated with a starvation diet which did not cure them, but which sometimes…

When I was first diagnosed I mourned my ability to exercise, something I love very much and which has been part of my daily life for a long time. I was thrilled when my oncology team encouraged me to continue and said that it would help a lot with my treatment and side effects but…