Moms Alive!

We know. We know when something doesn’t feel right for our families. We know how to listen to our hearts to make decisions for our children. We are mothers. We have maternal intuition.

But do we always know how to make the right decisions for ourselves? More…

I should have known something was wrong when I started looking like a model during pregnancy.

“Your face looks so thin,” my good friend Heidi told me when I was about 5 months pregnant.

She was right. My usually rounded face had hollowed out to showcase what were for me rather dramatic cheekbones.

But I was eating well—copiously, in fact. One of my co-workers joked that I looked like a construction worker, lugging my big red-and-white cooler into the office every day. I was choosing all the right foods: spirulina-charged protein shakes, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and lean meats. I was always hungry, but I wasn’t having those infamous cravings that you hear so much about when you’re pregnant. No ice cream and pickles for me. No junk food.

I told myself, “You’re eating so healthily—all of your nutrition is going to the baby.”

This was one of those reassurances that you tell yourself before your diagnosis. When things don’t quite add up or make sense anymore but you try to make sense of it all anyway. Because who would think that you’d actually have cancer? When you’re just 30 years old. And about to have a baby. More…

My name is Jeanne Elium. I am a mother, a grandmother, a published author of four parenting books, a gardener and a zealous lover of the Earth. I had just turned 52 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Here is my story:

The lump was long and torpedo-shaped. I kept checking it, thinking that the next time I felt for it, it would be gone. You know how you do, assume a magical-thinking kind of strategy? I have always been healthy, just your common childhood illnesses, colds and flus, allergies, occasional sports injuries, and a knee surgery or two—never anything life-threatening, just uncomfortable. I discovered a rather snobbish (or naïve?) belief that I would never have cancer! More…