Moms Alive!

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance. It’s easy after you get a cancer diagnosis to turn to extremes. I experienced this early on in my cancer journey, as I tried to read every book I could get my hands on about nutrition and cancer to give myself the best possible odds of beating this disease while undergoing chemotherapy. The end result, however, was that I put a lot of undue stress on myself during an already stressful time. Ironically, while extensively researching what I should be putting into my stomach, I got an ulcer!

I’m not saying that being concerned about nutrition during and after treatment is in itself a bad idea. It’s a great idea. I’m just saying that when you are in the midst of such a crisis, it’s easy to overdo things—and it’s not always clear when you’ve gone too far. More…

It’s official: I have now been cancer-free for one year. I observed the anniversary of my last chemo session on March 23 casually, but meaningfully, surrounded by my family, a good friend and some tasty Indian takeout.

While I now have a healthy head of new hair and am feeling 1,000 times better than I was one year ago, that period of intensity and insecurity doesn’t seem that far away. I am still that woman who was sick as a dog, and I have the scars—both physically and emotionally—to prove it. To disown her, to “other” her, as though she were some skeleton in some distant closet, would be dishonest and destructive. As I discuss in my blog entry this month, “A Sense of Wonder,” being present in this moment requires the integration of that recent past. More…

In this month’s interview, “When Your Best Isn’t the Breast,” clinical counselor and lactation consultant Cynthia Good Mojab discusses the tendency of our culture to not allow enough time for true grievance. She’s talking about this specifically in relationship to mourning the loss of an expected breastfeeding experience after cancer diagnosis, but I couldn’t help but think about all the other losses we endure, whether a way of mothering that we had held dear but can no longer sustain, a sense of faith in the infallibility of our physical beings, or the very parts of our bodies that had once provided nurturance to others. More…