THERE IS NO CURE FOR CANCER

I've been writing about Pinktober since I started this blog in 2011. See 2011's The Hunt for Pink October, 2012's Six-Word Memoir, 2013's Pinktober Preparedness, 2014's Sugarcoating Cancer. (For more about the Pinktober phenomenon, last October I compiled a list of posts written by my bloggy BC friends; click here for a good read to go with your coffee this morning.)

This "Pinktober 2015," I'm writing about Metastatic Breast Cancer. 

PHOENIX, RISING

Lisa Bonchek Adams was like a phoenix, rising.

(Copyright Lisa Bonchek Adams)

She was a beacon of honesty. The transparency in her blogging was unsurpassed. 

She wrote in great detail about her life with metastatic breast cancer — the good, the bad, the ugly. She wanted — needed — to tell it like it really is. Like it really was. Like she really felt.

She didn't sugar-coat s#@%. 

She wrote bluntly, bravely, beautifully...

CYBER SUPPORT

My first blog logo, circa April 2011

It's been nearly three years since my first blog post hit cyberspace. It was April 2011, and I was in the thick of my frustration, anger and sadness following a breast cancer diagnosis. If I didn't write down what I was feeling, I thought my head would explode. Blogging became a natural way for me to process my cancer "situation."

I wasn't always aware of what I was dealing with; enlightenment often came after I hit the "publish" button. Writing is weird that way...

A BLESSING AND A BLUNDER

© Emma Keller

Once there was a writer named Emma Keller who posted a very disruptive article last week on The Guardian  website about a highly regarded breast cancer blogger named Lisa Bonchek Adams. (I have written about Lisa many times on this blog.)

The article in question has since been retracted by The Guardian "pending investigation" — but you can find it here! (Oh, the wonders of the internet, where nothing ever really disappears…)

Continuing on...

2013 REVIEW

2013? That was so yesterday. 

It was a year in which I wrote 30 fewer blog posts than I did in 2012. The year I forgot my diagnosis anniversary. The year I started focusing on other stuff. Stuff I haven't felt a need to write about. And that, my peeps, is progress. (For me.) 

I did review the 50 posts I managed to pen in 2013, and found a few snippets to highlight here...

JEN "JELEBELLE" VENNES

(Copyright ©2013 Jennifer Ledda Vennes/Keep the Calm)

The breast cancer blogging community has lost another wonderful woman, wife, mother, blogger to the scourge that is breast cancer — Jen "jelebelle" Vennes. She was 39.

Jen penned the supremely well-written, super honest, often raw and always inspiring blog, KeepTheCalm. I'd been following her story since Spring 2012, when she first wrote about the chemo drug Navelbine (something her nurses jokingly referred to as "navy bean"), which was part of the trifecta of chemo drugs she was desperate to have work...

3 REASONS FRIENDSHIPS FADE POST-CANCER

(Copyright © 2013 The Big C and Me)

I wrote a blog post back in January 2013 about how our relationships change at various points during our cancer treatment, how the demands on our time changes, and how this can leave us feeling invisible. It struck a chord with many, so I thought it might be important to post again. Maybe you (or someone you know) can relate...