Stage 4 Cancer

Cancer. ♋ No, not the zodiac sign, the disease that accounts for millions of deaths per year. In 2020, cancer accounted for nearly 10 million deaths worldwide according to the World Health Organization. That’s a lot. Cancer in basic terms refers to cells that grow out of control and invade…

Cancer Does n’t Wait For Covid In the midst of the pandemic, the prognosis for newly diagnosed Stage 4 cancer patients became even more dismal than usual. Tragically, this proved true for my beautiful sister, Amal. The consequential delay in diagnosing Amal’s cancer metastasis due to prioritisation of Covid-19 patients…

Becoming a chemo sherpa wasn’t something I was looking to do, it was just something I fell into during my own chemotherapy. This isn’t an official role. You can’t apply for it and I sure as hell never referred to myself as one out loud. …

The dreams of our future, retiring, golfing together, walks and hikes and going to the gym together, trips we might take, watching our kids graduate and get married, maybe one day becoming grandparents. Every single thing we ever had is gone now. All the trips, the plans, vacations, chores, to-do…

She entered the clinic today with tears filling her eyes, And stared in silence as if tomorrow’s sun won’t rise. I tried to inquire and find the main reason behind her cry, But she remained silent and responded only with a deep sigh. A sigh that reminded me of one…

“If life was any better, I’d have to be two people.” Those are the words I heard from my Dad every day of my life. I heard him say it when I was four years old and we had moved to a tiny house in Logan, New Mexico where he planned to make a living as a dryland farmer. I heard them again in 1973 when I was thirteen. The bank was taking the farm…

I have been sitting ringside to my mom’s cancer treatment for Stage 4 adenocarcinoma now for 40 days. I am here to tell you something that may surprise you. Cancer treatments are the fricking Wild West of Western medicine. It’s a frontier town. It’s not something you can bank on…

Right now it’s November 23, 2019. I am in Lynchburg, VA. It’s cold, wet and dark outside. This morning I drove over to Wards Road, to the Walgreens Pharmacy. I was picking up a wheelchair for my mom who is undergoing treatment for Stage 4 Cancer. Today though, she has…