Friday Round Up

Time for this week’s round-up of my favourite BC Blog Posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and which I’ve wanted to share with you. Remember, if you have written or read a post recently which you would like me to share with readers, then leave a comment below. __________________________________________________________________________

Nancy Stordahl, a former guest blogger at JBBC, has been writing about the changes wrought in her post-chemo body when she looks in the mirror. In Post-Chemo – Who Is That in The Mirror, she writes of that sense of loss, introspection and vulnerability in a moving post which will be familiar to anyone who has walked this same walk. My only advice to Nancy is that the memories fade and this too shall pass. Soon she will be dealing with her chemo curl, her hair will gradually grow back, and she will move through these stages we all have done, or are doing, and emerge a stronger woman from it all. She will one day look back at this time and marvel at her strength and what she has been through.

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You will always find much to inspire you at Kim’s Ponderings Beyond Breast Cancer, and this week, Kim is pondering a line from the book now a Hollywood movie Eat, Pray, Love. The line in question “At times in life, a person has to go through the moat before reaching the castle” reminds Kim of our journey through and beyond breast cancer.

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Living with metastatic breast cancer is not something I have personal experience of, so I haven’t written about it on the JBBC blog, but I would love to hear from any reader who would be interested in writing a guest post for me. In a post entitled Living with cancer is different from living after cancer on the Kevin MD blog, Dr Edward Pullen reflects on this reality for  his wife, who was diagnosed with stage 3C cancer of the ovary a year ago.

Meanwhile, I was uplifted by the words of Debra Strauss, a mets survivor of 18 years and her practical down-to-earth approach on the Living Beyond Breast Cancer blog. She has something to teach us all!

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I was pleased this week to be able to contribute a post to the Cancer and Careers website. They have some terrific resources on their site and lots of support and practical advice on work related issues for those with a diagnosis of cancer.

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 A new breast cancer awareness campaign has been launched by online magazine website NZGirl. The tagline of the campaign is “I’ve got a lovely pair” and asks readers to upload pictures of their breasts – healthy, young breasts one assumes. The writer of A lump in the road writes a great post on the insensitivity and downright offensiveness of the campaign and refers to the online debate on its appropriateness which had ensued. I would love to know your thoughts on this subject too.

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During the week, I reposted a link to an older blog post Clearing Life’s  Everyday Haze, and in reading the comments, I was stopped in my tracks by one from Susan, another former guest blogger. Susan writes that ” Every moment is a gift. Nothing like a good wake up call to remind us that we are only here for a moment in time” and tells us that her daughter died when she was 12 years old, two years after Susan’s treatment for breast cancer. She shares with us a beautiful poem which her husband wrote at the time of their daughter’s death. Please take a few moments to read this and honor what Susan has written.

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Finally, Terry Thompson contacted me this week to let him know about his blogs at www.terrythompson.org. Terry is a cancer co-survivor, having lost his wife of 33 years to  the disease. He has established a cancer research foundation in her name, the Connie Thompson Foundation. He writes in his blogs about the state of America’s cancer treatment and his pursuit of a new treatment strategy.