Weekly Round-Up

Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the 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. Don’t forget if you have written a post which you would like readers to see, just leave a comment below. 

Greetings from my beautiful retreat in Lake Worth, Florida where I am spending a few days relaxing with friends before flying back to Ireland tomorrow. I come here for rest and restoration and I have had this in abundance this past week… the lovely sunny weather sure helps!

Not knowing what to say to someone about their difficult news? Why do we tend to turn this into a problem? Thoughts from Karin on how sometimes not knowing what to say is ok.

Jen is attending the HealtheVoices conference and reflecting on resilience, vulnerability, and truth.

Such a great message from Janet this week

The Western World is so obsessed with not dying that we sometimes forget to live. Knowing how best to keep our bodies healthy is important, but at some advanced age we should stop worrying about lifestyle elements that aren’t perfectly healthful, stop intrusive testing for things that **might** kill us, and just focus on living as well as we can given our circumstances.

Chris has returned from a trip to Palestine and Jerusalem, to spread the word about simPal and Chris’s Cancer Community.

Jo shares her experience attending ESMO17 conference last year with lots of good information on the latest breast cancer research.

Interesting thoughts from Susan Rosen on whether celebrating a birthday when you have MBC is tempting fate?

Catch up with what’s been happening over at The Underbelly with Susan’s review of the week.

Allie reflects on her third-year cancerversary – and Kathi shares super advice on what to discard and what to keep from the perspective of a ten-year cancer survivor.

A thought-provoking post from Barbara on respecting each other in the cancer community.

Helen shares her experience of undergoing intensive physical therapy recently.

If you are trying to make the decision about whether to undergo a breast reconstruction after a mastectomy, read Terri‘s latest post on aesthetic considerations. See also Helen‘s post on nipple reconstruction.

Becky navigates the health system as she continues to take care of her Mom.

Claudia is celebrating the start of Spring in her neighborhood.

Wendi muses on the “uncomfortable amount of parallels in the political activism world to CancerLand” in her latest blog.

Sending good thoughts Audrey‘s way as she awaits surgery.

Juliet writes of the experience of chemo-related hair loss in her latest blog.

Nancy has a review and book giveaway on her blog of Dancing with Breast Cancer:  A Memoir in Poems by Janay Cosner.

A reminder from Sue of the importance of cultivating gratitude in our lives – a similar themed post on the Cancer Carer Chats blog.

If you’re based in the UK, aged in your 20s, 30s or 40s and have experienced a cancer diagnosis, join Shine Connect 2018, the UK’s only conference for young adults with cancer. The conference is open to any young adult with cancer, their family/partners and healthcare professionals.

Finally this week, I leave you with a beautiful reminder from Connie of the precious gift we offer we each other when we take time to honor our stories:

The need for our stories to be heard is universal, and listening is the one true gift we can give to one another.  Whether in our everyday lives with our families or the people we work with, or our extraordinary days of being on a journey and encountering a stranger, we will make the world a better place by listening to each other’s stories.  Sometimes we’ll need to wait patiently for them to unfold.

Until next week,

May we take care of  our stories and each other,

Yours with much love

Marie xxx