I came across this while cleaning out some files of resources I had collected for my book. It made me smile, and I thought it might make you smile too. I don't know who Paula is, but if someone does, I'd gladly give her credit. Never a Bad Hair Day Posted...
We’re not the same as we used to be.
Those of us living with a disease have the fantasy that the medical community can wave its magic wand, and we’ll be back to where we were or even better…
“How Are You Doing?”
It’s such a simple question…until it is no longer simple.
People like me get caught up in the complexity. Trying to read the face of the asker, we wonder what they really want to know. A sliding scale from one to ten? Physically or emotionally? Generally or specifically?
There is a moment between the adrenaline of diagnosis and the weariness of treatment when the reality of our disease sets in.
I've been quiet lately, as life has given me room to be pensive. It's hot in Florida, and just like northerners stay inside during the winter, Floridians stay inside during the summer. I've gotten a lot of cleaning and organizing done and even had time to work on some...
My heart froze with the phone still in my hand. The text was from a dear friend of mine, a presenter at my first writer’s conference. A mentor of my poetry, he endorsed my second book. Now, he texts that he’s been diagnosed with bone and blood cancer. He’s just at the...
In my book, Suspended: Living with Dying, I talk a lot about not only how we are handling our life-altering diagnosis but also about how others around us are. Just as we are unique, they also are, and no two situations are exactly alike. For example, I recently got an...
Sure, I had been sick most of January and February. And he had just gotten out of a week at the hospital that I hadn't known about. I guess I hadn't seen him since before Christmas. But I hardly recognized him. He was a shadow of the man he had been. I don't know how...
Writing a friend or journaling has many benefits when facing stressful times. I know for some, it is difficult. Flashbacks of grade school writing exercises of 5-minute speed drills paralyze the pen. The fear of spelling errors, incorrect functions, and...
I recently received an email from a friend who has a 1 ½ inch tumor in the back of her brain. They think it is benign but still want to do surgery. She has opted to wait and see if it grows since the recovery time would be substantial and the quality of life not...
This is something I wrote a few months ago, remembering back to a critical time in my cancer journey: Few of us ever have the experience of hanging between life and death. We don’t want to. We want to feel as if we will live forever and never have to see death. And...
Wouldn't you know, just about the time you think you are free from what ails you, you are not! For some, it's a relapse of cancer or MS or something really serious. For me, it's just been this nasty cold/Covid/now back to the cold-type thing. And it just reminds me of...
I've done my time in the Covid lockup and am feeling better. I've been ill most of January and early February. As each wave hit, I took it in with grace, knowing there was little I could do to fight it. It's just been good to sit on our back porch, to breathe in the...
Sixteen years ago, I heard some of the worst news I could ever hear. The doctor told me I had "incurable cancer," the kind that takes your life in a matter of weeks or months, not years. So what did I do? I went shopping. Each one of us has our own personality, and...
I keep hearing online about people who choose a word for the year. I’ve never been good at it, either trying too hard to get the perfect word that I run out of determination or picking one but forgetting it before the month ends! This year, however, a word just kind...
Christine Wook – Unsplash
Maybe you are not the one running around wildly during this season. Perhaps you are the one trapped in illness. Maybe you are struggling to find anything good about the world while everyone else passes you by. I’ve been there – in the hospital room, knowing it was...
There is so much to remember during this season – gifts to buy, people to greet, houses to clean, food to make. It can be overwhelming, even for healthy people. But let’s not forget the people all around us who are not in the flurry of the holiday. In fact, a lot of...
Five weeks until Christmas! Let the panic set in! I used not to be bothered when Thanksgiving was over, and Christmas was around the corner. I had already thought of gifts and had a plan. And even if I was cutting it close, I knew I had the energy to make it happen if...
In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. As with most things in current politics, it’s become a hot topic, like we’re fighting between settlers and Indians all over again. But I think for most people, it’s a time to take a step back, think about what we are grateful...
Why Me? The most common question I hear when it comes to aging and disease is, “Why me?” I guess I want to turn the question on its head, “Why not?” We all know we are going to die sometime of something. We may question the timing but not the result. We tend to...
So, you may be wondering, who is this person who wrote a book? If you have read Suspended, you know a little about my story, but let me introduce myself a little more than the “author’s blurb.” I am a real person living in Florida, near the “Space Coast.” (And yes, I...
By Maggie | May 14, 2014 | Maggie's Blog I haven’t posted since the end of February – what happened to March and April? I’m just about ready to begin round 8 of chemo…and this is beginning to look as if this is my life…for now. Rounds 4 and 5 were hard as my immune...
By Maggie | January 22, 2014 | Maggie's Blog I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks, which is a good thing. I enjoyed my week of rest, which included tests and doctor’s appointments. The number that had gone down from 1.2 to .5 remained at .5 after this last round. I...
By Maggie | January 4, 2014 | Maggie's Blog When is not blogging a good thing? When you are feeling so good that you are too busy to blog! It’s been a really full holiday season. Taking me off the one drug could not have come at a better time. I felt as if I was fully...
By Maggie | June 12, 2013 | Maggie's Blog I just got back from the cancer doctor with some good news! The bone marrow biopsy came back negative, not showing any cancer. The doctor made sure I didn’t get too excited – it doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer, it just means...
