Love and Cancer
LOVE and CANCER SERIES: Deb & Joel
How are thrivers, survivors, and previvors navigating their relationships?
March 9, 2023
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How are thrivers, survivors, and previvors navigating their relationships?
There is still this lack of addressing medical history, passing general history, and education from generation to generation. We are still in the early awareness stage in some Asian communities when it comes to women’s health.
How are thrivers, survivors, and previvors navigating their relationships?
“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
The most important lesson I’ve learned in being a breast cancer survivor is that I can do things on my terms and define what survivorship looks like for me.
When you finish treatment, no one really speaks about survivorship. There is no road map or guide.
I am self-conscious of certain things, no matter how strong I may appear.
Having a community of people who knew exactly what I was saying about my symptoms and did not try to comfort me with toxic positivity was what meant the most to me.
I know you want to give me the advice you’d give anyone else – to slow down, be mindful, plan, save, and focus on healing. I don’t want to hear that. I want you to recognize that I am grieving and moving forward all at once because I have no choice.
I was diagnosed at the age of 28. At the time of my diagnosis, my husband and I had only been dating a little over a year. There is nothing that could have prepared us for a cancer diagnosis. We went from figuring out what the future had in store to being forced to deal with the realities of our “right now.”
