The emotional fallout of cancer takes a heavy toll. Experiencing your feelings in your own way, at your own pace, can be a challenge.
How to Cope with the Pressure to Be Over Cancer
Tag: tram flap reconstruction
Are You Rushing Your Body to Heal?
Mending from cancer and its treatment takes time. It's not always easy to let your body set the pace for recovery.
Telling the Truth About Reconstruction After Breast Cancer
"She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon." Groucho Marx It's not easy to walk into a plastic surgeon's office for reconstruction after breast cancer. On my first visit, I sat in the waiting room and fumed. All around me were glossy pamphlets and posters promising "enhancement" and "transformative" procedures that would [...]
How Have Your Scars Made You Who You Are?
Life leaves scars. From skinned knees to surgical wounds, we all have a scar (or two, or three...) And that's not counting the emotional scars we've earned in the trenches. How have your scars made you who you are? I'll share first: 1. My father grew up in New York City playing stick ball in [...]
Look Good … Feel Better
As a graduate of Look Good ... Feel Better, I want to share this with you because I've experienced the power of LGFB. Initially, I didn't think it would help me feel better because I didn't have chemotherapy or radiation. I felt ugly when I looked at my naked body, which no amount of make-up [...]
Still Reflecting: Find Out What I Impulsively Did to My Plastic Surgeon View
Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. Ernest Holmes Many weeks a theme just organically presents itself to me. This week, it's happening again. As you already know, Sunday was the third "cancerversary" of my mastectomy and TRAM flap reconstructive surgery. Having "the emotional memory of an elephant," I [...]
Mindful Monday – Take Action!
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. Thomas Jefferson We all know that going through the diagnosis and treatment of cancer changes you forever. Our bodies, minds and psyches are irreparably scarred in ways it takes years to understand. We've lost jobs we loved and friends [...]
Running on Empty – Coping with Cancer Stress
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus
Where We Go Now 