Six years ago, I found myself seated in a wheelchair, weak and afraid, reckoning with words that would eternally mark my life as divided into “before” and “after.” Stage III Bone Marrow Cancer. The diagnosis hung like a weight in the air that I could neither lift nor escape. I was a retired Maxillofacial Trauma Surgeon who had spent more than thirty years caring for thousands of patients, mending broken bones and mangled faces. I thought I understood medicine. I thought I knew what suffering was. But nothing prepares you for that moment when you become the patient. If you are reading this now, having just been diagnosed and searching for something—anything—to make sense of what is happening to you, I want you to know: I understand that terror. I know it well.
Read moreCategory: Compassionate Voices Articles and Blog
Compassionatevoices Articles and Blog
Life After Cancer: The Milestones No One Talks About
At the end of my treatment, I was expecting some sense of relief or presence coming out the other side. Instead, I felt utterly confused and lost. There was a nice path to follow up to “remission,” but there’s so much more to that. Here’s what I learned about the milestones we go through on…
Read moreWhen Cancer Becomes a Spiritual Crossroads
When Cancer is a Spiritual Crossroads, I didn’t give my faith much thought until cancer forced me to. Some find God in their diagnosis. Some lose Him altogether. I have learned that both are valid, and the trip from one to the other is rarely straightforward. When the physician first said “cancer,” my knee-jerk reaction…
Read moreThe Power of Mindset: How Your Thoughts Shape Your Cancer Journey
When I received my cancer diagnosis, I discovered something that decades of surgical training hadn’t fully prepared me for: the profound impact our thoughts have on how we experience treatment and recovery. Through my own journey and in supporting countless others, I’ve witnessed a fundamental truth—the quality of your life after diagnosis depends largely on…
Read moreWhen Joy and Fear Occupy the Same Space
You now understand that joy and fear can coexist, and you have decided to feed joy. You feel this truth the most on a Tuesday morning in your oncologist’s office. Not only that, but you’re sitting there shaking in fear while you wait for test results. You feel terrible in your stomach. And then you…
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