Jennifer Goodman Linn You Fearless

Monthly Archives: June 2007

06.26.2007 Posted 7:38 pm

June 26th –Vain yet Honest

Cancer has made me confront many things…my fears, my insecurities, my perseverance and my strength. I find that throughout this experience, I am pretty happy with how I am dealing with it. However, I am learning certain things about myself that I really don’t like. For one, I am very vain.

I remember when I was first diagnosed 2.5 years ago, I told my Doctor, “OK, the drugs you put me on can make me fat OR bald but not both!” Sure enough, my first round of chemo, I lost a lot of weight and had great wigs so I embraced being bald. This time around I was warned that the chemo drugs might make me swollen or bloated. I reminded Dr. Maki “fat or bald…not both!” Well, slowly but surely, the drugs started to do their thing…and I noticed that my shoes were tight and my clothes were snug. I was so upset!
When I visited the Dr. last week for my treatment he looked down at my ankles and couldn’t …

(Please read on...) Read More

06.10.2007 Posted 6:58 pm

June 10th – Celebrating Life Beyond Cancer

Survivorship has been a movement that has gained great momentum over the past few years. The Lance Armstrong Foundation donated over $1million to MSKCC two years ago to kick-start efforts to start examining “survivors” – how they adapt back to life – physically and emotionally. Just the fact that survivorship is now something to focus on shows how far cancer research has progressed. It used to be that most people died of cancer so there was no reason to spend resources thinking about life beyond cancer. Thanks to advances in medicine, this is no longer the case. More and more energy is being put towards understanding how to “track” the health and well-being of survivors 5, 10, 20+ years beyond cancer. What side effects or health issues tend to linger? What are the psychological side effects that cancer introduces to a patient over time? The hope is that this effort will allow oncologists to not only treat a diagnosis but also treat a patient over their lifetime.

Last year, I was …

(Please read on...) Read More