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I spent four days at Canyon Ranch Tucson for the PVOLVE Strength for Life retreat. PVOLVE is a fitness methodology that has become a vital part of my life and an underpinning of my survivorship. I reflected on all of the elements of this weekend and how they relate to survivorship, mine and yours. And here’s the thing… there were many tangible items like clean eating, smoothies, juices and ginger shots. There was cold plunge and sauna and Ammortal Chambers. There was an endle

Before I detail out how I prevented side effects from radiation I have to make one thing clear: I am a skin care expert and snob. I held an esthetic license and spent twenty years working in medical aesthetics, so how could I not be? And in full disclosure, the majority of the products I used to prevent side effects are from a company called Avene, a company that I worked for nearly six years. I used to recommend these products to patients when I was in practice as an esthe

Added 3.2026

The name of my business, RISE, is a reflection of a mantra I heard during a meditation session early in my diagnosis. Somewhere in the fuzzy days between the discovery of a malignant tumor in my rectum to my first rounds of CT and MRI imaging, I sat down with a meditation app to help keep my mind from running into a wild abyss. I don't remember many details from those days, but I do remember being struck by four simple words the narrator spoke during that one meditation sessi

They say it is always darkest before the dawn. I’m banking on this to be true. Today is July 10, 2023. This is the first day in 40 days that I feel that a return to normal life is possible. I may be jumping the gun here, as I haven’t written about the lower anterior rectal resection surgery I had in April, or my life with an ileostomy for eight weeks. I have been consumed with the recovery from the ileostomy takedown surgery that took place on May 31.

It was early October of 2002, when approximately eleven days after my radiation treatments were completed and I stopped taking capecitabine pills, that my body began to rebel. Small little red bumps began to appear on my arms, my lower legs, and my bottom. At first they were small, almost like the little, unpoppable zits one gets in her teenage years, but they quickly grew. In the course of a day they multiplied, getting larger; tender, oozy centers were surrounded by 2 inch

My first day of radiation was August 24, 2022. That morning, I bravely got up, took a shower, did full hair and makeup and anxiously went to the bathroom to take my very first dose of 3, capecitabine pills. Ever since childhood, I have had an extreme fear of vomiting. I am afraid of feeling sick and throwing up. I am also terrified of other people being sick. The capecitabine pills made me so nervous as I knew that nausea and vomiting could be a side effect, I just didn’t kno