“My Voice” by Susan Rafte
It is hard to believe that it has been 15 years since my status changed to Cancer Survivor. That moment in time is as vivid to me as other remarkable, tragic moments in history that I have lived through. The clarity of my memories of ‘where I was’, and ‘what I was doing’ when the […]
“My Voice” by Lindsay Reakes
My cancer journey…and nightmare started in 1999. I was 16 years old and invincible. I had rocked the SAT’s after being the only person in my school to write them and I was offered softball scholarships in the U.S. to play college ball. I hadn’t felt like myself all year, but any doctors I went […]
“My Voice” by Carey Weiner
June 25, 2007, I thought I was going in for a routine Mammogram, Ultrasound and MRI right before my 35th birthday, due to breast cancer running in my family. Little did I know it was the day that changed my life forever! I had known that there were issues in my family, my Grandmother and […]
“My Voice” by Jerry Kelly
My first contact with cancer was losing my grandfather to colon cancer. I can still remember my dad struggling to tell me of the diagnosis. The word survivor was never mentioned back then. Thirty years later I faced the same struggle telling my daughters that their grandfather had brain cancer. My dad fought strong for […]
“My Voice” by Jillian
My experiences with the most profane word in the English language, “Cancer” has given me a life that I truly appreciate and it is because of that ”C” word, that I now live each day with special meaning and purpose. There are experiences in life that test the very fiber of your being, for me […]
“My Voice” by Lora Lee Boynton
I am not a cancer survivor – I am a Cancer Warrior! ‘It is cancer I’m afraid.’ My surgeon laid his hand flat on his desk like a silent gavel coming down following a verdict. Having already had cancer as a young girl, I never thought I would hear those words again. I had done […]
“My Voice” by Andy Anderson
The one phrase that defines me more than any other is ‘Cancer SURVIVOR’! It’s that simple – but behind that simplicity lies a rather complicated story. I was diagnosed with seriously-advanced Testicular Cancer on 16 May 2000, just 3.5 months short of my 51st birthday. My cancer had spread from the testicle – a grapefruit-sized […]
“My Voice” by Ria Vanden Eynde
I’m surviving two cancers, thyroid and breast. They were diagnosed about nine months apart. The thyroid cancer was found after my physiotherapist, working on my shoulder, told me to have my thyroid checked because it felt swollen to her. For a long while, I thought it might be a benign thing, not needing intervention up […]
“My Voice” by Ian Broughall
It was on the 13th of June 1985, and I had made a brief appointment with Doctor Dixon in The Brighton Hill GP Surgery (it is funny how clear all of this still is). Just to have a quick chat. I made the first appointment at 9 a.m., because I had a very important business […]
“My Voice” by Ron Sparks
The scariest words you never want to hear are “Mr. Sparks, we don’t know what that mass is in your neck and it may be malignant.” That sentence turned my life upside down and inside out. Nothing thereafter would ever be the same. It all started so innocuously in late August 2008. My girlfriend, Carey, […]
“My Voice” by Katie Roosa
March 24, 2008 was the day that I got news that changed my life; that was the day I heard the words: “You have breast cancer”. At first I thought there was some sort of mistake, I had a lump removed, but I was only 20 years old. I have no family history of breast […]
“My Voice” by Gary Eudy
My Name Is Gary Eudy. I am 55 years old and was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004. I had a colon resection in 2004 and thought my cancer was in remission. My checkups had gone down from 3 to 4 and then every 6 months. When I asked for my lab results in May […]
“My Voice” by Julie Cignarella
I woke up on the morning of Tuesday, October 14, 2003 like any normal day. I was out the night before at a local bar watching the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway. I had fallen asleep on the couch, but awoke in the morning for work and didn’t feel right AT ALL. I […]
“My Voice” by Jill Harrison
I was 21 and a junior in college when I joined the cancer survivor club – diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor in my upper right lung on December, 26th 2003, the day after Christmas. I went from never being in a hospital since the day of my birth to living in hospitals with countless procedures […]
“My Voice” by Jamie Lynn McClelland
My story begins in 1982, when I was 6 years old. That is when I lost my mother to Colon Cancer. In 1982, there was no talk of Colon Cancer being hereditary. Fast forward 18 years. In January 2000 I consulted with my primary care physician about the loose stool I had been having. He […]
“My Voice” by Alexandra Robertson
Last year in February after three years of being ill, I began to feel extremely tired, and just feeling run down, so I sought medical advice. The Doctor decided to take a blood test, but when the results came back, they indicated that I was low on oestrogen. Due to my age 49 at the […]
“My Voice” by Janis Fitzgerald
At the height of a promising career, two lovely twin boys, a happy marriage and lovely new dream home I was diagnosed with Stage IIIC Breast Cancer at the age of 40. I had always thought I lead the ‘good’ life to lower my risk. I practiced everything the advocates told me to. I prayed […]
“My Voice” by Mike Tufo
OUR STORY – BY “THE” MIKE TUFO (SYNOVIAL SARCOMA) I’d love nothing more than to claim this story as my own, however it doesn’t belong to just me. This story includes my wife, Dianne and my children, who have been on this ride with me. It began in October 2007, while playing with my four […]
“My Voice” by Marcia Hahnfeld Deitrick
I began surviving breast cancer the day I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, on September 17, 2007. In the past 22 months, I have underwent seven surgeries, four rounds of chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, and endured multiple treatment related complications and side effects. A month after I turned 40, I found a lump in my […]
“My Voice” by Kimberly Hicks
“You have an 80% chance of dying and we’re going to amputate your leg.” This was what I heard the first time I had cancer, at the age of 15. The last time I was diagnosed, I was told to “tie up loose ends and live for the short term”. My mother got upset when […]
“My Voice” by Beth Silverman
I’ve been surviving ever since I was a little girl, although I really never put a name on what I was doing. Life didn’t always deal me a fair hand of cards, but at an early age I knew I only played to win, regardless of what was at stake. My parents divorced when I […]
“My Voice” by Dara Barr
Truth be told I believe I have always been a survivor. We all have. In my mind, however, not everyone has been put to the challenge the way a cancer survivor has. It wasn’t until I turned 40 years old that this was really put to the test. When I turned 40 years old, at […]
“My Voice” by Sarah Burkybile
My journey starts a little before my diagnosis. On January 10th, 2007 my older brother was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. We rushed him to a hospital four hours away from our home town to be able to get the care he needed. He was in critical care for many of months and his only […]
“My Voice” by Keith Kohn
I started this bumpy ride a bit more than two years ago when I was 47 years old, and it has helped shape who I am today at 49. In a good way. No, being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus – one of the fastest-growing forms of the disease – was not a good […]
