Healing through cancer

On the roller coaster that is the cancer experience, you can feel like you’ve been left behind

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With cancer, the world changes overnight – and it can feel like everything everywhere is all “C-A-N-C-E-R.” My cancer clients have been on the worst of emotional roller coasters – with dizzying climbs, and the lowest lows. The diagnosis takes over so much of their lives – they feel like they are constantly spinning through a revolving door at the hospital – it all takes up so much of their time and valuable resources. Whether they are in an early stage of cancer or are living with a metastatic diagnosis, there are several steps along the way in their journey that can feel like being dropped off in the wilderness without a map or a guidebook. From the early days of trying to even find a diagnosis; to discovering what treatment entails; to meeting the challenges of those treatments; to living from scan to scan; to trying to figure out what’s next – my clients come to me looking for a way to hold on, breathe, and make a way forward on this journey that feels a little more controlled, a little less wild. Whether they are the person in the story who has cancer, or the care partner or family member who is trying to cope with their loved one’s diagnosis, this is a LOT to handle. I’m here to help them know that they don’t have to do it all on their own.

I love working with the cancer community because my life experiences have made it impossible for me not to! (See my About Me page) In my personal and professional experiences, I’ve grown more deeply connected to the calling to ease the suffering that cancer causes. A powerful force compels me to provide comfort and healing in this community.

I respect the journey; I respect the costs and the struggle to move forward through cancer. The way I see it, the person in ‘survivorship’ of cancer who seeks out therapy is taking a stand: “Cancer can only go so far, only reach so far, into my life.”

There is vulnerability and there is strength. There is tenacity. It may not be pretty, but the proof is in the struggle and the ways in which survivors continue to show up for themselves. The cancer survivor is a force to be reckoned with. It’s in there, and I see it, and I honor it.

Everyone who gets a cancer diagnosis – and every loved one who rides shotgun on that experience – deserves to heal to the fullest extent possible. That means emotionally, too.

Everyone.