Hearing those 3 words the first time You have Cancer" changes life forever. How life changes and the ways in which you handle the change is the true challenge of cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 26 in 2005, along that journey I encountered adversity as well as opportunity. Opportunity to take a look inside of me to understand who I am and how I could help others through their journey. The cancer journey is so much more than chemo, it forces you to question what you believe in, what you value, and what you are made of. There is no right or wrong way to move through cancer. There is no handbook of steps, there is only you. There is only your way.
I took me years, at least 10 to really understand who I was after cancer and after the major life decisions I had made. I took 10 years to overcome my grief and understand the loss I experienced and just as I thought I was becoming myself, I was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer at 36 in 2014 and again at 38 in 2018. When I was at the lowest point in my life, literally uttering the words "I'm not going to make it" to my husband after one of my surgeries, is when I discovered another opportunity, that I was ready to help others. I didn't want anyone to feel as lost as I had, to feel like giving, or feel they were alone in their journey.
When I began asking myself, what is missing in our community? What was something that was missing from each of my experiences? I narrowed my answers to do two things: support for the emotional effects of cancer and financial assistance paying everyday bills. Both were the most stressful, life draining needs I was left to figure out on my own and both had the most impactful long lasting, life altering, effects.
I wrote and self-published my personal narrative, 26 & Fu¢ked, in 2020 to provide people with a real life account of the emotional trauma cancer patients experience and to help people in the cancer community know that they aren't along in the struggle to regain control over their life.
In February of 2021, I launched The Atrium Foundation with a mission to help people affected by cancer protect their livelihood by pay their bills because cancer financial toxicity severely compromise patients ability to focus on healing, to focus on themselves at a most critical time in their life. It's time oncology care extends beyond the cancer and to the hearts and souls of the people.
