I was terrified of running when I was a kid. I’m talkin’ somebody-grab-this-girl-a-paper-bag-to-breathe-into scared. My mom is asthmatic. I’m not, but when I ran and felt my breathing quicken, I associated that with my mom’s health condition. Anxiety would take over, my throat would constrict, and just as if I had asthma, I’d lose the ability to breathe. During graduate…
It’s a theme that has played out in myriad books and movies and even a Pussycat Dolls song, and I learned it the hard way: In order to get what you want, you have to give up what you wanted. My tale began one crisp January morning in 2011 when I decided to write a book. Up to that point…
When people learn that I have cancer, they usually stammer, sputter, turn pale, and back away. When people learn that I am a vegan? They get mad. The other day I had a phone conversation with a woman who organizes an annual spa day for women with cancer. She told me that a speaker a few years ago said that…
On August 31, 2007, I woke up in the recovery room in pain. I had undergone an endoscopic ultrasound at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., to learn more about the so-called mass that showed up on a CT scan of my pancreas. After nine years of debilitating illness, a doctor finally found the root cause. A resident came to…
