Living

In my job as an oncology social worker, I have the privilege of being part of a palliative care team but find that many people do not really know what...

Flash is a Basset. A 12-year-old, spoiled rotten, rescue Basset. I think he started in Arizona. I am not sure how he got to Indiana, but he did. In Indiana...

I’ve never been good at lying to my beautiful wife Sharon. Looking back, I recognize that changed a little with the diagnosis of bladder cancer. There were times during that...

There are two words I would have never associated with each other had it not been for a conversation with a bladder cancer fighter’s wife: "cancer" and "enough." We went...

Given today's scary statistics that 1 in 2 of us are expected to get cancer at some point in our lifetime, it comes as no surprise that we are all...

When I talk about isolation, I want to be clear: I am talking about isolation in the sense of a feeling. I am not suggesting any blame be placed. I...

"I want to share my story but don't know how to start." If this sounds like you, you're not alone. I've heard people say this quite often in the bladder...

Editor’s note: Anita lives in the UK, so some of the terms and laws referenced in this article are not necessarily identical to laws in the US. However, most of...

Sitting in my hospital room, I couldn’t wait to get home. I envisioned myself back at home, as I had been before the neobladder replacement surgery. I think that, somewhere...

“Survivor's guilt” is defined as “when someone doesn’t believe that they should be alive after surviving a traumatic event when others did not.” It was most commonly seen in Holocaust...

Living with bladder cancer can feel like holding your breath, never knowing what lies ahead or what the doctor might say at your next visit. We recently shared an article...

When last I left you, I had just finished my cancer surgery and was told that I would need no further treatment at this time. While it is true that...

My family doctor had given me a list of urologists that he recommended. I will leave it up to anyone reading this to decide whether it was blind luck, the...

Editor's note: Anita lives in the UK, so some of the terms used in this article are not necessarily identical to terms used in the US. However, most of the...

This is the portion of my cancer journey that I remember the least about. I'm sure that I arrived at the hospital like any other person going in for a...

When people I know are diagnosed with cancer, I'm always amazed by how they react to the news. Within the past year, two women in my life have been given...

I had decided to face my bout with bladder cancer with grace and humor. I got quite a few laughs from friends, my doctors and nurses. Many people commented on...

Before my diagnosis and in the weeks after, my dog – an eight-year-old pug named Tang Tang – stuck pretty closely to my side. I didn't think anything of it...

Treatments for bladder cancer can look so different from treatments for other cancers that even close friends and family might not realize their impact. Side effects are usually invisible, like...

When I first heard the term “second cancer” about a year ago, it sounded like a bad joke. Unfortunately, it's something very real. Second cancer, I learned, is not the...