Jan 06
When my granddaughter Abby was 3, she’s wasn’t the best sleeper. She wasn’t the worst sleeper, but definitely not as good as her brothers, then ages 1 and 5. In fact, she was quite the master of “stalling” at bedtime and “needing” things in the middle of the night. You may be familiar with …
Dec 16
Weariness…either you’re facing it or someone you love is. I recently heard from a songwriter and new FB friend Carrie Marshall* who told me that in this weary year she has been diagnosed with a concussion, COVID-19 and cancer. “I call it the Triple C,” she explained with an added LOL. I looked up “weary” …
Dec 02
I think it was quite an understatement when Elizabeth Edwards, wife of then-U.S. Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards asserted that the wind had not blown her way. Elizabeth’s firstborn was killed in a car accident at the age of 17. Later while she was fighting recurrent breast cancer, her husband had …
Nov 11
If you had asked my friend Carollynn Supplee what gave her hope throughout her cancer journey, she would have smiled and quickly answered: Feathers. She loved Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Thing with Feathers” which begins: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And …
Oct 29
I’m a passionate football fan. I enjoy exciting, close games…unless the Ohio State Buckeyes or the Philadelphia Eagles are playing. Then I’m a nervous wreck and terribly worried until my team is ahead by at least three scores. Last week I’m watching the 4th quarter of the Philadelphia-N.Y. Giants game and the Eagles are down …
Oct 14
Not long after Donna Wishowski was diagnosed with cancer, she made a decision which would radically shape the next 17 years of her life: “Cancer will not steal one day from me!” It was a choice that no matter how many days she had left–or didn’t have left–she would not allow a disease to …
Sep 30
Would you like to hear some GOOD NEWS today?It has been 4.5 months since my oncologist and former employer, Dr. Marc Hirsh (pictured above with me in 1999) was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer. It has no known cure nor effective treatment, but Marc finished his self-prescribed regime of 30 days of radiation …
Sep 02
We already knew that cancer is no respecter of people: young/old, rich/poor, athlete/couch potato, doesn’t matter. It can strike whenever and wherever. And a few days ago we learned that even a superhero can get cancer…and die. Award-winning film actor Chadwick Boseman starred in 42 as Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, and …
Aug 19
It’s one thing to be given a cancer diagnosis. It’s another matter to be told there is no known cure for that cancer. And it’s a whole other ballgame to learn there’s no recognized effective treatment either. My oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, has been smacked with this reality in the three months since he …
Aug 05
I remember thinking how ironic it was when I was diagnosed with cancer just six weeks after interviewing the local oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, for my newspaper story about the hospital’s new cancer support group. And now in an even greater irony, that cancer specialist–my oncologist–has been diagnosed with the very disease that he spent …
