“All I want and strive for is happiness. I will fight and our twins will fight. They are my heroes.”
‘BOTH girls were diagnosed with cancer. They’re only 3. I created a way to celebrate their courageous lives.’: Mom of twin daughters battling cancer creates Etsy shop, ‘It will make us, and others, happy’
‘My partner announced, ‘I’m trans. This is something I have to do, even if it means losing you and everything in the process.’ It felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.’: LGBT couple share beautifully complex love story
“He had a lightbulb moment. ‘I cannot continue to inhabit this female body.’ I would be a lesbian woman part of a heterosexual couple. I had no idea what this meant for us.”
‘Brushing my hair for the first day of 1st Grade, my mom’s face grew concerned. ‘I’m fine!’ The lump doubled in size by the time I returned from school.’: Leukemia survivor creates foundation to inspire hope among community
“I was only 6 years when cancer consumed my life. Some people try to erase their history of battling cancer; I choose to embrace it.”
‘A tumor had taken over my entire femur. ‘All signs are leading to cancer.’ They removed 60% of the muscle in my leg. It was torture’: Cancer survivor says, ‘I found the power to keep fighting’
“I spent 3 days wide awake because I couldn’t stop hallucinating giant, juicy spiders crawling over me. I had to sleep with my feet in ice buckets. My skin felt like it was on fire. This was all ‘normal’ in the chemo world.”
‘Am I going to die?’ I woke to strands of hair on my pillow. My heart sunk. ‘I’m going to be bald.’ I lost my hair a week before prom.’: Teenager shares cancer journey, ‘It opened my eyes’
“I felt isolated from my friends. They viewed me as being fragile, but I was the same person as before. This shattered me. No matter what I did, I was always viewed as the cancer girl.”
‘There’s a mass behind her nose.’ Her runny nose became blood-tinged. She could barely hold her head up. I knew it was bad.’: Mom details daughter’s cancer journey, ‘Never give up hope’
“They looked up her nose. Something was there. I had a knot in my stomach before he even spoke. My mind flashed back to a Google search I had done that fit her symptoms. Cancer.”
‘Home please. Home PLEASE!’ He looked like a living skeleton. Fear made time stop.’: Young boy beats liver cancer, ‘We have a new outlook on life’
“‘You can’t eat baby, it’ll hurt you.’ We agreed he could hold them. He took a cookie out and breathed in. ‘Mmmmmm.’ Then he put the cookie back in its bag. It broke my heart.”
‘They found cancer in her blood.’ The wind was knocked out of me. I bawled like a baby.’: Single dad says 2-year-old battling cancer ‘gives me the strength to go on’
“The news came one night when I was teaching a zoom class. I remember holding onto her so tightly, weeping. I had a choice to make. Would I choose to carry the legacy of my late wife or give up?”
‘I called my husband. ‘I have to tell you something about our boy.’ He wailed and cried like I’d never heard before.’: Mom recounts son’s leukemia journey, ‘I don’t take his life for granted’
“I watched them stick a needle into my baby’s chest, and tried to pretend it was fun and not scary. I slept weeks in the hospital, constantly checking if he was okay. He charmed all the doctors and nurses, his little bald head dancing.”
‘Are you crazy? You wasted 12 inches just to donate to some random person? Why did you do this to your beautiful hair?’: Mom and daughter donate luscious locks to kids with cancer
“I asked her many times before the actual haircut, ‘Are you okay with this?’ ‘Yes mama! I am ready to make someone happy.’ She saw me donating and wanted to join in as well. ‘Short hair doesn’t suit you at all.’ It’s not everyone’s job to accept change.”
