Caregiving Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Cactus Cancer Society

Guilt And Caregiving

Caregiver guilt. There’s actually a weird amount of guilt that goes along with caregiving.

There’s the guilt of not always being there. Of having to work instead of go to doctor’s appointments. Of taking a vacation because it’s a holiday weekend. Of needing to clean your own apartment and get your own life sorted instead of helping someone with theirs. Of wanting to talk about things going on in your life with them, but feeling like you should just focus on their problems instead. Of going out and drinking with friends because I’m only 25 and my husband and I live downtown and there are patios and it’s summer…

I’ve had some weird, guilt too. Recently there was a day that I normally would have gone to my parents’ to take care of my mother for her second day of infusing, but she’d finally felt a bit too babysat and told me not to come. That whole day I felt lost and guilty; I’d rearranged my summer schedule to make sure I could be there, and then I wasn’t.

Was it awful to treat it like a “me day?” What if something happened while I wasn’t with her? Should I try to pick up a shift at work since I’ve hardly been working?

I felt so weird I ended up sitting on the sofa all day watching Netflix. I felt guilty for not caregiving and doing some relaxing instead.

Then, possibly my weirdest moment of guilt, I cut 11 inches of my hair off, but couldn’t easily donate it because of how it was cut, layered, and highlighted. I didn’t have enough hair for most places and wasn’t willing to cut enough off in order to have the right amount to donate. I’d offered my hair to my mother but with everything else going on she hasn’t really cared about hair loss – she got an adorable pixie cut so it won’t be as messy to lose but beyond that hasn’t thought too much of it. Not being able to donate eleven inches of hair made me feel like a monster. How selfish could I be to cut that much hair and not give it away while I have a mother going through chemo? Why wasn’t I thinking about other people’s needs?

I think we all try to be too perfect, too good, and too giving. We can’t spend our entire life living for someone else, we can’t possibly be there 24/7 for another person. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s okay to take time to yourself, which is exactly what my mother needed – I should have been able to pass the time that day without caregiving for her, I should have been able to do more than sit and watch TV. She needed time to herself, and knew that I was only a phone call away if she needed me. I should be able to do what I want with my hair without feeling like a monster – my mother didn’t want a wig from me, and if I didn’t have enough to donate, then okay. It’s not the end of the world. Knowing me, at some point in the future my hair will be at a point where I can cut 12 inches off and I’ll be sure that next time I can donate it. Problems solved, no caregiver guilt needed.

Caregiving as a young adult is already a stressful enough time without us adding misplaced feelings of caregiver guilt to ourselves as well. It’s perfectly okay to still do things for yourself, and in fact I’d encourage it. Maybe a weekend away, or a haircut, or a night out with friends is exactly what you need to come back to your caregiving life refreshed and ready to help.

Have you experienced caregiver guilt? How do you cope with it? Just like survivors, caregivers experience these complicated emotions too. Share your story with us!

Love’s Not A Competition

I take Uber a lot. As anyone else who takes it a lot knows, it’s basically like being on a first date, except without dinner and you’re in a car (if you need a random laugh, watch this). Mom keeps worrying about me taking public transport to and from their house when I go to take care of her, so I’ve been taking Uber so she won’t stress.

This leads to me having a first date conversation with all of my new Uber drivers, which always ends up being about why I was out in the suburbs and why I’m heading back downtown. I’ve been telling them the brief truth, that I spent the day at my parents’ taking care of my mother who’s going through chemo. Every single time, the response is the same.

“You’re the best daughter ever!”

“You should win the best daughter award!”

“What, are you competing for best daughter? Wow that’s amazing!”

Guys, I’m not trying to “win” or compete with my brother, who’s in Alaska with his family. That’s not the point. But everyone keeps making sure I know how “awesome” and “amazing” what I’m doing is.

Okay, fine, I understand not everyone would be able or willing to do this for their parents. But I am, and my mom and I are really close, so this was a no brainer for me. Of course I was going to do whatever I could to help her. That doesn’t mean that every caregiver has to be praised so profusely for helping out. It’s actually kind of awkward, especially from strangers who then go into a story about so-and-so’s cancer when I really just want to put my headphones in and rest; I had a long day, just let me stop making small talk.

That could just be me though. I’m not always great with compliments or praise. That’s actually a trait I got from my mother. She’s the worst with being thanked for things, especially publicly. She helped me in college with a film project, and when we thanked her in the credits she got incredibly flustered, and made me promise not to thank her in any sort of discussion/speech at the film’s presentation.

I think my point is, the only people who need to be thanking me for my help are my mom and dad. If you want to help a caregiver out, instead of showering them with kudos, do something else to make their life easier. You don’t need to do a lot, but if you come across a caregiver, chances are they are going through a lot of stress and balancing acts with their life at the moment. Take them to coffee, lend them an ear, offer to help them shop for groceries or run errands or make dinner (note: these are suggestions for friends not random strangers). Even if they say no, they’ll probably appreciate that you even thought to offer to help them out with everyday things. You don’t need to heap praise on them – it will mean much more to them to have you think of their hectic life than to have someone pat them on the back for the hundredth time.

caregiver caregiving family and friends

Luck and Medicine

I’m not sure I’d ever thought about just how much luck it takes to get a diagnosis for cancer. It wasn’t something I ever considered until my mother got sick. I always assumed that cancer must have a lot of ongoing symptoms, or sudden symptoms, that send a person to the doctor and they discover after a test or two that it’s cancer. I’d never seen someone close to me go through this, and so I had no idea just how much of a role luck plays in medicine.

My mother had been sick for several months, but with unrelated issues. She had an infection at the start of the year that turned into a bladder and kidney infection, but after that was treated she got pneumonia. Once that was cleared up, she began to get ill whenever she ate. She had to insist that the doctor see her. At her appointment, she told him she thought it was irritable bowel. He scheduled a colonoscopy, but seemed to think it was early diabetes or something completely unrelated.

Almost as soon as they began the colonoscopy, they discovered a tumor the size of a tennis ball. It was creating a blockage that if it hadn’t been caught soon, could have burst and killed her – how lucky is that? She hadn’t shown any of the typical symptoms for colorectal cancer, and so she hadn’t considered it a possibility, and neither had her doctor, but the tumor had been in the works for many years and had gone undetected. She was rushed through the process of tests and consultations so that they could schedule surgery as soon as possible. The whole process happened in about two weeks, and her surgeon made sure that he scheduled her before he left town and with enough time for her to recover some and make it to my wedding. During surgery, the surgeon discovered that the tumor was beginning to attach to her uterine wall, and he made the decision to do a full hysterectomy and appendectomy. But it could have been attaching to her bladder; before surgery they couldn’t tell from the CT scans exactly where it was or what it may be affecting. We’re all relieved that it was on organs more easily removed – again, how lucky is that?

She’s been sick since February, and it’s been rough on her. But honestly, I’ve never been more grateful that she came down with an illness. It created a snowball effect that finally led to the discovery of Stage 3b colorectal cancer. If she hadn’t gotten that infection, or pneumonia, I’m not sure what would have happened. If it had happened any later than it did, we may have discovered Stage 4 cancer, instead of cancer that was still treatable.

I always thought medicine was all skill, hard work, and dedication, combined with vigilance from the patient. I never realized just how big of a role luck plays in it as well. This whole process has been hard, but I think we’re all thanking our lucky stars that everything happened this way. It’s something I keep musing about, because I know it could have gone so much worse.

Have you experienced luck in your caregiving or cancer having experiences?

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Caregiving For A Parent As A Young Adult

Being a young adult and caregiving for a parent is a tough role. You’re young, ready to conquer the world, ready to take risks and kick butt…but living simultaneously in this world of young adult-hood and in the world of being a caregiver is a challenging task. With differing paces and expectations these worlds clash in so many ways.

My first glimpse at the world of cancer began with my mother’s diagnosis of a brain tumor in March 2009. I was one of her primary caregivers until his passing in December 2010. I recently began writing about my experiences as a young adult caregiver with Cancer Knowledge Network. Processing my experience as my mother’s caregiver has taken a lot of time, tears, and patience. Our relationships with our parents are intricate and they gradually transform as we become adults. Cancer both accelerates and challenges this.

Read the whole article here.

Are you a young adult caregiving for a parent? Tell us about your experiences!

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How I Discovered What Being An Advocate Really Means

Everyone kept telling me how wonderful it was that I was staying at the hospital with my mom, so that I could be sure to advocate for her. Every time someone said this, I felt a little bit more confused. What did I need to do? I’d never had to advocate for someone before. Was I doing it right? Was I totally dropping the ball? I made sure she had ice chips that first night. I stayed up another night when she was getting dehydrated, made sure the nurses were keeping track of her fluid loss, and got her a bolus IV when she needed one. I’d made her an awesome hospital care package. But was that enough? What was everyone talking about?

Her surgery was on a Monday, and the second day she was doing really well. My dad and I both stayed the first night she was in the hospital, and the next afternoon they both insisted I go home and rest, since I hadn’t really slept in 36 hours. I went home and slept for twelve hours that night before getting up, going to a hair trial for my wedding, and heading back to the hospital. She seemed fine the day before, so I took my time and did some things I needed to do.

When I arrived, my dad was sitting on the edge of my mom’s bed while she was crying and telling him about her day. I was terrified at this unexpected change.

My mother had been feeling so well that she sent my father home that morning to rest, assuming that she would be able to sleep until one of us got back. As anyone who has spent time in the hospital knows, the early morning is when the doctors, surgeons, and nurses all visit and try to get the patient up and about or run tests that they need. That morning, two days after her surgery, a new shift of nurses came on and decided that she needed to try to walk and sit up. They moved her to the recliner chair and left her there…for three hours by herself. Her catheter bag fell at one point, she was slipping in the chair and couldn’t push herself back upright (funny how you don’t notice your ab muscles in everything you do until you can’t use them) and she couldn’t reach her nurse call button because they had left it on the bed. Her phone battery was dying, she couldn’t call either one of us.

A nurse finally came in and got her back into bed, but she was beyond exhausted and distraught at how helpless she had found herself. Not long after my dad and I showed up, the same nurses decided they wanted to get her up and walking. They barely let her rest on the edge of the bed after sitting up, and she took two steps before fainting because she was so dizzy.

Needless to say, I was livid.

Fortunately, the nurse leader came in right after that to see how my mother’s care was going. She was basically the customer service representative of the floor. My father just seemed annoyed at one more person coming in to bother her, and just wanted the nurse leader to leave so Mom could rest. My mother was still so upset she was crying as she tried to talk about everything that had happened that day. That’s unlike her; anyone who has ever met her knows how strong and fierce she usually is. I was finally so angry, I did what neither of them could or would do.

I spoke up for my mother, I drew on that strength I’d always known her to possess, and I let that poor nurse leader have it. Politely but incredibly firmly, I let her know how horribly upset we all were at how her day had gone. I reminded her what should be in my mother’s chart; that she had been on a starvation diet for a month before her surgery and hadn’t entered the hospital at full strength, and was in fact malnourished and anemic, not to mention how much blood she had lost during surgery. I let her know how unacceptable it was to us that she had been left alone for so long without anyone checking on her, especially since she didn’t have her call button within reach the whole time. I forbid the nursing staff from moving her without one of us present, since in her weakened state she couldn’t help herself if she slipped out of the chair or dropped something. I let them know how they had pushed her too far, and that we wouldn’t allow it again.

I realized then what everyone had meant about advocacy. My mother was in a position where she couldn’t speak up for herself; she was doped up on an epidural, and unable to tell what her limits were. Patients always tend to assume that the doctors and nurses know exactly what’s best. But sometimes, they forget that every patient is an individual and they push a little too hard and rush someone past their personal limitations.

It’s in those moments that someone else needs to speak up, and ensure that the care being given is within the patient’s comfort zone. That’s what being an advocate really means.

What does being an advocate mean to you?

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A Different Kind of Self Care

Through everything that’s happened this last month, the constant that I’ve heard from people is the need to take care of myself as well as my mother. I’ve been trying my best, but self care can be a broad, vague undertaking. What does self care mean? Is it as simple as making sure you eat and sleep? For me, my self care has consisted of binge watching Netflix when I’m physically drained, or cleaning my apartment, which is still a post-wedding disaster. Neither of those are helping me feel cared for, in fact my self care has mostly meant ignoring how I’ve been feeling through all of this.

That’s beginning to drain me.

I work really well in crisis. My mother broke her wrist a few years ago when we were in Ireland, and I didn’t lose my cool and got her help. I can go and go through stress, because it tends to make me work harder and be more focused. I have an inner strength I’ve discovered that I draw on in crisis, and I’ve been using it nonstop since we got her diagnosis April 13th.

It was that strength I had when sitting in the surgery waiting room for over six hours with my father, watching a board that only rarely updated itself on how her surgery was progressing. The strength I had when I was sitting awake and exhausted several nights in a row in the recliner beside her as she slept, because my dad and I couldn’t stand to leave her alone. The strength I had to advocate for her when the nurses were rushing her recovery, pushing her beyond her limits and she couldn’t speak up for herself. The strength I’ve had in giving up a job I loved so that my schedule was free to take care of her, while also planning my wedding from her hospital room as she was finally able to eat for the first time in weeks. The strength I had while watching her struggle to walk around my wedding two weeks later as everyone told me again and again, “Well she looks fine, so she must be recovered,” until I wanted to scream at them all.

That strength is finally beginning to wane.

Watching her struggle with what her life is going to be like for the next year, what she’s already had to go through in just barely over a month…

I’m spent. And I can’t be. I think the worst part is knowing that I can’t burn out now, I can’t give up, because she and my dad need me to continue to draw on that strength I amazed us all with during these last few weeks. But four weeks later, I feel like I’ve used all of it up.

I can’t watch her be in pain anymore. I can’t think about how I won’t be here through all of her treatments like I’d hoped, because I’m moving in October to Oklahoma with my husband. I can’t keep telling people that I’m okay, and that she’s doing great, because I’m not, and she’s not. No, the cancer is not going to kill her. No, it didn’t spread beyond what organs they removed in surgery. Yes, she will get through this and live to visit her first grandchild (born three weeks ago) and see my family grow (whenever we decide to start one).

But you know what? That doesn’t make any of this suck less. And lately, all I’ve needed was some self care. For me, at this moment, this means finally allowing myself to feel it, finally allowing myself to be spent and drained and depressed and overwhelmed and definitely completely not okay with any of this. For now, self care is allowing myself the freedom to give in to the impulse that’s been gripping me recently, the impulse to collapse right where I am and sob until my tears run dry.

And once I did that, I picked myself up, dried my cheeks, and felt a bit of strength return.

Self care is about more than making sure you eat and sleep enough while caring for someone else. It also means allowing yourself weak moments, so that you can continue having strong ones.

Cancer caregiver caregiving self-care young adult caregiver

Welcome Julia!

Lacuna Loft is excited to continue introducing some guest bloggers! These great folks represent a variety of perspectives on the myriad of topics covered here at Lacuna Loft. Before everyone starts really getting into the nitty-gritty of all they have to say, we wanted to introduce them a bit. Without further ado, here is Julia!

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Julia is a writer, bartender, new Army Officer’s wife, new aunt, and a caregiver for her mother undergoing colorectal cancer treatments. Since the diagnosis in mid-April 2015, Julia began the juggling act of work, wedding planning, cooing over baby pictures, and taking care of her mother through major surgery and now chemo. As someone who writes through stress, Julia is hoping to provide a different perspective for Lacuna Loft as a young adult caregiver taking care of a parent with cancer.

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Letting Go Of Hope

From the moment I was told, “Your son has cancer”, I had hope. I was filled with it. It was the feeling I had when looking over treatment plans. It was what I thought I heard in the doctor’s voices when they were telling me what we were going to do next. It was the word I heard the most often from people.

“We are hoping for the best.”

“We hope that the chemo works.”

“We are holding out hope for a miracle.”

“Don’t lose hope!”

It was the name given to the Facebook support page. “Hope for Sebastian”. It was on the t-shirts we had made. Hope was everywhere.

When you are a parent, you have nothing but hopes and dreams for your children. From the moment my children were born, I had all these great ideas about who they would become, and what kind of lives they might have. I pictured them riding bikes, losing teeth, going on dates, graduating high school, getting married, starting families. I had hope that they would each have the best lives imaginable.

But then cancer showed up. And my hopes for my son changed. It went from hoping for him to get into a great college to hoping that this round of chemo doesn’t make him as sick as the last one. Hoping that he might get to go back to school for a little while. Hoping that he won’t have to be in the hospital for his birthday again. Hoping that the test results show improvement. Hoping that the treatments are working. Hoping that the cancer will go away. Hoping that he won’t die.

I continued to hold on to that hope. Even when the tests showed that the drugs weren’t working. Or when we changed drug trials. Or when we switched hospitals. Especially when we switched hospitals, because the newest hospital had a team… one that specialized in Sebastian’s cancer. New found hope! Surely they would find a way to fix this.

A year later, after countless clinic visits and chemo rounds and tests and scans, the doctors told us that we really had no hope of curing Sebastian’s cancer. They told us that everything we could do would just give him a chance at a little more time. The doctors actually said “no hope”. No hope? I’m his mom… I can’t give up hope. This is my son, my child, someone that has all these plans and dreams waiting for him. How can I stop hoping he will get better? I can’t give up hope. I just can’t…

Last spring, the side effects from all that hope-chasing caught up to us. Sebastian ended up in the hospital for 12 days with multiple infections, and we were all afraid he wouldn’t be able to get through them. A DNR was put into his file. His grandparents dropped everything and came to town to stay with us. We had conversations with his pastor about funeral plans. Reality slapped us all in the face. But, our hope prevailed, and the antibiotics cleared the infections up, and we started talking about what we were going to do next. But Sebastian had other plans.

Towards the end of that hospital stay, Sebastian decided that he was tired of doing this. He was tired of the hospital stays, he didn’t want to keep making himself sick from chemo, he was tired of missing out on his life. He asked me if I would be mad at him if he decided that he didn’t want to fight his cancer anymore. He was letting go of his hope for a cure, and just wanted to live his life out, his way.

So, last July, we stopped his treatment, and started him on hospice care. No more chemo, no more weekly clinic visits in Chicago, just pain management and hospice nurse visits at home. I keep in touch with his oncologist via text on a weekly basis, just keeping an eye on how things are progressing. And for a while, nothing was happening.

Last month, we decided to do a set of scans because his pain was getting worse, and spreading to new areas. The scans confirmed our fears, his cancer was spreading. I looked at the scan results, and my fears were confirmed and that hope I had been holding onto for so long was crushed. He is getting worse. His cancer is not going to go away. Sooner than later, my son is going to die because of this. I cried, I shared the news with friends and family members, I told my other children what we had found out. I looked at what we had and I accepted it.

I let go of the hope that he would get better. That fight I had been fighting from day one, thinking he was going to be the one that beat the odds, even though the odds were completely stacked against him from the beginning. I accepted reality and let go of the dream. I just let it go.

I slept for 13 straight hours that night.

Holding on to hope for something that isn’t possible is a lot of work. I didn’t realize how much work it was until I stopped doing it. People have a misconception that having acceptance about something means that you have to like whatever it is. That is not always the case. Accepting something means only that. You accept it, and let it be what it is, and you stop trying to will it to be what it isn’t.

I’m not saying that I don’t have any hope anymore. I still have an overabundance of hope, but today it’s for different things. I hope for comfort for him, that he can handle his pain. I hope for strength for all of us to get through what is coming, together. I hope to draw closer to my family while we face the things ahead. I hope that Sebastian continues to find things to make him happy. I hope for him to have peace. I hope for just a little more time.

cancer mom caregiver caregiving childhood cancer death and dying

Being At CancerCon

CancerCon was an amazing experience. I’ve already showed you some of the great photos from the weekend…you can see the many many photos people posted to instagram here. Today we’re talking about the actual experience though. Anyone out there who went to the conference? Anyone out there who wants to go next year? Over 600 people were in attendance at the conference put on by StupidCancer, hundreds of them young adult cancer survivors just like me…just like you.

When I arrived to my first activity, the run/walk scheduled for Friday morning, I was nervous, toting my registration bag of swag, and feeling silly to be at a semi-professional event (since I was representing not only myself but Lacuna Loft) in multi-colored knee length tights and a running shirt. I stayed off to the side and just watched for a few minutes as groups of people, who seemed to have known each other for years, congregated and visited in the downstairs lobby of the hotel. Then, someone walked up and just started talking to me. He was friendly, but not so overly friendly that I immediately worried about what cult I was joining, and very welcoming. During the run/walk I was supposed to be having a walking meeting with someone so I kept an eye on her while I kept talking to my new friend. Once the group started making its way out the door, my walking-meeting partner yelled out for me, and I quickly joined her. From there started an epic couple of days. The first timer welcome and orientation involved a rock-paper-scissors tournament where, once you lost a round of the game you turned into a cheering section for the person you had just lost to. Eventually the whole room was divided into two, yelling and cheering masses, each supporting their own rock-paper-scissors champion. Over the course of the week, I kept running into people and saying, “oh yea, hey! I played you in rock-paper-scissors!”

The conference just kept getting better and more relevant to my life from there. Session after session seemed to be just what I wanted to hear about. From Navigating Intimate Relationships to Preventing and Managing Caregiver Burnout to What Cancer Stole From Me: Grieving and Loss to Living with Chronic/Metastatic/Advanced Cancer to Mindfulness Meditation 101 to Parenting with Cancer to Sexual Health to Fertility: Am I Fertile to Get Busy Sweating: The Role of Exercise During and After Treatment to Managing your Finances to Optimize Your Nutrition to When Did Cancer Turn Me Into A Control Freak and so much more! (Seriously…I got no where near listing all of the different options of sessions that were available!)

You know how sometimes you go to a conference or an event and the main speaker was just picked because they were glitzy or seemed cool on paper but in reality the talk they deliver is boring? Yea, me too. But that wasn’t the case at all, at CancerCon. There were always multiple options of which breakout session to attend at any one given time so I was never left feeling like I couldn’t find a talk that was relevant for my life. The keynote, the awards ceremony, the exhibitors, the concluding ceremonies, the activities…all totally awesome, relevant to my own cancer journey, and really interesting.

As the activities continued, I often felt my emotions bubbling just near the surface. In one of the many sessions, someone would ask a question that resonated so deeply with me that I felt the tears start immediately. (Note to self: next year, wear water proof makeup!) There were volunteers in every room with a microphone to help amplify people’s questions around the room as well as a box of tissues. There were boxes of tissues everywhere! In every session, I would sit in awe as someone else voiced a concern that I had also shared, but that had made me feel alone and isolated. Over and over again, these survivors all around me shared so many of the anxieties and fears that had made me feel so different and isolated from my peers. These other young adult survivors and I had so much in common. It made me realize that for everything that I have been through, my cares and concerns, while not “normal” for your run-of-the-mill, non-cancer-having young adult, are SO expected and normal for a young adult cancer survivor. The experience was powerfully validating. Much of the time I have felt anxious about something in my life and then have made it worse, almost obsessive, with my additional anxiety about the anxiety. Seeing all of these other survivors, battling many of the same things as I am, was an intense and awesome experience.

Throughout the conference, I would meet a small group of people, talk with them for a while, and then we would disband for one reason or another. Sometimes I would find some of those people again and sometimes I wouldn’t. Near the end, I kept going back to find the same two, awesome women 🙂 Every time though, I would sit down with a brand new group of people and we would hit it off, right from the start. We immediately had a million things in common and a lot of fun things to chat about. I learned that all of those people standing in groups who looked like they were friends for years were just like me…slowly finding new people to spend time with as the conference went by. Sometimes that meant we’d known each other before, and sometimes that meant that we’d have just met…but the camaraderie was always there and the connections were instantly made.

There were several fun attractions at the conference as well. The Aflac duck, actually named Aflac!, was there. While I didn’t hold him, I did get to pose next to him and take turns petting him.

We also went on a scavenger hunt around the hotel and downtown Denver. This escapade didn’t start until 9 pm, which is quite late for me especially when I’m already out of my comfort zone. Nonetheless, a few of us banded together and ran around downtown Denver getting everything on the list photographed and documented!

There were fun cardboard cut outs of the StupidCancer founders placed strategically around the hotel. They also had several selfie spots around the area! The whole hotel had projected StupidCancer logos and banners…the effect was a delightful level of fanfare.

There was a fun photo booth, and after several tries, I captured this beauty of a moment with a few, lovely ladies.

The CancerCon was a huge success in my books. I learned so much about myself and had many of my anxieties and concerns validated. I am already super excited for the OMG West, a smaller and free version of the conference occurring in Southern California in November. The dates for next CancerCon are in my calendar and another survivor and I have already talked about sharing a room when we fly back into Denver next year.

If you see a photo of yourself and you’d like it removed, email at info@lacunaloft.com ! I asked many of you if it was ok to share photos here, on Lacuna Loft, but just in case!

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CancerCon In Photos

Wow! What a crazy and lively and hectic and awesome event in Denver! CancerCon was a huge success and we loved being part of every second of it! I’m already looking to next year’s event! Look forward to a post next week detailing more of the awesome things that happened at the conference.

Here is a brief look at CancerCon through photos…