So much of our life and time and energy is spent grappling with conflicting feelings. If I am grateful, then why am I also anxious, or sad? If I am joyful, then why do I also feel angry? It can be difficult to reconcile all those feelings. And when we can’t, we often beat ourselves up. We think we aren’t doing gratitude right or we wouldn’t be feeling anxious or sad. We aren’t going through treatment like so many others who have it worse so we should stop worrying about ourselves and be grateful. But here’s the thing, our feelings, like our lives, are not black and white. They are not one or the other. And they are not wrong or right. They just are.

As you may know, in September of 2021 I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Fast forward 28 crazy months. Surgery, chemo, clear scans, triumphs. Struggling to figure out who I was after cancer and how to deal with the limitations that cancer and its treatment imposed on me. Fighting back. Laughing. Epic road trips and visits with family and friends. Being awed by Mother Nature. And now, here I am again. My latest scan shows a recurrence. Unwanted but not unexpected as 70% of ovarian cancer survivors will have a recurrence. So it will be surgery, recovery, and then chemo. Again.

Finding happiness has long been the holy grail for a good life. It is always in the future, a goal. As if happiness were an endgame and once you find it, you will forever be happy. But happiness is elusive, and what brings you happiness in one moment of life, once that “thing” that brought you happiness is part of your everyday life, it no longer brings as much fulfillment and joy as it did at first. The search then begins for the next new “thing” that will make us happy.

The New Year is upon us and the focus on social media is all about resolutions and setting up those big goals for 2024 so that you have a clear picture of what you want to accomplish this year. A benchmark to measure your success or failure at the end of the year. Not to discourage you, but the truth is, only a small percentage of people each year keep their resolutions so what we are really setting ourselves up for is not this huge win at the end of the year, but for feeling like a failure. Instead, how about we try to be just a little bit better each month.

Like many of us, decorating the Christmas tree is one of the tasks for the holiday season. It can entail joyful anticipation, dread, or both. My recent jaunt into the Christmas tree decorating realm had me anticipating it with a bit of delight, sparking holiday spirit. And then it came. Enter the Holiday Emotional Hijack.

It is November. Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday season. It’s a cozy comfy month, signifying lower temperatures and warm fires, hot chocolate or mulled wines, wrapping up projects, harvesting the fruit of our crops, and coming together with family and friends. It is associated with feelings of thanks and gratitude: for others, for our bounty, and for our community. In all these expressions of thanks, however, we often forget to give thanks for the biggest part of our life, ourselves.

I recently attended the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance 2023 Annual Conference. While I found great value in all the sessions I attended, these three takeaways are vitally important to ovarian and other cancer survivors and to the public. They have the potential to decrease the risk of cancer, increase early diagnosis, ensure that cancer patients have the medications and information needed to treat their disease, and ultimately save lives. Here’s what you need to know.

It’s November. Think turkey, family, togetherness, and Thanksgiving. That one big day a year that we are supposed to feel oh so thankful. But what if we aren’t feeling that warm, cozy, life is good feeling? Maybe we can’t be with our family. Maybe we just still aren’t feeling all that great. Maybe we’re feeling guilty because we are cancer free but instead of feeling gratitude, we are thinking about the things that we lost from having cancer. What do we do if this November we just aren’t feeling it?

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. Here’s what you need to know.

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