In my prior post, I shared that the phrase, “unwell but good enough” helps me when people close to me ask, “How are you?” A reader’s comment about the downside of that answer in social situations prompted me to expand the discussion to help clarify which phrases help me and why.

Agreed-on words or phrases have been lifesavers for me and the people close to me. While dealing with my ongoing health challenges, here’s a phrase I began using to answer “How are you?” in a way that helps us take care of each other’s needs: Unwell, but good enough.

What do you do If feeling guilty because your illness is causing stress or problems for others?

Guilt and shame can complicate life during and after illness. Over the years of my cancer survivorship, I’ve strived to find healthy responses, efforts that began with exploring the similarities and differences between those two emotions.

Hester Hill Schnipper’s columns present useful advice in a straightforward and comforting way. This gifted social worker (Chief of Oncology Social Work at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) did it again

Looking for new ways to help your problem solving? Try using a magic wand.

A short video intended to make a point about parenting somehow made me see in a new way a message about Healthy Survivorship, one I’ve been sharing for decades:

Do you prefer patient-focused or patient-centered medical care? What’s the difference?

t's stressful to wait for your doctor’s office to answer your calls or respond to your online messages. I wrote this handout to provide some clarification and to offer some tips on contacting your doctors between office visits. Hope it helps!

Managing loss is essential to healthy survivorship. The exercise of categorizing losses may help. Doing so may help you reflect on your response to a loss and see what more you can do—or what you can do differently.

Here’s a link to a 2-1/2-minute video in which I summarize my take on Healing Hope:
FocusOnOncology’s Dr. Wendy Harpham on Healing Hopes. Enjoy!

“I know this sounds crazy but all I want is a normal life.” Those were the words on my favorite refrigerator magnet decades ago during the years I was going in and out of cancer treatment. While understandable, my desire to go back to my old normal created problems.

In a 2 1/2-minute video, I get up close and personal to share my approach to finding hope when the prognosis is worrisome. You’ll see why a prognosis is not a prediction.

If you feel uncomfortable using the “survivor” label, you’re not alone. My recent dive into the history of survivorship helped me make sense of what might be going on and what to do.

Most of my writings on hope address patients’ thoughts or feelings about the future that can make it difficult to find hope. Thoughts or feelings about today (or yesterday) can make it difficult, too.