Being a cancer patient is no easy thing - whether you are the patient, or the caregiver. It is the ultimate "roller coaster" ride of life! Fellow survivors have been pivotal in helping me get thru the years after chemo - they have helped me stay grounded and despite my ocassional pessimistic nature have always helped me stay focused and moving forward...Knowledge is power when it comes to cancer, educated people can make good & informed decisions - and to that end I take portraits of cancer survivors, trying to show the disease process in a realistic way yet in as positive a light as possible. I have also given lectures to college level psych classes with the intent being to explain how life can suddenly and rapidly humble you with a catastrophic disease process, and how it affects not only the patient but all those around the patient. Anyone can live thru the good times in life, but how you are measured by others has everything to do with how you tolerate and hold yourself up in the bad times. I have learned that if you open yourself up to the possibiities you can learn much about the human condition. Life is not always like a box of chocolates, its often like a jalapeno pepper, what you eat today may burn your butt tomorrow. Making yourself vulnerable to others has inherent risk - but it also has wonderful rewards.

No cancer patient can ever hope to win the "good fight" without tremendous faith in God, real faith in their ability to beat the disease, and an unending trust in the health care professionals that are treating them. It also helps to have a critical understanding that treating cancer of any kind is not an exact science - some will make it and some won't - so its usually best to get your heart right from the start. Its also a pretty good idea I think to understand that in the case of cancer treatment you are the employer and the medical professionals are the employees...its their job to tell you what is wrong and how best to deal with it, and its your job to communicate to them what you are willing to let them do to help - and then take full responsibility for your decision...