Archive | January 2026

More Real Talk about Cancer and Shit

The Flares

I’ve been dealing with cancer for ten years.
Metastatic cancer for a little over three.

I’m finally starting to understand what’s happening when my body reacts the way it does. And when I say body, I mean all of it — physical, mental, and emotional. You don’t get to separate those things when you’re living with cancer.

I can be fine. Everything can be good. I have my head on straight. I’m doing the things I’m “supposed” to be doing — walking, stretching, light strength work, trying not to stress, just being okay.

And then out of nowhere, it all goes to shit.

The flare-ups start, and they are brutal.

Complete mental shutdown. Emotional overload. Pain that is unreal. And all I want is to be left alone. Do I know when it’s coming? Nope. Can I plan for it? Nope. It just happens.

It’s taken me three years to even begin to understand this.

When you are first diagnosed with Stage IV your brain is stuck on one thing: Oh my God, I’m going to die.
Then come the labs, medications, infusions, scans, and radiation. Okay — we’re doing something. Good.

But after a while, you get really tired of being stuck with needles, scanned, zapped, and pumped full of meds. The side effects pile up. And when bloodwork looks “good,” tumor markers are stable, treatment seems to be working, and there’s no progression, everyone else backs off.

Here’s the part no one wants to talk about:
Just because they back off doesn’t mean everything is suddenly fine.

I’m still exhausted.
I’m still in pain.
I’m still so fatigued some days that I can’t get out of bed.

I don’t want to engage with people because most of what they say is going to piss me off. I don’t need “be strong,” “you’ve got this,” or “it’s only temporary” bullshit. None of that helps. There are no magic words.

And I am beyond tired of trying to make everyone else feel more comfortable with my cancer. I’m tired of explaining. I’m tired of consoling people. I’m just tired.

We Are Not the Same

Yes, aging comes with pain. Arthritis. Stiff joints. Less energy. Brain fog. Memory issues.

Now take all of that and add this:

Pain that feels like you’re being stabbed in your bones and organs. Tumors rubbing against things they shouldn’t be. A constant feeling like you’re wearing lead from head to toe. Trouble getting up, walking, sitting, lying down — not because you’re stiff, but because you don’t have the strength.

And no matter how much you sleep, rest, or try whatever magical thing someone swears will “give you energy,” you don’t recharge. You never feel rested. You never feel refreshed.

It completely sucks.

The Call That Broke Me

All of this is a setup for today — and yes, this is a bit of a bitch session.

When I hit a bad flare, I do what I always do: I try to make a plan. I messaged my oncologist’s office and explained exactly what was going on.

I got a call back from my favorite clinical nurse (heavy sarcasm here). She asked whether it might be the flu or something viral and suggested I get tested. Apparently, because my test results look “fine,” this couldn’t possibly be cancer-related. I was fuming and felt completely dismissed and unseen.

I had just seen my primary care doctor the week before. I don’t have the flu. I don’t have anything viral.

She kept calling it “soreness.”
I corrected her: No. It feels like I’m being stabbed in every tumor. If you know me, you know the exact tone that was said in!

The fatigue? Basically dismissed — because there’s “nothing they can do.”

Fine.

Side note: this is the same nurse who, during a previous appointment, muttered “me too” under her breath when I said I was tired of all of this. If you work in oncology and have lost your compassion, find another job.

So I Did What I Had To Do

After I calmed down, I asked myself what I actually needed to do. I went to my online support people — because they get it. I explained what was happening, and they reminded me of things I already had access to but had forgotten. They lifted me so I could get myself together.

That’s when I made my plan.

And honestly? This should be standard for every Stage IV patient.
But it isn’t.

Early-stage patients get support because there’s still hope of “getting back to normal.” Stage IV patients? We get very few fucks.

Setting Up Your Stage IV Support

Here’s the reality: no one is going to advocate for you except you. Which is ridiculous, because we are still people and deserve some quality of life.

This is what should be in place:

Once you have an oncologist, they handle the tests, scans, meds, radiation — all the cancer stuff.
Ask for a referral to a therapist and a social worker.
Ask for a referral to palliative care.
Make sure your primary care doctor is looped in, along with any other specialists.
If you need connection or encouragement, find a local group or an online one — whatever feels safest to you.

You are a human being. You deserve support. You deserve to feel safe.

Who Does What (Because It Matters)

Your oncologist focuses on cancer — bloodwork, tumor markers, scans, treatments. That’s it. Ask about anything outside of that and you’ll likely be told to talk to someone else.

A therapist is where you talk about how this is actually affecting you — mentally and emotionally. They help manage anxiety, depression, mood, and medications that allow you to think clearly enough to tolerate this longer.

A social worker helps with emotional support, navigating resources, financial assistance, family support, and coordinating care across teams.

Palliative care focuses on your physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. It is not end-of-life care. It’s about quality of life — pain, fatigue, symptoms — and thinking outside the box.

There’s overlap between social workers and palliative care professionals, but they don’t do the same things. Their focus and scope are different, and both are necessary.

One Last Thing

There are options.
They just don’t always tell you about them.

Sometimes they mention them right after saying “It’s progressed to Stage IV,” when your brain shuts down and you don’t hear another word.

I’m not in healthcare. I’m not giving advice. I’m sharing what I’ve lived and learned over the last decade.

If you have medical questions, talk to your care team.
If you’re feeling dismissed, exhausted, angry, or lost — you’re not wrong.

And you’re not alone.

Coming Back to the Heart of Making of a Diva

Jan15

I started Making of a Diva when I was turning 40.

Back then, it wasn’t about cancer.

It wasn’t about diagnoses or scans or treatment plans.

It was about identity. Transition. That quiet, unsettling moment when you realize life doesn’t look the way you thought it would — and you’re not entirely sure who you are anymore.

It was about becoming a woman in midlife and realizing that the rules had changed… but no one handed you a new map.

Over time, my life took turns I never planned for. Cancer became part of the story — a very real, very heavy part. And while that chapter deserves space and honesty, somewhere along the way the original heart of Making of a Diva got buried beneath survival mode.

So I’m bringing it back home.

Why I’m Returning to the Original Purpose

Making of a Diva was always meant to be a space for women navigating change — not a highlight reel, not a self-help manifesto, and not a place pretending everything turns out fine if you “just think positive.”

This next chapter is rooted in lived experience.

I’m intentionally focusing on women 40 and over — because this is often when things start to shift in ways no one prepared us for:

our bodies change our energy changes relationships shift roles dissolve or evolve grief shows up in unexpected ways identity gets… fuzzy

Sometimes it’s menopause.

Sometimes it’s illness.

Sometimes it’s loss, divorce, caretaking, aging parents, or simply waking up one day and thinking, How did I get here?

Often, it’s all of it at once.

What This Space Is (and Isn’t)

This isn’t therapy.

It isn’t about fixing yourself.

It is grounding.

It is validating.

It is honest and real.

This is a place for reflection, for naming the things we don’t talk about enough, and for sitting in the uncomfortable middle without rushing to “the lesson.”

Because sometimes growth doesn’t come from pushing forward — it comes from pausing and listening.

The Roads We Don’t Plan For

Life after 40 often takes us down roads we never would have chosen:

health challenges menopause and hormone shifts grief and loss aging and identity changes reinvention that feels forced instead of exciting

And yet… here we are.

This space will hold those conversations — without minimizing them, without wrapping them in a bow, and without pretending they make us “stronger” just because we survived them.

Meeting Yourself Again

You don’t have to become someone new.

You don’t have to reinvent yourself into something shinier or more productive or more palatable.

Sometimes the work is simply meeting yourself again —

as you are now,

with the body you have now,

with the life you’re living now.

That’s the heart of Making of a Diva.

And that’s where I’m returning.

If you’re in that in-between space — not who you were, not sure who you’re becoming — you’re in the right place.

I’m glad you’re here. 🤍

Keep an eye out as the site will be going through a bit of an overhaul. I’m super excited to see everything come full circle, which I never thought would happen!!

Stable Isn’t the Same as Easy

Jan6

I got my scan results back.

They’re stable. No progression.

This is when you would think the natural reaction would be joy, happiness and relief.

When you have early stage cancer it’s happy, you are relieved! You are one step closer to the end.

Not with Metastatic (Stage 4) Part of me is relieved sure. But stability means something very different in this world. It means I continue on the same path with no progression and no changes. You are probably thinking “I don’t get it! That’s good news.” Yes and no.

In the beginning you get excited when scans show tumors getting smaller or staying the same. Then your next scan may have some progression. And then back to stable. The rollercoaster of emotion and keeping up is exhausting. Then one day you realize what stable actually means and doesn’t mean.

Here’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

“Stable” doesn’t mean cancer is gone. It doesn’t mean life goes back to normal. It doesn’t mean one step closer to being finished with treatment. It means the same cycle continues: treatment, side effects, blood counts, scans, waiting, adjusting, worrying — repeat. No movement forward. No clear resolution. Just staying on the hamster wheel.

And that gets exhausting.

The longer things stay stable, the less visible cancer becomes to the outside world. People stop checking in as often. The urgency fades. The assumption becomes that you’re “doing fine.”

But I’m still living with this every single day.

I still wake up not knowing how I’m going to feel. I still have limits that didn’t exist before. I still have to measure everything I do because I pay for it afterward. I still have fatigue that isn’t solved by rest. I still have pain that doesn’t go away. So when scans say “nothing changed,” my day-to-day reality hasn’t actually gotten easier.

There’s also something hard to explain unless you’ve lived it: even progression would mean something different is happening. Decisions. A change in direction. Movement. I’m not wishing for things to get worse — I’m worn down by the limbo of nothing changing at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to die.

What I want is for the constant waiting and situation to end.

Living with stage 4 cancer isn’t one crisis — it’s an ongoing state of vigilance. You’re always monitoring your body. Always wondering what a symptom means. Always balancing what you want to do with what you’ll pay for later. And when you live like that long enough, it can start to feel like life is happening somewhere else while you wait on the sidelines.

There’s also grief — not just for health, but for identity.

I miss the version of myself who could make plans without hesitation. Who could dance, stay out late, say yes without calculating the cost. I still want to experience things, travel, be part of the world — but unpredictability makes planning feel risky, so I often don’t bother at all. That’s not because I don’t want to live. It’s because disappointment hurts. One day I may feel good so I make plans and have all my brilliant ideas just to be pulled back down to my reality.

People assume stability is the goal. And medically, it is. But emotionally, stability can be heavy. It asks you to endure without a finish line. Imagine running a race that never ends.

The whole thing is just bullshit. You get back on the hamster wheel until the next lab, infusion, scan, being in pain and fatigued with a smile on your face.

I’m writing this because I know I’m not the only one who feels this way — and because so many people stop talking once they’re “stable,” afraid they’ll sound ungrateful or like they’re asking for sympathy.

This isn’t about attention.

It’s about honesty.

You can be grateful to be alive and still mourn the life you lost. You can be relieved by stable scans and still feel trapped by the reality they represent. Both things can be true.

If you’re living in this space too — stable but struggling — you’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re not doing cancer “wrong.”

You’re human. And this is hard.