After being a nurse for 22 years and an oncology nurse for 12, Susan Sayles, MS, RN, OCN, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. Since completing her treatment, she’s been encouraging other breast cancer patients …

A physician's heart may be in the right place while reassuring a patient, "Don't worry. It'll be nothing." Unfortunately, trying to spare patients worry during evaluations can backfire. Patients who are reassured and then find out they have a serious illness may suffer from...

In my last post, I used the example of a false alarm to illustrate how joy can come out of illness. That wasn't the best example, given how the joyful relief of a false alarm can be mixed with anger, embarrassment, self-doubt and other uncomfortable emotions. 

I don't like that I got cancer. Still, many good things have come out of the illness experience. Many joyful moments have happened because of my illness.

I must have been quite a sight, hobbling from display to display on crutches while taking my med-school anatomy final. I remember thinking how much I hated those crutches. Almost forty years later, I rely on a variety of crutches to manage aftereffects of past cancer therapies and (how great to write this) the effects of aging. I love each and every crutch.