Battling cancer reframes life, written by Susan T. Lindau, speaks to my personal experience of cancer diagnosis and treatment. It may speak to your cancer experience as well. Although Lindau was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and I diagnosed with breast cancer, there are similarities that transcend the particulars of what cancer has been diagnosed.

Such as learning to wait. In an old diary entry I wrote during the time I was undergoing treatment, "if I am always on time for my appointments, why is the doctor never on time to see me." This came out of the regularity of sitting for at least two hours -- no I do not exaggerate the length of time -- beyond the time I was scheduled to see the doctor before I ever saw the doctor.

I, too, had an excellent team of physicians and nurses. I attribute their care with making it to cancer survivorship -- but there is at least one physician or nurse you are likely to meet along the way, who, in lacking good bedside manners or intelligent wisdom, really should be in a different profession. Physicians and nurses are human, and cancer scares a good many human beings. But if you are in the medical profession, allowing cancer to intimidate you is not good for the patient. As a cancer patient, you learn to reject such negativity in all its subtle forms. You learn to be an outspoken advocate for your cancer care.

Your medical team needs to believe in your cancer survivorship.

Lindau talks about learning new social skills that were not really a result of any intention to good manners as they were an inner drive of anger and resolve to fight cancer -- and to do whatever needed to be done to make it through to the other side. Battling cancer reframes life is very well-written and could only have been written by someone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis and gone through treatment.