The Idea Of Cancer Is Scarey

"What you resist persists!" This was after I told a cancer psychologist that anytime I start to feel sick, I think it has to be cancer! I worry about my cancer appointments. I worry about other people's cancer.

I have two Dr. Seuss sweatshirts that I would wear quite often, and they are about cancer. The sweatshirts say, "I do not like Cancer here, or there, I do not like Cancer anywhere!"

The psychologist said to me, "What if it were an irritating friend, family member, or neighbor? "Would you invite them in for supper, to watch a movie, to take to bed?"

I'm sure I was shocked that he put it that way, and my expression must have shown it! "No, you wouldn't, and that is what I would like you to think of cancer as being something you don't want around. Something you kick outside when it comes up. Can you do that?"

We laughed a few times during the session, and he said I should laugh more as I have a good laugh. I told him I do laugh, as I am in laughter yoga and would be laughing right after our appointment, and that I laughed with Jim Gaffigan as I waited to talk to him.

He just laughed at all of that! He was really easy to talk to. He told me that he talked to 23,000. people in his time working in cancer programs. He was just 2 years younger than I am. So the next time I wanted to see him, he was no longer there.

Then he said, "Change out of that cancer sweatshirt when we are done talking, wash it, fold it, put it in a drawer, and only wear it to see your oncologist."

I wanted to move up north because I love the outdoors. Yes, even in the winter. I don't go outdoors much as I live in farm country where the farmers spray their crops with a product that is blamed for the cancer I have had.

I know it is in all the fields around us, as the farmer said, we are the only ones to complain. He wanted to plant a crop on our property, and at the time, it belonged to my husband and his brother. His brother agreed to use the chemical to kill the hay to plant a corn crop.

I have been told more than once that I should stop focusing on cancer and start to live life without cancer. Because 'No Cancer' is still what the oncologists are saying after 12 years. It will be 13 years in May.

Finally, oncologists are saying the longer I have been without a recurrence, the more likely it won't recur.

Several years ago, I wrote a book as a fundraiser item for the Powwow for Hope. A fundraiser for the American Indian Cancer Foundation. I wrote the book in memory of my sister, who died from leukemia in 2010.

When I wrote the book for the fundraiser, I tried to put a positive slant on cancer in the book. That is tough, and I think I succeeded.

Team Carrie fundraises for Cancer every year, since her death. Family, friends, and I have fundraised. She was just 53 when she died from leukemia. I was diagnosed with cancer two years later.

This year, in January, my brother, who is living in Texas, was diagnosed with cancer. I spoke with a younger brother at lunch on Thursday about how it will be important for him to take good care of himself, as we talked about his older brother and the cancer diagnosis.

So far, our sister, I, and now our brother have had cancer. It sounds like we may have that in our family tree.

My brother-in-law had cancer, too. Even after he had lost all of his hair. My husband has not had cancer, but he lost his hair early, too.

Last year, the Team Carrie fundraiser was for a month in June 2025, for a local oncology department. They lost their funding for gas cards. This year, in 2026, it will also be for a month in the city I grew up in. There is a Native American cancer program that is actively helping people with cancer.

Stay tuned for more on that. The Powwow for Hope isn't until October 2026, this year.