Living With Cancer, Even When It’s Not Yours

Cancer doesn’t just affect the person who receives the diagnosis—it can change an entire family.In this deeply personal chapter, I explore what it’s like to have watched cancer affect multiple generations of my family: losing my cousin to breast cancer and my aunt and godmother to pancreatic cancer, seeing two uncles survive prostate cancer, my maternal uncle undergo surgery for colon cancer, and watching my father continue his battle with lymphoma.I talk about the impact cancer can have on families, children and caregivers, the reality of treatment and “chemo brain,” and how watching the people you love face cancer has changed my own perspective on treatment, quality of life and mortality.I also share my spiritual perspective on death and why I don’t believe death has to be something we fear.Because cancer may enter one person’s body—but its impact can reach an entire family.