Catherine Gigante-Brown

8. Educate, don’t fixate.

I’m boycotting you until you start recognizing breast cancer survivors like me by carrying mastectomy bras.

Food can be more than nourishing; it can be healing.

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

I sat obediently in her chair atop four ancient copies of the Yellow Pages. Crossing my fingers, I prayed Catholic schoolgirl prayers.

I was 21 –– a Catholic, heterosexual college student, living at home in Brooklyn and still trying to discover who I was. At the crossroads of her life, Lorde knew exactly who she was. She was waging a war against cancer and sharing an old house in Staten Island with her kids and partner. But maybe we weren’t so different after all.

I know it’s not a politically correct one, but I’ve got a confession to make: earth-friendly hotels stink. There, I said it.

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

herbalist. shiatsu practitioner. healer.

That’s the thing about being a breast cancer survivor — it’s always there: it never goes away. The scars, the fear that lurks in the back of your mind like a boogeyman. You’re going along nicely, living your merry life, and you’re fine, until you’re not.