Catherine Gigante-Brown

Why do we venerate individuality in adults but condemn it in children?

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

I go for checkups when I’m supposed to: every three months to the oncologist and every six months to the breast surgeon. I go to SHARE support group meetings to bolster myself. I try to get enough sleep, despite the occasional night spent wide-eyed with dread.

I dreaded putting him back on Concerta in the fall but I knew I had to. Or did I?

You realize pretty soon that everything other than cancer — i.e. missing a train, being late to your dentist appointment — is no biggie compared to the suck factor of chemo.

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?

Candida Royalle pretty much invented couples erotica. She made it socially-acceptable. Respectable. The women in her films looked like real women and had real, comfortable female bodies. And her movies actually had stories. Good stories. She hired her friends—adult legends like Annie Sprinkle, Veronicas Hart and Vera, and Gloria Leonard — to create Femme films too.

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.