Catherine Gigante-Brown

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.

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.

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

A new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on mammograms ensures more women will die of breast cancer.

As a breast cancer survivor, the worst day of the year is when I go for my mammogram. True, nobody actually likes mammos, but I’ve been bitten by one. On the way to my annual squishing, I realized that I have a bunch of coping strategies.

I’m sure you’ll find it a delicious and well-stocked place. There are just a few rules

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

The office cubicle is indeed a strange bird. Here's how to survive life in a box without driving you—or your office mates—crazy.

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?