When Cancer Calls: diary of fear and hope in cancer fight

Arizona Daily Star assistant features editor and critic Kathleen Allen was diagnosed with uterine cancer in March. The newspaper where she works is publishing her diary When Cancer Calls as a feature on the newspaper's website.

Allen begins at the beginning, when the first symptoms that something was wrong began to be appear, and at first she ignored the signs of uterine cancer -- her mother had died from uterine cancer but still, Allen told herself it was nothing. From denial, to acceptance to fear, to understanding what cancer meant to her, she takes you with her as she personally recounts the experiences of a cancer diagnosis to cancer survivorship. Here are a just a few excerpts from Allen's diary:
"I do not want to be alone with my thoughts. I don't want to think about what I know I have to think about: healing, changing my lifestyle, changing my life, being a person who has cancer."

"It hits me: I am now a person with cancer. That's my identity. I'm not a sister, writer, wife, aunt, independent woman. I am a cancer victim (I hate that word). And, hopefully, a cancer survivor (oh how I hate that term, too). The realization is paralyzing."

"Last night I was bombarded with vivid dreams. Most were of doctors saying I had to wait to have the cancer cut out. Or that I'm not that sick. You'd think I'd be happy with the last one. Instead, oddly, I fear that people would stop loving me if I was well."

"Funny, I had expected great profundities to come out of having cancer. But my thoughts are consumed with moving without pain, eating right, paying bills, staying healthy. It's very mundane, really. "

"Then, last week, I was gripped with a fear that I was going to die. Soon. I became obsessed with planning trips and activities I've always wanted to do."