by Maggie Van Duyn | Sep 29, 2016 | #maggiesbrightside, Metastatic Disease, Positive thinking
What a year it’s been. This week marks the one year anniversary of my diagnosis with metastatic breast cancer, and it has been a constant battle to keep my head above the fog. I feel like I’m experiencing PTSD and I’m reliving all the feelings I had last year at this...
by Maggie Van Duyn | Sep 15, 2016 | Breast Cancer
My neighbor’s husband died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. I know them from the neighborhood. I know that he played with his kids all of the time because I could see him and his three happy, silly, fun kids playing soccer in the yard. I know that they hate it when...
by Maggie Van Duyn | Sep 7, 2016 | #maggiesbrightside, anger, Cancer, Metastatic Disease, Stage IV
Every time I get a scan, there is a piece of me that wants the doctor to say, “well actually, we were wrong. You don’t have cancer and if you just use activated charcoal for 3 months, you will be normal.” THAT would be the best news. But instead, at my last scan I got...
by Maggie Van Duyn | Aug 8, 2016 | Breast Cancer, Cancer, Diagnosis, Metastatic Disease, Stage IV
I’ve been in a funk lately. I have this pit in my stomach that just won’t go away. At first I thought it was because I published a blog post about racism and my support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The post was live for about 4 days and invoked a...
by Maggie Van Duyn | Jul 17, 2016 | Cancer, Diagnosis, Environmental Factors
Background: I work for the Department for Children and Families and we have been, until April of this year, temporarily located at the Global Foundries/IBM Site. This week we got this email: All, Please read this important message from Commissioner Chen! To staff who...
