Suleika Jaouad

“One of the hardest parts about developing leukemia at age 22 was how restrictive it was: My treatments left me highly susceptible to infection and with limited mobility.”

“For my 100-day project, I decided to keep a journal. It could be just one sentence. Often, it was just one word, occasionally the F-word. But it gave me a sense of structure.”

“I've found that I do some of my best thinking during our early morning walks - those few hours after the garbage trucks have gone and before the coffee shops open when Manhattan is as asleep as it ever will be. For that one hour each morning, I'm focused on the now.”

“It took me a long time to be able to say I was a cancer patient. Then, for a long time, I was only that: A cancer patient.”

“Even amid the shock of my diagnosis, I held onto the hope that I'd be able to make the most of my down time by catching up on reading or watching all those Criterion Collection movies I'd always meant to watch.”

“Cancer makes people think about mortality. It scares your friends and family. And many cancer patients, consciously or otherwise, try to buffer bad news with a dose of positivity.”

“Cancer can catch even the best of us off guard. Sometimes the emotions come pouring out. Sometimes they stay locked inside.”

“Traveling gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. You can imagine my excitement when, one year after my bone marrow transplant and two years after my cancer diagnosis, my doctors gave me permission to take my first big trip since cancer. Freedom, finally!”

“I think one of the difficult things for me was that I was putting on a brave face for my loved ones; they were putting on a brave face for me. But what got lost in that was the ability to talk about our fear.”

“For cancer patients like me, and for others who suffer from chronic or life-threatening illnesses, natural disasters don't put health on the back burner.”

“During the first year of my cancer treatment, adopting a dog was out of the question. I spent more time in the hospital than out. And in the time I was able to spend at home, I had to live in a germ-free bubble to protect my fragile immune system.”

“Writing about cancer is always a challenge for me because it hits so close to home.”

“The hero's journey is, you know, one of the oldest story arcs that we have. And it's one, I think, that's especially projected onto cancer patients.”

“When you are talking to a dog about cancer, there are no judgments or taboos.”

“So, you know, when I think of survival as a creative act, it's not trying to plaster over the isolation or to, you know, rewrite your predicament into something positive with a happy ending or some kind of neat resolution. It's writing into the unknown.”

“I remember working as a paralegal at a law firm, being so exhausted that, midday, I would go to the utility closet to take a nap. And to me, that wasn't the evidence of a serious illness; it was evidence that somehow I wasn't able to work long hours or to work as hard as the people around me.”

“The steep price tag of cancer treatment needs to continue to be a part of the national conversation, not just the patient-doctor one.”

“Whether we're too embarrassed or shy - or worried that a discussion about cost might affect the quality of our care - it's clear that both doctors and patients need to do more communicating.”

“It is hard not to speak in cliches about cancer. It can be even harder not to feel as if I have to live up to those cliches. I sometimes feel a deep sense of guilt for not doing a better job of making lemonade out of metaphorical lemons.”

“I'll never go so far to call cancer a gift. It's a really terrible disease. It's taken the lives of so many of my fellow friends in the oncology unit. But like any life-interrupted moment, there are silver linings.”