On My Mind

Yesterday I checked in on the Cancer Culture Chronicles, a thoughtful and sometimes funny blog by Anna Rachnel, who lives with metastatic breast cancer.

There I learned that the author of Living With Cancer, a blog I’d read occasionally and has been in the back of my mind lately, is dead. Sadly, I never had the chance to meet or speak with Daria.

From a eulogy in the final blog entry: She was born in 1961 in Alberta, Canada. Her breast cancer diagnosis came on in 2000, when she was 39 years old. She received surgery, chemo and radiation and additional meds. According to her first blog entry of August 2008, she’d had a local recurrence in 2004. The disease came back on the other side and elsewhere around then she started her blog. Among other things she accomplished in her life, about which I know too little, she participated in a clinical trial of an experimental drug, Brivanib, and advocated for cancer patients by speaking with members of the Canadian Parliament. She died this past January, a few days before her 50^th birthday, survived by her mother, sisters, brother and husband.

From Daria’s first post, upon her 2008 recurrence: “…It is still too difficult to discuss the details. I’m hoping that sharing my experience will help me cope with the reality of my illness.”

Based on what’s evident on the blog, it seems likely that the on-line writing probably did help her, personally and individually. But perhaps, even more so, the blog is instructive for others, now. I suspect there’s a lot more I and others might learn from her story and digital afterlife.

With respect

—

Related Posts:

• Palbociclib Appears to Prolong Progression Free Survival in Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer
• The Outlier’s Message, and Evolutionary Science in Breast Cancer
• Thank You, Rachel and Susan
• Breast Cancer Stats: Notes from the 2012 ACS Report, and a Key Question
• Thinking of Someone with MBC in the Hospital Now