Register for Gabfest 2026 Today!

The YA cancer community is uniting as we bring together young adult cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and the professionals who support them at YA Cancer Gabfest 2026!

This year, YA Cancer Gabfest 2026 is all about Ground Control to Young Adults: Your Mission to Connection, Healing, and Growth. Beginning on December 7th, we invite you to join us for five epic days of connection, conversation, and real-world survivorship wisdom. You’ll find interactive sessions, crash courses, and heartfelt stories from across the YA cancer community—all designed to help you navigate the twists and turns of cancer together. Think of it as your mission control for young adult cancer.

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Case Files: Creative Coping Through Photography

In this new blog series, Case Files: Creative Coping, we are highlighting the creative coping practices our community members enjoy outside of our programs. If you have a hobby or practice that you’d like to tell us about, please email programs@cactuscancer.org.

Today we’ll be hearing from Valarie, one of our amazing Cactus Cancer Society community members, and one of her many creative coping practices. Read on to learn more about how she got hooked on photography, its relationship to her cancer experience, and how she’s found community through her work!

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Register Now for YA Cancer Gabfest 2026!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Whether you’re facing down a new diagnosis, navigating life after treatment, or showing up day after day for someone you love—you don’t have to do it alone.

This year, YA Cancer Gabfest 2026 is all about Ground Control to Young Adults: Your Mission to Connection, Healing, and Growth. From December 7–11, we’re bringing together young adult cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and the professionals who support them—for a week of connection, conversation, and real-world survivorship wisdom.

You’ll find interactive sessions, crash courses, and heartfelt stories from across the YA cancer community—all designed to help you navigate the twists and turns of cancer together.

Because whether you’re the one in the chair, the one holding the clipboard, or the one holding a hand—you’re part of this story. And your voice matters.

Join us. Let’s build the kind of support we all wish existed—stronger, louder, and together.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Ask a Cactus: Guys Edition Introduction

This is our first video in our Ask a Cactus Series: Guys Edition. Please meet Bryan and Kyle! They are guys in our Cactus Cancer Society community and here to answer a range of questions you may have about the experience guys have in the young adult cancer space. If you’re a guy looking for a sense of “I feel that way, too,” a caregiver to a guy with cancer, or anyone else – they’re here to bring you the truth of their experiences.

Check out this video to meet our experts, Bryan and Kyle!

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Back to School: September 2026

It’s September! The start of the school year is here and that means it’s time for kids to learn, but what about adults? We don’t have any curriculum or teachers to teach us, we’re adults – we need to teach ourselves. However, how do we figure out what we should learn or what we even want to learn?  One thing to do is think about school – what did you like? Did you like Math? English? History? Science? Maybe art, gym, health, or one of those other “specials” in school (At least that is what those subjects were called when I was in school)? We all liked at least something at one point – what was yours?

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