Flashback #20: Fun Things To Do Before 11:00 pm

activities to do with friends

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #20: Fun Things To Do Before 11:00 pm, written by Mallory. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues next week!

….Finally, I learned to just embrace my new need for rest, relaxation, and some structured calm in my life.  🙂  Eventually, my friends learned to embrace it a little too…otherwise, we would have never seen one another!  These are a few activities that you can do when you are looking for something fun but don’t want to go out on the town like you might once have done.  These activities would be great done by yourself, with a sweetheart, or with a group of friends!….

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Flashback #21: Dressing For Short Hair

dressing for short hair

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #21: Dressing For Short Hair, written by Anna. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

….The thing about short hair is that it changes your entire look. it’s a domino effect as this great Vogue article explains. Changing your hair drastically has a large impact on your personal style. Many women rely heavily on their long hair for confidence and femininity. I found that once my hair was gone, the outfits that looked great before no longer looked great on me or brought me that same feeling of confidence. My long hair was very much a fashion statement, projecting the “girly’ and feminine style I embraced. Bald & short hair presented a new challenge. How to accent my body and my face in new ways. I had to find creative ways to represent my femininity….

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Flashback #22: The Process Of Surviving

surviving young adult cancer

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #22: The Process Of Surviving was written by Mallory. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

….There are actually a few things that I could rant about as a cancer survivor.  There are the usual, Why did this happen to me? kind of thing.  There is definitely the much deserved rant about what things people say to someone with cancer.

First of all though, to get the actual rant started, I hate the words survivor and battle when talking about cancer.  The unfortunate truth of the word survivor, is that it implies such a harrowing feat for those of us here and the narrow alternative for those of us who are no longer.  I also hate the phrase, so-and-so lost their battle.  Really?!  Because I’m sure that that person’s friends and family still see the battle as an every day occurrence…not something lost.  Definitely not something that is done, finito, fini.  The same connotation is used with survivorship.  That is the root of this rant…the idea that being a survivor also means that the battle is over…

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Flashback #23: Interview With Cancer Survivor Jenn!

breast cancer survivor

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #23: Interview With Cancer Survivor Jenn! was an interview with Jenn. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

….Lacuna Loft: What was your biggest parenting challenge during cancer treatment and into survivorship?

Jenn: I lost my job during treatment so I used the opportunity to volunteer at their schools and participate as team mom for the sports they played. Yea, I was the bald mom at football practice and in art class but I used it as a teaching moment for all the kids. Some asked to see my head without my hat or scarf and I happily obliged. I wanted my kids to know that no matter what I’d still be their mom and I’d always be there for them. The toughest part though was when another child told one of mine that I was probably going to die. I had to do a lot of damage control, I certainly couldn’t predict the future but I couldn’t have my kids living in fear either. I always tell them (still to this day) I’m fine right now….

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Flashback #24: Boobs To Noobs

breast reconstruction

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #24: Boobs To Noobs was written by Mahalia. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues next week!

….Getting breasts is one of the hallmarks of becoming a woman, but for most of our lives, they’re merely decorative. In the case of men, I believe their’s are God’s way of reminding them their embryos started out as female, to help connect them with the female experience, or maybe they’re just a Darwinian fluke. For whatever reason, everyone has them…

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Flashback #25: A DIY Snowman Pillow

diy snowman

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #25: A DIY Snowman Pillow was written by Mallory. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

…Winter is still here!  While the cold and gray might be getting you down, nothing will make your home cheerier than a DIY snowman pillow!  This DIY project is super simple…get the kids involved for an afternoon of fun!  This is a great project to do when you’re not feeling so hot from chemo, or when your life as a caregiver needs a little project to take your mind away for a while….

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Flashback #26: Interview With Cancer Survivor Imogen!

young adult cancer and melanoma

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #26: Interview With Cancer Survivor Imogen! was an interview with Imogen. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

….Lacuna Loft: How did you feel when you were first diagnosed?

Imogen: After what was effectively a very long and drawn out diagnosis, the actual point of being informed I had Melanoma and first main surgery were just 2 hours apart.  I was totally shellshocked.  I was confused, scared, in physical pain, and emotionally uprooted.  I still had no real idea what Melanoma entailed and spent the first few days after my wide excision on the internet reading about Melanoma and what it meant for me.  I was terrified – I had been advised it was bad and from what I was reading online I was suddenly aware of just how serious and life threatening this was…

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Flashback #27: Minority Within Minority – #AintIaSurvivor

minority young adult cancer survivor

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #27: Minority Within Minority – #AintIaSurvivor was written by Christabel. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

….Well, at least they adjusted for age, which doesn’t usually happen for young adults treated in oncology settings that typically have a geriatric bent on everything. But even when focusing on the margins, my needs were left out. Young, Asian, and cancerous, I was a racial minority within a minority population of young adult cancer patients – a disregarded minority within a minority.

Often, in efforts to be culturally responsive, clinical practice addresses the needs of the burgeoning Asian American patient population by making things available in various Asian languages – language access is considered tantamount to health equity. Although language is indeed hugely important for those with limited English proficiency, it is not the panacea for the complete set of challenges facing Asian Americans who seek health care.

“They don’t know,” translated into whatever language still means, “They don’t know.”…

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Flashback #28: Today I Think Of Her

young adult carer

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #28: Today I Think Of Her was written by Mallory. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues next week!

…There are two days every year when I write about my mother, on her birthday and wedding anniversary, and on the day that she died.  So many things have happened since she left.  I often think that I need to call her only to remember that I cannot do that right now.  Such is life after death.

Before my mother died, my family had very few conversations about her last wishes.  I ended up writing her obituary because I like to write and it felt like the thing to do.  We planned a memorial service instead of a funeral because that also seemed like what she might have wanted.  What about her belongings?  What about the who to invite and what we should say?…

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Flashback #29: Free, Printable Puzzles To Take Anywhere!

puzzles for chemo

To celebrate our 2-year anniversary of being a nonprofit, Lacuna Loft is bringing back our top 31 articles from our archives!  This is Flashback #29! Free, Printable Puzzles To Take Anywhere! was written by Mallory. These 31 articles are the best of the best and we’re very happy to share them with you again!  The countdown continues tomorrow!

Chemotherapy areas, as well as doctors offices and waiting rooms, are often tight spaces.  You bring everything with you in a bag and as soon as your name is called or it is time to go, whatever you have taken out of your bag needs to be quickly grabbed and put away.  Everyone seems to have a preference for what activities they like to bring with them to pass the time in the doctor’s office.  Books are a great thing to stash away for these occasions…you can pull out your current story and quickly reintegrate into your favorite foreign land or fantasy world.  Sometimes though, the environment you are in may make it difficult to concentrate on reading….I found it almost impossible to read while sitting in a chemo chair for 6-8 hours.  There were just too many people chatting or coming and going to concentrate.  When I discovered that I basically couldn’t read while going from appointment to appointment, I felt instantly annoyed…and bored!

That is when I found puzzles 🙂  Free printable puzzles are wonderfully inviting and fun when needing to go from a scan, to the doctor’s office, to the lab where they draw blood, and then over to the chemo area!  The more challenging logic puzzles I needed to save for a day when no one would interrupt me with questions once I had something complicated about the puzzle finally sorted in my mind, but the simpler logic puzzles and sudoku were always my favorite.  A digital version of scrabble was always fun to play with the person along with me for the appointment too.

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