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Last updated: June 29.
On June 6, 2007 (fittingly, the anniversary of D-Day), author, blogger and mom, Jen Singer, was diagnosed with cancer. She endured
months of chemotherapy, radiation and house-wide construction, all while trying to parent her two tweens, sons Nicholas and Christopher.
Read her story from beginning to the latest by dropping by the How's Jen Archives. You can find the latest news
below.
Read Jen's story from start to now.
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Update: June 29
I was half-way up the hill yesterday before I realized what a big deal it was. Not the hill so much, but that I was not only walking up it, but carrying
three heavy wooden chairs to return to my next-door neighbors, who live up a fairly steep hill. On the way back, I pointed out the significance of
the trip to my son, Nicholas, 12,
who'd carried one of the folding chairs we'd borrowed for a piano recital at our house.
"I remember when walking up this hill, shortly after I finished cancer treatments, seemed like walking up Mount Washington," I explained. "I was going next door for a jewelry party, but
you'd think I was planning for a trip across the country, the way I psyched myself up for it.
And now I can carry three chairs up the hill -- and not need a nap afterwards."
He smiled.
I smiled, too. Not just because of how far I've come since two years ago when I underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
But because cancer is defining me less and less as I get farther and farther away from it. Or so I tell myself.
Two years ago this week, I watched the Macy's Fireworks in New York City from my hospital room. Well, I had to sit on the vent and press my face against the window to get a good
glimpse. But that proved too tiring, so I gave up and watched them on TV like everyone else, the booms from the fireworks over the East River acting like surround-sound to my TV.
At the end of the week, my husband arrived to take me "down the Shore" as we say here in New Jersey, on a family vacation.
My oncology nurse, Robert, was speeding up my chemo infusion so I could get out after five long days (after 20 other long days before that) in the hospital, and the Benedryl was making me woozy.
As I dozed in and out, missing entire sets of Wimbledon tennis on TV in what felt like only minutes, I heard my roommate ask Robert, "When she leaves, can I have her bed?" The bed with the view of the East River.
He replied, "If she leaves."
I bolted awake and chastised him: "I don't care if you have to strap my bed on top of my mini-van, I'm leaving here and going down the Shore today!" He smiled and replied, "That's the attitude!"
And then I fell back asleep.
It was, indeed, a big deal to walk up that hill yesterday, chairs in hand. And what we went through two years ago was a huge deal. But that hill is getting easier to overcome, too.
Jen
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