The Liz Army:
A blog
Patient. Patient advocate. Researcher. Student.
There are more than 500 posts here. Use this search to look for something specific. Good luck!
A note about my oldest posts: I began blogging about brain cancer in 2008, at age 29. I had no background or knowledge about healthcare when I started. Please excuse typos and other misconceptions. What you read here is me in real time, like a time capsule.
Can chemotherapy mess with your hair’s ability to regrow?
All the bad crap in your body comes out at some point or another, and it often leaves through your hair
What art can do to us
With cancer I think about death more than I did before, and when faced with situations filled with extreme beauty and emotion I breathe in each moment knowing it may be the last time I experience it. The Rothko painting was a special moment for me. I don't want it to be my last.
Have you heard of temporal lobe epilepsy and déjà vu?
What creeps me out about the déjà vu is that I have heard it is often an aura for temporal lobe epilepsy. My tumor is in the parietal lobe, but the parietal is right next to the temporal lobe, and if my tumor were to ever spread, it could, theoretically, spread to the temporal lobe.
What is making me dizzy? The inner ear or the parietal lobe
After my alarm went off I got in the shower, dizzy still. I held myself up with the walls. I leaned on the counter as I brushed my teeth. I wrapped myself in a towel and watched Brett do his morning push-ups.
Needle pricks and scar tissue now permanent
Does anyone else have permanent scars from all the blood draws?
I'm here. I have cancer. Get used to it.
It has been freeing to let loose a big secret that has defined my life over the past 2+ years. It is like I've come out of the cancer closet.
Dreaming about my friend’s brain surgery
My friend Erin is having her second brain surgery on Wednesday and last night I had this dream.
Not dying from cancer: the ultimate imposter syndrome
My friends celebrate the end of my treatment like I'm some sort of badass. I feel like a fraud because I didn't really do anything. I was a participant in the process.