When Cancer Gets Too Loud

When Cancer Gets Too Loud

🌼 Date: Monday, June 8, 2026

⚡ Energy: Trying to stay present while my brain tries to time travel

💞 Status: Re-centering, one small thing at a time

😟 Outlook: I cannot control every fear, but I can come back to this moment

The thoughts of cancer have been pretty loud lately.

Not just background noise.

Loud loud.

Like someone turned the volume up in my brain and then hid the remote.

Cancer has a way of pulling you out of the present moment.

It drags you into the future.

Into the what ifs.

What if it comes back?

What if that pain means something?

What if the next appointment brings bad news?

What if I never feel like myself again?

What if this is my new normal?

What if, what if, what if.

And then, just for fun, cancer also yanks you backward into the memories.

Diagnosis day.

Surgery.

Chemo.

Radiation.

The scans.

The waiting.

The fear.

The smell of the infusion room.

The sound of machines.

The feeling of lying on the radiation table.

The way your body looked before.

The way it looks now.

The things you cannot change.

The things you cannot control.

The things you wish had never happened.

It is a lot.

Some days, my brain is not exactly a peaceful place to live.

It is more like a browser with 47 tabs open, three of them frozen, one playing music I cannot find, and all of them somehow about cancer.

So I have been trying to learn ways to bring myself back to the present moment.

Not because I am pretending the fears are not real.

They are real.

Not because I think I can positive-think my way out of trauma.

Please.

If that worked, I would have glitter-bombed this whole situation into submission months ago.

But because I need tools.

I need ways to remind my mind and body that I am here.

Right now.

In this moment.

Not back on the day I was diagnosed.

Not lying on the chemo chair.

Not waiting for a scan result.

Not six months from now at the next oncology appointment.

Here.

Breathing.

Healing.

Still here.

These are some of the things that help me when cancer feels too heavy.

My number one go-to is always music.

Always.

Music reaches places that words cannot.

Sometimes I need a song that matches the mood so I can let the feelings move through me instead of letting them set up camp in my chest.

Sometimes I need something that makes me cry.

Sometimes I need something loud enough to drown out my own thoughts.

Sometimes I need something that makes me want to sing along, even if my voice is doing its own medically questionable version of the performance.

Music gives my brain something else to hold onto.

A beat.

A lyric.

A memory.

A feeling.

A moment that is not cancer.

Music has always been my safe place.

And right now, I need safe places.

The second thing that helps is getting outside.

Even if it is just for a few minutes.

Feeling the sun on my face.

Listening to the birds.

Standing in the yard.

Watching the dogs sniff around like they are conducting very important scientific research.

Putting my feet in the grass.

Or, let’s be honest, putting my feet carefully in the grass because neuropathy makes everything an adventure.

Nature has a way of reminding me to slow down.

The birds do not care about my scanxiety.

The trees are not waiting for lab results.

The grass is not asking me how I feel about survivorship.

The sun just shows up.

The breeze just moves.

The world keeps doing its thing.

And sometimes that helps me breathe a little easier.

The third thing is spending time with people I love.

Cancer can feel incredibly isolating.

Even when people love you.

Even when people support you.

Even when you are not technically alone.

There are parts of this journey that feel lonely because nobody else is living inside your body.

Nobody else feels the exact fear you feel.

Nobody else knows what it is like to look in your mirror and miss yourself in your own reflection.

But being around people who truly love me helps.

The real ones.

The ones who do not need me to perform “fine.”

The ones who can sit with the truth.

The ones who can make me laugh.

The ones who let me be tired, spicy, emotional, quiet, ridiculous, or all of the above.

They remind me that I am more than my diagnosis.

More than my fears.

More than my body changes.

More than my cancer story.

I am still Tina.

And sometimes I need my people to help me remember that.

Number four: dance like no one is watching.

And hopefully no one is.

Because let’s not pretend I am out here auditioning for anything.

This is not graceful.

This is not coordinated.

This is not “Dancing with the Stars.”

This is more like “Tiny Tina Attempts Movement Without Falling Over.”

But sometimes dancing helps.

Not because I have rhythm.

I do not need comments from the peanut gallery.

But because it gets me out of my head and back into my body.

And after cancer, being in my body is complicated.

Some days I am angry at it.

Some days I do not trust it.

Some days I feel disconnected from it.

Some days I feel like my body is a house I am still learning how to live in after a storm ripped through it.

Dancing, even badly, reminds me that my body is still mine.

Changed, yes.

Tired, yes.

A little unreliable, absolutely.

But still mine.

Sometimes I just need to shake off the anxiety, release some tension, move the fear around a little, and make room for a tiny bit of joy.

Even if that joy looks like a slightly unhinged living room wiggle.

Number five is puppy time.

And honestly, this one might be the most powerful.

Sitting with my puppies naturally calms me.

There is something about petting them, feeling their little bodies relax, listening to their breathing, and letting myself slow down with them.

It is like our heartbeats start to sync up.

They calm me.

I calm them.

And for a little while, the world gets smaller in the best way.

Just me.

A puppy.

A soft blanket.

A quiet moment.

No appointments.

No “what ifs.”

No medical terms.

No cancer noise.

Just love with fur.

Maizy especially has become such a little healing presence in my life.

When we brought her home, she was timid and scared and unsure of everything.

Now she follows me to my chair, waits for me to pick her up, settles onto my lap, and keeps an eye on me like she knows I should not be left unsupervised.

And honestly, she is not wrong.

I used to say we rescued her.

But the longer she is here, the more I believe she rescued me too.

She came into my life during a time when I desperately needed something soft to hold.

Something sweet to focus on.

Something that needed me, but in a gentle way.

Something that reminded me there is still life happening outside of cancer.

She does not care about my scars.

She does not care about my hair.

She does not care about my one-boob situation.

She does not care if I am wearing compression gear, pajamas, or yesterday’s emotional support hoodie.

She just wants Mommy.

And that is healing in a way I cannot fully explain.

Number six is writing.

Writing helps me untangle the thoughts swirling around in my head.

And let me tell you, there are a lot of thoughts in there.

Some of them are organized.

Some of them are feral.

Some of them have glitter.

Some of them probably need supervision.

Writing gives them somewhere to go.

That is how One Badass Day at a Time started.

I needed a place to be honest.

A place to process.

A place to put the fear, the grief, the anger, the funny parts, the ugly parts, the medical nonsense, the body changes, the puppy nurse updates, the protein math, the compression chic, and all the little moments that make up this life now.

Writing does not fix everything.

But it gives me a place to release some of the weight.

It helps me turn the swirling mess into words.

And once it is in words, it feels a little less trapped inside me.

Number seven is rest.

This one sounds simple.

It is not.

Rest is hard when you are used to being productive.

Rest is hard when part of you feels guilty for not doing more.

Rest is hard when your brain keeps saying, You should be better by now.

But sometimes I do not need to fix anything.

I do not need answers.

I do not need to push through.

I do not need to make a plan, write a list, solve the future, or pretend I have more energy than I do.

Sometimes I simply need rest.

A nap.

A quiet moment.

An early bedtime.

A recliner reset.

A day where I do not ask my body to perform for anyone.

Sometimes rest makes a bigger difference than I realize.

And sometimes rest is the most productive thing I can do, which is deeply annoying but apparently true.

Number eight is self-care.

And I will be the first to admit, I am not always good at this one.

Not because I do not believe in it.

Because I often do not have the energy.

The idea of skincare, getting dressed, doing something nice for myself, or putting in effort to feel human can sound lovely in theory and impossible in practice.

But self-care does not always have to be a whole spa-day production.

Sometimes it is putting lotion on my skin.

Sometimes it is wearing something that makes me feel a little more like me.

Sometimes it is fixing my tiny hair swoop.

Sometimes it is doing my nails, even when my fingers hurt.

Sometimes it is using the good lip balm.

Sometimes it is washing my face.

Sometimes it is just taking five minutes and telling myself, You still deserve care.

Especially on the hard days.

Especially when I do not feel pretty.

Especially when I do not feel strong.

Especially when I do not feel like myself.

Self-care reminds me that this body has been through hell, but it still deserves kindness.

I still deserve kindness.

The truth is, cancer does not stop affecting me the day treatment ends.

That is something I am learning over and over again.

There are still moments when fear sneaks in.

Memories resurface.

My body does something weird.

A new ache shows up.

A scar catches my eye.

A picture makes me miss the old Tina.

A future appointment starts tapping on the inside of my skull.

And suddenly the weight of everything I have been through feels overwhelming again.

Re-centering myself is not about pretending those feelings do not exist.

They exist.

They are real.

They deserve to be acknowledged.

But I do not want them to drag me so far into the past or future that I miss the life happening right now.

So I am learning.

Slowly.

Imperfectly.

With music.

With sunshine.

With my people.

With bad dancing.

With puppy heartbeats.

With writing.

With rest.

With tiny acts of self-care.

I am learning how to give myself grace.

How to notice when I am spiraling.

How to breathe.

How to come back.

Back to the room I am in.

Back to the body I am learning to live in.

Back to the people who love me.

Back to the dogs on my lap.

Back to the life that is still happening.

Right here.

Right now.

Cancer gets loud sometimes.

But it does not get to be the only voice in the room.

Not today.

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💗 Tina –
One Badass Day at a Time