Thursday, April 23, 2015

How Not to Raise Your Tween Daughter

As published on The Huffington Post

I am the "father" to my nearly-12-year-old bone marrow "daughter." Twelve years ago, I received a bone marrow transplant to treat myelodysplastic syndrome. My bone marrow donor was an anonymous baby girl, whose umbilical cord stem cells had been collected and stored and were then transplanted into me because they closely matched my cells. That baby girl's cells repopulated in my body and I now have her healthy, disease-free and totally female blood. I think of these new cells of mine collectively as my daughter, and I named her Bone Marrow.

Bone Marrow is a young woman now. I knew this day would come. I even tried slowing her white breast cell and other physical developments by taking tamoxifen, so that the boy bone marrows wouldn't get frisky. I stopped that after they caused my erotic dreams with Glenn Beck. Keep reading How Not to Raise Your Tween Daughter.

Leia Mais…

Monday, April 13, 2015

HuffPost Live, I Am with You: Love Letters to Cancer Patients, and Cancervention

Now that March Madness is over I am allowed to be busy.

I will be on HuffPost Live today, Tuesday, April 14, at 3 p.m. ET. Don't judge when my makeup isn't up to the standard of Kim Kardashian. HuffPost Live is a live-streaming network that attempts to create the most social video experience possible.


My first work published in 1994, in the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. My poem, titled Washing Dishes, began "Washing dishes is not fun." Nothing has ever been more true.

Then I wrote two books about surviving two cancers when I was a teenager—Twice and Secrets of the Cancer-Slaying Super Man. And now this: my article To My Next 30 Cancer-Free Years published in the lovely book I Am with You: Love Letters to Cancer Patients.

I Am with You includes 46 short essays compiled by Nancy Novack and published last month. Nancy's goal is to make I Am with You available "to the patients who need us the most when they need our support. . . . to place the books in the patients' hands, the waiting rooms, the infusion and radiation centers, the gift and supply stores, survivor conferences and retreats, the libraries, medical schools."

I am honored to be part of this book. Read more about I Am with You on Amazon. You can also read To My Next 30 Cancer-Free Years on The Huffington Post.
I Am With You: Love Letters to Cancer Patients

I'm speaking at Young Adult Cancer Connection's Cancervention event on April 18 in Philadelphia, as a survivor panelist. You can read my interview with YACC. If you live around Philadelphia then join us on Saturday by registering for Cancervention.
Young Adult Cancer Connection Cancervention event April 18, 2015

Leia Mais…