Quotes from Suleika Jaouad

When you are talking to a dog about cancer, there are no judgments or taboos.

And journaling became the place that I was able to find a sense of narrative control at a time when I had to cede so much control to others. It really - it became the place where I began to interrogate my predicament and to try to excavate some meaning from it.

When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 22, I learned just how much cancer affects families when it affects individuals.

Before my diagnosis with leukemia, two years ago at the age of 22, I'd always excelled at making resolutions. But I was never as good at keeping them.

Even amid the shock of my diagnosis, I held onto the hope that I'd be able to make the most of my down time by catching up on reading or watching all those Criterion Collection movies I'd always meant to watch.

Every single one of us will have our life interrupted, whether it's by the ripcord of a diagnosis or some other kind of heartbreak or trauma that brings us to the floor. We need to find a way to live in the in-between place, managing whatever body and mind we currently have.

I think one of the difficult things for me was that I was putting on a brave face for my loved ones; they were putting on a brave face for me. But what got lost in that was the ability to talk about our fear.

Our culture is steeped in positive thinking - from the self-help mega-industry to college courses in positive psychology to the enduring pull of the American dream. There is no dislike button on Facebook. Nobody wants to be a downer.

For the better half of my early 20s, I was Bubble Girl. When I found out I had leukemia at 22 my world suddenly dwindled to four white walls, a hospital bed, fluorescent lights and a thicket of tubes and wires connecting me to an IV pole.

Growing up, I had always been an avid bookworm and a straight-A student. I approached my cancer the same way I approached writing my senior thesis in college: I buried my head in research journals, interviewed experts and scoured the Internet for information.

It is hard not to speak in cliches about cancer. It can be even harder not to feel as if I have to live up to those cliches. I sometimes feel a deep sense of guilt for not doing a better job of making lemonade out of metaphorical lemons.

For my 100-day project, I decided to keep a journal. It could be just one sentence. Often, it was just one word, occasionally the F-word. But it gave me a sense of structure.

After my diagnosis at age 22 with leukemia, the second piece of news I learned was that I would likely be infertile as a result of chemotherapy. It was a one-two punch that was my first indication that issues of cancer and sexual health are inextricably tied.

Where cancer is concerned, it's safe to say there's no such thing as good timing.

Writing about cancer is always a challenge for me because it hits so close to home.

Getting diagnosed with cancer at 22 really magnified the in-betweenness that I felt. All of my friends were starting careers and going to parties and dating, and I was stuck - literally - in this one hospital bed for weeks on end.

With a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, I've always had a great interest in religion, but I've never practiced one myself. After I received a diagnosis of an aggressive form of leukemia at the age of 22, I put my faith in medicine.

Cancer magnifies the in-betweenness of young adulthood: You're not a child anymore, yet you're not fully ready to live in the adult world, either. After my diagnosis, I moved back into my childhood bedroom. And as I get sicker, I increasingly rely on my parents to take care of me.

There's no denying that cancer is a gloomy subject. We repeat positive phrases to ourselves as a sort of mantra. And while positive thinking alone can't cure cancer, attitude is critical to getting through the process and growing as a person.

You know, illness is not something that ever crossed my mind until I got diagnosed with leukemia two years ago at the age of 22. And I don't take things for granted anymore.

To say that I'm healed, uh, would be to imply that there's an endpoint. And I think healing is something that we all do, that we'll all continually do, for the rest of our lives.

And I had this sense, even though I couldn't quite wrap my head around what it meant to have a cancer diagnosis at 22, that the person I'd been before was buried, there was no returning to that pre diagnosis itself.

My own cancer experience has taught me that the most comforting words from friends have often been both the simplest and the most honest.

Like a lot of other young people, I never thought about health insurance until I got sick. I was 22, and my adult life was just beginning.