Suleika Jaouad

Often when I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking about my day, I try to imagine if I only had…

— Suleika Jaouad

Just a few years ago, at the age of 22, I learned I had an aggressive form of leukemia. I needed intensive…

— Suleika Jaouad

Getting diagnosed with cancer at 22 really magnified the in-betweenness that I felt. All of my friends were starting careers and going…

— Suleika Jaouad

I remember my first day of chemo as if it were yesterday, hanging up my favorite summer dress like an athlete retiring…

— Suleika Jaouad

I think for a lot of women, when we find ourselves in the doctor's office, there's a kind of power dynamic there…

— Suleika Jaouad

It is hard not to speak in cliches about cancer. It can be even harder not to feel as if I have…

— Suleika Jaouad

I've struggled with the awkwardness of cancer ever since my leukemia was diagnosed last May. When I told people my news, some…

— Suleika Jaouad

And I had this sense, even though I couldn't quite wrap my head around what it meant to have a cancer diagnosis…

— Suleika Jaouad

Cancer had given me a reverse celebrity status: all the attention for something you didn't want to be known for. I had…

— Suleika Jaouad

The thought of going through a bone marrow transplant, which in my case called for a life-threatening dose of chemotherapy followed by…

— Suleika Jaouad

When I was growing up, traveling was my family's modus operandi. Between the ages of 4 and 18, I attended six different…

— Suleika Jaouad

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

— Suleika Jaouad

The steep price tag of cancer treatment needs to continue to be a part of the national conversation, not just the patient-doctor…

— Suleika Jaouad

I joke that I was basically born and raised in airports. I feel most at home at JFK.

— Suleika Jaouad

I've been fortunate to be treated by excellent doctors at world-class hospitals. In the last year alone, my insurance has covered over…

— Suleika Jaouad

You know, illness is not something that ever crossed my mind until I got diagnosed with leukemia two years ago at the…

— Suleika Jaouad

Survivorship comes with unspoken pressures, responsibilities and challenges. After all, what is the point of saving a life if the life isn't…

— Suleika Jaouad

To say that I'm healed, uh, would be to imply that there's an endpoint. And I think healing is something that we…

— Suleika Jaouad

Traveling gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. You can imagine my excitement when, one year after my bone marrow transplant and…

— Suleika Jaouad

And journaling became the place that I was able to find a sense of narrative control at a time when I had…

— Suleika Jaouad

Looking back, I call the first month after my diagnosis 'the cancer bubble' because I wasn't showing obvious signs of my disease.…

— Suleika Jaouad

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

— Suleika Jaouad

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

— Suleika Jaouad

Growing up, I had always been an avid bookworm and a straight-A student. I approached my cancer the same way I approached…

— Suleika Jaouad