On Day 2 of my recovery from breast reconstruction surgery, I continued to be gentle on myself, to take my pain relievers and to work quietly at my desk. I even managed to take a short nap to make up for some periods of wakefulness overnight. The pain is manageable, particularly during the day when I can distract myself with mental activities.

Today marks 1,500 days since I began this blog, more than 4 years ago. Somehow, I managed to write a post every day for those 1,500 days, something I never envisioned when I wrote my first post on August 6, 2020, eight days after learning that I had ovarian cancer. In sharing my story, I've helped to normalize words like ovarian cancer and perianal skin cancer, mastectomy and breast reconstruction. I hope that I've made it easier for people to talk about their own health issues without feeling shame or embarrassment.

Back in 2022, when I marked my 800th post, I published a new Categories page, which included a subset of posts, organized by theme, with a helpful summary of each article. In my 1,200th post, I acknowledged that I was still chipping away at the large number of posts for which I had yet to craft a summary and add to the appropriate theme. Preparing each Saturday Synopsis carved out time in my week to add to the Categories page. Now, after 1,500 posts and a final push today, I have finally added links on my Categories page to the vast majority of articles.

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."

— Stephen Grellet

"And the award for best neckwear goes to... Well, would you look at that? It's a tie."

"As long as we're caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we are always running away from discomfort, we're going to be caught in a cycle of unhappiness and disappointment, and we will feel weaker and weaker."

— Pema Chödrön

My dear,

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.

I realized, through it all, that…

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.

— Albert Camus

As a person with a chronic illness, Christine [Miserando] has learned to plan her day so that she spends her energy on the activities of greatest importance to her. She also uses the Spoon Theory—as do many other people—to help her healthy family and friends understand her limitations. Healthy people, Christine suggests, may have an unlimited number of spoons and may take for granted their boundless energy.

"Most of us go through life with the belief system that our happiness or unhappiness is largely determined by the events in our environment and reactions of other people to us. Frequently we feel that our happiness is dependent on good or bad luck for which we bear little responsibility.... We really cannot change the external world nor can we change other people. We can change how we perceive the world, how we perceive others, and how we perceive ourselves."

— Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., Love Is Letting Go of Fear

As I think about the many people I worked with over the years, I am reminded of this quote by Sir Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." I owe much of my professional success to numerous learned and nurturing bosses, a myriad of brilliant and kind colleagues, countless supportive and talented employees, and sundry exacting but respectful clients.

"Self-talk is basically your inner voice, the voice in your mind that says the things you don’t necessarily say out loud. We often don’t even realise that this running commentary is going on in the background, but our self-talk can have a big influence on how we feel about who we are."

— ReachOut

"It's hard to turn the page when you know someone won't be in the next chapter, but the story must go on."

— Thomas Wilder

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

— Maya Angelou

"Patrick Boyer’s wife had survived breast cancer and melanoma and then had died of ovarian cancer. This in the mid 1990s and frustrated by the lack of effective treatments for the disease, he went on a rampage of sorts, traveled across the country, tried to find where the ovarian cancer researchers were, found that there were very few at that time and he did three things that I think are worthy of note. First, he started an organization that would support women with ovarian cancer, that is now Ovarian Cancer Canada. He funded a network of researchers across Canada who collected tissues for research, which is incredibly important to set the foundation for the opportunity to do research with patient material. And thirdly, and most importantly, he raised the funds to set up an endowed chair at the University of Ottawa that he named the Corinne Boyer Chair in Ovarian Cancer Research, and I was recruited to that chair in the year 2000."

— Dr. Barbara Vanderhyden, senior scientist in ovarian cancer at The Ottawa Hospital and a professor at the University of Ottawa

"Not every day is going to offer us a chance to save somebody's life," he concludes, "but every day offers us an opportunity to affect one."

— Marc Bezos, A life lesson from a volunteer firefighter (TED Talk)