Catherine Gigante-Brown

Mindel and Maria were young teenagers when the horrors occurred—but they remembered the tiniest details with crystal-clear intensity.

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

After I got over the initial devastation, I pulled myself up by my big-girl panties and got on with it. Chemo was no picnic—but it was do-able.

If the odds of getting cancer are like Powerball, why couldn't I be a scratch-off millionaire?

What Stephen didn’t know –– what no one knew –– was how weak my knees grew when I pushed through the swinging doors of the ICU.

"I was afraid this thing was going to do me in. But I took a deep breath and decided very early on that I would face cancer on my own terms."

I thought cancer was behind me. Until I had a weird pain near my left ovary which lasted for several days. It felt a lot like ovulation...Only, at 56, that train had left the station a long time ago.

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.

Even when I explained to my son that he came from a long line of short people, it didn’t help. David still felt bad about being small. How could a five-year-old possibly get this type of size-shaming message? From other people, mostly insensitive adults. They gave him the idea that bigger was somehow better.