Karen Loss

I am heading into the second quarter of my 7th year post stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer diagnosis. For more than 6 of those years, allowing for an occasional...

In January friends and fellow lung cancer advocates, Donna Fernandez and Karen Loss traveled to Israel together. Here, Karen interviews Donna about her experience traveling abroad with lung cancer. I...

I raised this question with three different cancer doctors following my recent CT scan follow-up with my own oncologist. When the results were, once again, basically stable on the sole...

There are many books on lung cancer available, but I've found that patients and caregivers can often gain help, hope, and insights by reading stories of how other patients deal...

When you come to these forums to read what others have to say about dealing with lung cancer on a day in and day out basis, you mostly find truth...

How many of us have lived with the notion that the doctors with whom we interact know everything about the medical circumstances we find ourselves in? That they are smarter...

I know, I know. It's a taboo subject these days. But, let's face it, faith plays a huge role in the way many patients and their loved ones deal with...

Most people who hear of someone being diagnosed with lung cancer know, well, that's bad. And when they hear it is stage 4, that's even worse. That was my experience...

Once I got involved with patient advocacy, it quickly became apparent that my initial lack of information about lung cancer was definitely the norm, not the exception. The good thing...

Do you ever think back to your childhood? About the things you learned, the conversations you were a part of, the ones you overheard from adults? Not just the fun...

Another writer posted this thought recently in reference to lung cancer and its public awareness. "We are being recognized!" She proceeded to give some examples of various conferences focusing on...

Right out of the starting gate, I found that some friends downplayed my lung cancer diagnosis practically to the point of denying it had occurred at all. Some relatives tried...

When we are diagnosed with lung cancer, or any cancer for that matter, a lot of serious questions bombard our brains. Am I going to die? Why did this happen...

I got involved in patient advocacy about a year after my lung cancer diagnosis. By that point, I'd been through one series of chemotherapy, a maintenance therapy, and was in...

The subject of stress comes and goes as a top-of-mind item in my lung cancer arsenal. It is, at least partly, dependent on the treatment I am undergoing at any...

I'm not one for big celebrations as a rule. Never have been. Birthdays come and go with barely a nod. Parties...well, let's just say I am just as happy to...

In the world of lung cancer, and surely oncology in general, there is a class of people who qualify wholeheartedly as unsung heroes. Those people are nurses. I could go...

For the lung cancer patient, diagnosis literally changes everything.  For most, we have several decades of life behind us by this point and we are well established in our families...

How many of us have gone through life without little physical aches and pains along the way? Maybe we've awoken with a headache, or perhaps our knee grew painful over...

Let's play a game.  We'll call it "Ever Heard This Cliché?" Okay...first one: "Every cloud has a silver lining."  Number two: "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  Number three:...