Abigail Johnston, Esquire

At various points since my diagnosis with stage IV metastatic breast cancer (MBC), I've been asked what word conveys this concept of empowerment as various healthcare workers or journalists worked...

If you still need to listen to the amazing panel, How to Advocate for a Terminal Condition, hosted by the Social Health Network, you should watch/listen to that now. Yes...

I've written previously about my diagnosis with chemo brain (cancer-related cognitive impairment or cognitive dysfunction), and suffice it to say, learning that I had a 20-point IQ (intelligence quotient) deficit...

My initial cancer treatment, back in 2017 when we thought I might be Stage II versus Stage IV, was the combination of Cytoxan and Adriamycin (also known as the Red...

The month of June is set aside and known as Pride month, commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, which was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the...

Triggers. They are everywhere, especially for those of us who are in treatment forever. Just the smell of walking into a hospital, or that awful screeching of the infusion machines...

Typically, in years past, around this time, I am usually finished with holiday shopping and starting to think about wrapping and scheduling gift exchanges. This year, after a recent bout...

As anyone who has met me or looked at my picture, I'm as white as it is possible to be as human without albinism. I was raised in the Midwest, Ohio...

This October (2022) will be my sixth (6th) Pinktober since my diagnosis with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) in 2017. My mother is a survivor of a DCIS diagnosis...

Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day is October 13th each year, designated in 2009, after multiple decades of October being designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM). To read more about...

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness like cancer, people react in a variety of ways. For me, the range has been from ghosting (meaning totally disappearing) to treating...

When I was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) in 2017, my boys were 2 and 4 and they attended a Montessori pre-school.  We were just getting into...

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) had its annual meeting during the first weekend in June 2022, and there was a lot of information and data shared that pertains...

If you didn't have a chance to read healing circles, Part 1, you might want to do that for context.  As I mentioned in part 1, I'd been invited to...

As most of you will probably know if you've read any of my posts/articles or followed my personal blog NoHalfMeasures, I'm a pretty concrete person in an often very squishy...

I've been fired by a doctor twice in my lifetime, once during a pregnancy and once in the midst of my Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) treatment.  I was...

According to the website, NCSD.org, National Cancer Survivors Day® (NCSD) is the first Sunday in June each year and is set aside as: A celebration for those who have survived, an inspiration for those...

Health is a funny thing.  It's one of those things that I certainly didn't appreciate until my de novo Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis in 2017.  I'd taxed my...

How many times are we asked by well-meaning people what they can do to help? I'm asked so often that unless it's one of my go-to people for assistance, I...

Statistically and overall, we are all living longer and longer with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC). Yes, there are those who decline rapidly and never achieve stability or No Evidence...