Like many of you, I was out there living my "I'm way too young for breast cancer" life when it showed up and suddenly turned my world into a never-ending series of appointments, chemo, surgery, radiation, scans, and all the other fun stuff nobody asks for.
During treatment, I realized I had been letting far too many things collect dust on my bucket list. Cancer has a funny way of making you stop assuming you'll get around to things "someday” so I decided to start tackling a few of them.
One of those projects was a slightly funny picture book for adults that I wrote primarily from the chemo chair to help make those long infusion days go by a little lighter.
It features a lovely little lady potato named Penny who gets the news that she and her tater tots have cancer. Thanks to chemo, Penny transforms into a different potato depending on which side effect she's dealing with.
If I was finally going to cross this off the bucket list, I knew I wanted it illustrated by another breast cancer creative. Somehow, this weird little project ended up bringing together two people who understood exactly how it feels to hear the words, "You have cancer."
Anyway, I recently found out the book won a indie book award, which is still completely surreal to type.
Cancer has taken a lot from all of us and it sometimes tough to take a pause when the hits keep coming. This just felt like one of those moments worth celebrating.
Also, if anyone else created something totally or mildly weird during treatment, I'd genuinely love to hear about it because I refuse to believe I'm the only person who ended up with an emotional support spud! 🥔
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