Julie Marder

Chicago, Illinois
Survivor
“I am the one thing in my life I can control” – Hamilton. This lyric is both a tribute to how that music transformed my mood during some challenging days and an encapsulation of my twist on cancer. I’m a Type-A, over-planning, control freak. I spent my young adult life doing all the right things, assuming that by 35, my life would be perfectly on track. I could never have guessed that the day before my 35th birthday, I’d be wheeled into an operating room to remove thyroid cancer, only two years after removing an early stage melanoma. I know that I’m profoundly lucky to have only had to face “good kinds of cancer,” but at the same time, I’m coming to terms with the fact that no cancer is really “good.” Meanwhile, I’m internalizing the lesson that, no matter how hard you try, and how much you want to plan, life is simply not something you can control. I’m realizing that with the profoundly scary, negative life surprises, there are equally profoundly wonderful positives. I am profoundly lucky to have been born into my wonderful family, to have met my “besheret” – my soul mate – and to have him and my in-laws in my life forever. So, while I can’t control life, I can control myself, or at least my reaction to life’s surprises. I’m doing everything I can to focus on the good, sing along with Hamilton, and do what I can to help others along their journeys with cancer.