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8:16am June 2, 2015

zoeylamoureaux:

Los Angeles–based designer Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24, enduring nine months of chemo and radiation before going into remission.

“The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called ‘sir’ by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo,” McDowell writes on her website. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.”

The 38-year-old designer has been cancer-free ever since. But the emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards—emotionally direct greeting cards that say the things she wanted to hear when she was ill.

The blurbs about each card are great to read (click on the photos), as is the Slate article describing the inspiration for the card line

Oh these are wonderful.  I don’t read Slate, though, not after being defamed there along with several other self-advocates.  But the cards are wonderful.  My friend got cancer and the first gift she wanted from me was a “Cancer Sucks” bracelet, she didn’t want any of that inspirational bullshit.  If she goes through chemo I’m totally getting her the chemo card.  (She’s done radiation so far.)  And I’m thinking of doing some creatively snarky needlepoint for her about cancer.  My dad just died of cancer last year, and he didn’t want to be bullshitted either.

My favorite though is still a friend of a caregiver, who got cancer and managed to survive it and then started doing cancer walks and stuff… with a team she named “Cuck Fancer”.  

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