Skip to main content
  • Advertise
    Want to Advertise with Us?
    Conquer welcomes advertising and sponsorship collaborations with reputable companies offering high-quality products and services to people affected by cancer.
  • Affiliated Brands
    Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators
    The Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+) is the largest national specialty organization dedicated to improving patient care and quality of life by defining, enhancing, and promoting the role of oncology nurse and patient navigators. Our organization of over 8,900 members was founded in May 2009 to provide a network for all professionals involved and interested in patient navigation and survivorship care services to better manage the complexities of the cancer care treatment continuum for their patients. We view our organization as one consisting of “professional patient advocates” and, to that end, we support and serve our members.
    Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship
    The Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship (JONS) promotes reliance on evidence-based practices in navigating patients with cancer and their caregivers through diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. JONS also seeks to strengthen the role of nurse and patient navigators in cancer care by serving as a platform for these professionals to disseminate original research findings, exchange best practices, and find support for their growing community.
    The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA
    The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA (TON) provides coverage of the wide spectrum of oncology-related events, trends, news, therapeutics, diagnostics, organizations, and legislation that directly affect hematology/oncology nurses and advanced practitioners involved in healthcare delivery and product utilization. The scope and coverage include a unique presentation of news and events that are shaping the care of patients with cancer.
  • Healthcare Providers
  • Contribute

A 4-Year Glioblastoma Survivor: Hope Is a Great Medicine

Web Exclusives — March 29, 2023
Shenell Malloy
Rancho Santa Fe, CA

In early 2019, my world flipped upside down, and my life changed forever. One moment I was a healthy, active, 36-year-old mom of 2 beautiful children, living a normal life. The next moment, I was staring at an image of a mass in my brain, while being told I needed brain surgery, because I might have the deadliest form of brain cancer—glioblastoma.

Time stopped at that moment, and my breath was ripped away from me. I was in absolute shock, with so many questions racing in my mind.

While still recovering from the agony and swelling of brain surgery, my oncologist recommended that I immediately begin 42 days of combined treatment with radiation and chemotherapy. Those 42 days were the hardest and darkest days of my life, and I am so thankful for the love and support I received from my family, friends, integrative healers, and doctors.

I was determined to fight and do whatever it took to heal. In addition to the physical fight, I knew that I had to begin a mental, emotional, and spiritual healing journey.

I began listening to my body, using food as medicine by eating all organic and eliminating refined sugar and grains. I did weekly hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Reiki, cranial sacral massages, daily meditation, walks on the beach, and epsom salt baths. Basically, anything and everything that I could do to help my mind, body, and spirit heal.

I could not have made it through conventional cancer treatment without doing every single one of these practices to support my fragile physical state.

I made the choice to fight, the choice to live, to be positive, and trust that my body has the power to heal. I worked through stored negative trauma and emotions and let go of anything that felt heavy or stressful.

I was feeding my body cells with positive, loving thoughts, and visualizing a time when I would grow old and hold my grandchild—a moment that I would fight to live for.

Every day I told myself these healing affirmations: I am healthy, I am strong, I am healed; that was the truth I wanted my mind, body, and soul to hear so that one day it would become my reality.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and there are valuable lessons to be learned, and growth to be done when we are faced with hardship and pain. I know that I am alive today to help others going through this horrible health crisis, to give others the hope that better days are ahead.

And although there is no cure for brain cancer, I hope to share my journey, lessons learned, and further support my cancer community through a nonprofit organization I helped create—Do Cancer (www.docancer.org).

We created this nonprofit organization to provide a place of hope, support, and positivity for people who hear those dreadful words: “You have cancer.”

It is a resource aimed to help people in need of finding hope, inspiration, and strength to never stop believing in miracles. I am such a miracle, and I know that together we can do this—we can do anything, we can Do Cancer!

Until there is a cure for cancer, long-term survivors are the key to finding answers. Hope is the greatest medicine of all.

Recommended For You