Diary of a Warrior Mama

Cancer Touches Everything: The Life That Happens Around the Diagnosis

Cancer doesn't just affect the person diagnosed. It touches every part of life, and the last few weeks have been a reminder of just how much.

In this episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, I'm sharing the reality of our family's return to cancer treatment. From one of the happiest days we've had together in years to a frightening week of chemotherapy complications, hospital stays, and unexpected setbacks, it's been an emotional roller coaster.

But this episode is about more than Rylie's cancer journey. It's about everything that happens outside the hospital walls. The strain on marriage, the impact on siblings, the mental and emotional exhaustion, the responsibilities that don't stop, and the struggle to take care of yourself while trying to hold your family together.

I'm also talking about the importance of having a village, what meaningful support really looks like, and learning to find joy in the middle of circumstances we never asked for.

Because one thing I've learned is that life doesn't stop when cancer enters your world. The bills, the laundry, the jobs, the parenting, and the everyday responsibilities keep coming. And somehow, you have to figure out how to carry it all.

I don't want to spend another chapter of our lives just surviving. I want us to keep living, making memories, finding happiness, and building a beautiful life, even while we're fighting cancer.

This one is personal, vulnerable, and straight from the heart. 🤍

Surviving. Loving. Healing. Rebuilding. In Real Time.

Together we go to battle.

#DiaryOfAWarriorMama #CancerMama #ChildhoodCancer #Osteosarcoma #CancerCaregiver #MentalHealth #CancerAwareness

What happens when your child's cancer comes back and you're forced to relive the nightmare you fought so hard to survive?

In this raw and emotional episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, I'm sharing the reality of facing my son Rylie's osteosarcoma relapse at just 18 years old.

Childhood cancer doesn't end when treatment ends. The fear, medical trauma, scan anxiety, and emotional exhaustion stay with you. And when cancer returns, so does everything you thought you were finally healing from.

We're talking about the struggles of parenting a child with cancer, caregiver burnout, anticipatory grief, mental health, marriage, motherhood, faith, and the overwhelming pressure to stay strong when you're terrified of what comes next.

This isn't another inspirational story about being strong. It's an honest conversation about what childhood cancer does to a family, what it feels like to face a cancer recurrence, and how we're learning to keep living in the middle of the unimaginable.

If you're a cancer mom, medical mama, caregiver, or parent navigating a child's serious illness, this episode is for you.

You don't have to be strong every second to be a warrior.

Follow Diary of a Warrior Mama for real conversations about childhood cancer awareness, osteosarcoma, parenting through trauma, caregiver mental health, faith, and finding hope through life's hardest battles.

#DiaryOfAWarriorMama #ChildhoodCancer #Osteosarcoma #CancerRelapse #CancerMom #CaregiverMentalHealth #RylieStrong

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month—but this year, our family isn’t simply raising awareness. We’re living it all over again.

Rylie’s osteosarcoma is back just as he has turned eighteen and should be stepping into adulthood. In this deeply personal episode, I share the fear of recurrence, the complicated reality of faith during heartbreak, and what it means to prepare for another battle when we are still learning how to live after the first one.

For the families facing childhood cancer: you don’t have to turn your pain into an inspiring story today. You can have faith and still be afraid. You can love your child fiercely and still feel exhausted.

Please pray for Rylie, share his story, and help us connect with survivors and families who have experience with relapsed osteosarcoma.

I won’t tell God how big his cancer is. I’ll tell his cancer how big our God is.

#RallyForRylie #RylieStrong #ChildhoodCancerAwareness #Osteosarcoma #RelapsedOsteosarcoma

A real conversation from the heart about life currently after survival mode—processing trauma, finding yourself again, and learning to feel joy while you heal.

For the warrior mama who has ever found herself on the floor—overwhelmed, heartbroken, afraid, and unsure how she would keep going.

This guided meditation will take you from the moment everything changed, through the weight of what you’ve carried, and back to the strength that has been inside you all along.

You didn’t become a warrior because you never fell. You became one because, somehow, you kept finding the courage to rise.

Take a breath. Honor the woman who survived. And remember—you are not finished yet. ❤️

When the world feels unsafe, how do we protect the people we love without letting fear take over our lives?

Tragedy overload, intrusive thoughts, and parenting through hypervigilance

CONTENT NOTE: This episode discusses family tragedy, intrusive thoughts, postpartum mental-health emergencies, and violence. No graphic details are included.

In this episode, I’m talking honestly about tragedy overload, intrusive thoughts, postpartum anxiety, and the hypervigilance that can come from trauma, medical emergencies, and childhood cancer. I share how heartbreaking headlines follow me into motherhood—causing me to check, watch, worry, and imagine the worst.

We’ll talk about the difference between reasonable protection and anxiety-driven control, why intrusive thoughts are not intentions, and how to step away from stories that keep our nervous systems trapped in survival mode.

We may not be able to prevent every tragedy, but we can choose to come back to the present, connect with the people in front of us, and allow ourselves and our children to truly live.

Surviving. Healing. Rebuilding. In real time.

What happens when the village everyone says you need simply isn’t there?

In this deeply personal episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, we’re talking about parenting without a traditional support system while carrying childhood trauma, medical trauma, postpartum depression and anxiety, the invisible mental load, and the lasting effects of childhood cancer.

This episode is for the parent who feels like they have to hold everything together while quietly falling apart. It's about grieving the village that didn’t show up, discovering strength you never asked for, rebuilding yourself, and intentionally creating the community you need—one person, one conversation, and one story at a time.

If you’re healing while raising children, you are not failing—and you are not alone. Sometimes the village you’ve been searching for starts with you.

🎙️ If this episode resonates with you, please follow Diary of a Warrior Mama and share it with someone who needs the reminder that they don’t have to carry everything alone.

The Green Flag Mom Test: 8 Signs You're Doing Better Than You Think

What if we've been measuring motherhood all wrong?

In this heartfelt episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, we're throwing out the impossible standards of perfect lunchboxes, spotless homes, Pinterest-worthy birthdays, and endless patience—and replacing them with something that actually matters.

Together, we'll walk through 8 green flags that remind us what our children truly need: a safe place to land, unconditional love, laughter, connection, and a mom who keeps showing up.

If you've ever laid awake wondering…
Am I doing enough?
Am I a good mom?
Am I messing this up?

This episode is for you.

You'll leave feeling encouraged, reminded that perfection was never the goal, and hopefully a little kinder to yourself.

This week's challenge: Instead of asking, "What did I do wrong today?" ask yourself, "What green flags did I give my child today?"

Because your children don't need a perfect mom.

They need you.

🤍 If this episode encouraged you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with another warrior mama who needs this reminder today.

What does lasting love really look like? In this episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, I'm sharing the story of how my husband and I met 16 years ago and the life we've built together since. We've walked through grief, trauma, childhood cancer, heartbreak, healing, and more challenges than I can count. This isn't a fairytale—it's a real conversation about marriage, resilience, and the quiet kind of love that keeps showing up, even in life's hardest seasons.

What happens when childhood cancer ends, but the healing doesn't? In this deeply personal episode of Diary of a Warrior Mama, I share the anxiety before my son's scans, the grief of watching him enter adulthood after surviving osteosarcoma, and the realization that surviving isn't the same as healing. We talk about scanxiety, trauma, motherhood, emotional healing, and learning to stop hiding from our pain. If you've experienced childhood cancer, medical trauma, caregiving, anxiety, or life after survival, this episode is a reminder that healing is possible—even when life says, "Ready or not."