Welcome to the relaunch of Cancer Commentary

Welcome to the new look and feel of Cancer Commentary. My name is Marijke Durning and I’m the new host of this blog. I’ve been reading Gloria’s posts from when she was blogging for Cancer Commentary and she’s got some incredibly informative stuff here. It’s all going to be in the archives, but as I reorganize a bit, they may be moved around a bit to fit into new categories.

For those of you who followed the blog because of Gloria, I hope you’ll give me a chance to show you what I can do. Obviously, it will be different as we have different approaches, but hopefully, you’ll learn to like my style as well.

Now, who am I?

I’m a 47-year-old health writer who also happens to be an RN. I’ve worked as a nurse in many different areas, including caring for people with cancer. My most recent clinical experience was working in palliative care, so I have a large range of experience when it comes to cancer: from people being newly diagnosed, to receiving treatment, to celebrating remission or cure, and to the end of life for those who couldn’t be cured. I’ve also been a health writer for several years. I write for various clients from professionals to you, the reading public. I love to write and can’t believe my good fortune in how my nursing and teaching (I’ve taught nursing assistants, first aid, and English as a Second Language) morphed into being able to make a living with my writing.

I’m also the mother of three (ages 17, 19, and 21) and wife of one. Over the past few years, I’ve had three dogs die from cancer, so I also know what it’s like to lose a beloved companion to this horrible disease. I’m in Montreal, Canada, and if you can’t figure out how to say my name, it’s Dutch and it’s pronouced something like muh-rye´-kah/keh. If you can roll the “r”, all the better.

I also have some other blogs, two others on the b5media network: Help My Hurt, which is almost a year old now. It’s about pain and pain-related issues. I can foresee several cross overs between Cancer Connection and HMH. My other b5media blog is Womb Within, a blog on pregnancy and health. I do have some posts at WW on cancer and pregnancy, so there is again a chance of cross over.

So, that’s it about me. If you have any suggestions on what I should include in this blog, topics you’d like to see covered, anything at all, please send me an email at marijke (at) medhealthwriter (dot) com and I’ll see what I can do.

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