No one plans on getting cancer, especially in their 30s, but for Nebraska businesswoman and songwriter Joy Huber, fate had other plans.
After her diagnosis, Huber began treatment and was determined not to let her spirit break, but chemotherapy left her feeling exhausted and sick.
“When you get the diagnosis, you’re terrified,” Huber said. She adds that cancer patients often don’t have the time or energy to find resources they need, not the least of which is encouragement to stay positive during treatment.
Huber looked for information that would leave her feeling hopeful instead of downtrodden, but she had no luck. So, she decided to her write own essential guide to living with cancer, aptly titled Cancer with Joy.
In Huber’s experience, most cancer patients benefit from the less-clinical, more-holistic advice of someone who has been there and done that. She says chemotherapy fights the physical part of cancer, but happiness and laughter are the best medicine for the spirit.
“No one’s happy they have cancer,” Huber says. “But you can have cancer and still be happy.”
Joy can mean different things for different cancer patients. For Huber, it meant writing songs and living adventurously by traveling to new places.
During the Christmas season of 2010, her diagnosis fresh, Huber took a chance and pitched one of her songs to the annual CBS primetime special, “Home for the Holidays.” Sponsored by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, the event boosts awareness of foster children who are looking for forever homes with the help of celebrities and performers.
Though the program didn’t pick up her song, Huber decided to go to the taping of the show in California anyway, to immerse herself in the experience and see how things were done on set—something she admits she might not have done if she hadn’t gotten cancer.
“Cancer makes you wonder what you would be sorry you didn’t do,” she says. Since her diagnosis, she’s traveled to a number of different places, moved to Nashville for a while to pursue a songwriting career, and launched a speaking career based on her book.
Now cancer-free, Huber has returned to her hometown in Nebraska, where she works in a stable job she might have had before her cancer diagnosis. She has a few new destinations—and a few new songs—in mind. Cancer is not invited.
Kindra Foster
Kindra Foster is a professional freelance writer and editor. Her services include marcom substitute writing and travel writing. For more about Kindra, visit her professional writing website and her travel chronicle, Roadworkwriter.