Writing Your Way Through Chronic Illness

Living with chronic illness can leave you carrying experiences and emotions that are difficult to explain, even to yourself. In this episode, Marcy is joined by writer and cancer survivor Brad Buchanan to explore how writing can become a powerful tool for processing illness, trauma, and a body that may no longer feel like the one you once knew. Brad shares the simple writing exercise that finally helped him put words to his stem cell transplant experience, why you don't need to consider yourself a writer to benefit from the practice, and how letting go of your inner critic can make it easier to begin. They also discuss the difference between fighting an illness and learning to live alongside a chronic condition, a shift that will feel familiar to many in the mitochondrial disease community.

Brad Buchanan is a retired English professor, poet, writing workshop facilitator, and two-time cancer survivor who developed severe graft-versus-host disease following a stem cell transplant. After years of treatment and lasting changes to his health, Brad began using his background in creative writing to help others process their own experiences with illness through supportive writing workshops. Drawing on both his personal journey and years of teaching, he shares why writing doesn't need to be polished, shared, or even particularly "good" to be meaningful—and how giving yourself permission to put your experience into words can be an important part of learning to live with what your body has been through.

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