The Menu

by Rachel Engstrom

When you go to a restaurant and get a menu, you look at all of the wonderful choices of what you can eat, then make a choice to fit your needs and desires. However when the waiter brings your food to the table, they place a plate of worms, roaches and assorted bugs in front of you. That’s what cancer is in someone’s life. It is something unexpected, something you don’t want and definitely something that is new and difficult to navigate. If you’re in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the jungle, in a foreign environment, you may find that all there is to eat in order to survive is exactly that…worms, roaches and assorted bugs.

It’s your choice to seek medical treatment and surround yourself with the tools to help you along your cancer journey, just like it is your choice to survive by eating some pretty nasty things. Cancer is not pretty or easy, but it is doable. You get to choose a few things at your table to put on the plate of bugs to try to make it go down better. Add some salt or pepper, brown sugar or jam, but either way you have to eat those unappetizing items to live whether you like it or not- just like you have to choose how you’re going to navigate your journey. It’s for sure a bumpy ride, but with the right attitude and resources, it’s doable and there sure are a lot of people out there like myself who have been there and would love to help you along the way!

Rachel Engstrom M.S.W., C.H.E.S has written a groundbreaking memoir/self-book on her experience as a young cancer wife then widow. With the increasing number of young women and men becoming widows/widowers due to not only cancer and serious illnesses, but also now Covid 19, this resource is needed more now than ever. Rachel shares her journey in a raw and honest way, while providing step by step resources to help you navigate your own journey. Never before has there been a combination of the personal grit of the healthcare journey, along with steps on how to navigate treatment, diagnosis, the ins and outs of hospital life, employment, finances, insurance, self care, grief and loss and much more. You can find “Wife, Widow, Now What? How I Navigated the Cancer World and How You Can Too.”

Find her on Facebook at https://m.facebook.com/wife.widow.now.what/

Click the image below to check out her book!