S1E24: Jennifer's Not Pulling Punches

Published: May 2, 2021, 4 p.m.

Jennifer Ho is a professor of English at CU-Boulder who back in 2010 started a blog called “No Fucking Pink Ribbons!” that documented her experience with breast cancer. Jennifer shares what it was like having breast cancer and where she’s at now that it’s been 11 years since her diagnosis. Jennifer's blog posts (which were written as Jennifer went through chemo, surgeries, and recovery) are a sharp, vivid, and raw account of what it was like having cancer. However, during our interview, Jennifer seemed to speak about cancer as if were thumbing through an old photo album that we had unearthed. Indeed, Jennifer said that at this point in her life, she can go for days before ever remembering that she’d had cancer. What has stuck with her from this experience is an awareness of the fact that she has finite time on this planet and that she wants to live her life without pulling punches or thinking that she could have or should have done something. Jennifer’s interview offers some hope for anyone who is currently undergoing cancer treatments that this period of your life is finite; when you recover from cancer, the disease is not an unshakeable part of who you have to be.