“The Lives They Lived: Lisa Bonchek Adams,” by Elizabeth Weil, The New York Times, Dec. 23, 2015.
She taught us how to die.
Death presents a problem every time. Everybody’s a rookie, everybody’s afraid.
Lisa Bonchek Adams typed her way unto the breach. A realist, an atheist and not at all sappy, she detested the notion that cancer was a gift. (Really, she asked, would you give it to somebody?) But one tweet and one blog post at a time, her illness became her subject matter. Part diarist, part Dear Abby, she chronicled her experience with cancer — dispensing insight and advice, avoiding euphemism and sentimentality.
Adams first received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006. In 2012, the cancer returned, metastasized to her bones, Stage IV.
Related:
- Are There Ethics to Tweeting Your Illness? The Keller Campaign Against Social Media, and Cancer Patient Lisa B. Adams, by Gayle Sulik, Psychology Today, Jan. 15, 2014.
- Cue the Kellers by Jody Schoger, Women With Cancer, Jan. 13, 2014.
- On Cancer PTSD and the Double-Kellering of Lisa Adams by Lani Horn, Breast Cancer Consortium, Jan. 14, 2014.
- “Grief and Death in the Time of Social Media.” BCC member Jody Schoger interviewed on Al Jazeera’s The Stream, Jan. 22, 2014.
