January 2026 marks 10 years for me since my cancer diagnosis.  In January 2016, at the age of 34, I woke up one Saturday morning to find one of my breasts swollen, red, warm, and discolored.  There had been no indication of anything wrong the night before.  Within a week I was already receiving my first chemo treatment and had been diagnosed with Stage III Inflammatory Breast Cancer.  I spent the next year in active treatment, and five years after that on hormone suppressants and bone-strengthening infusions.

My foundational goal as a death doula is to give you as much agency as possible during the time that we work together.  Often clients will ask me about my own spirituality and religion, to better understand how I can help them.  It’s a complicated question because I want to make sure to leave space to center the client’s experience and practices – without clouding the conversation with assumptions or beliefs I might bring.  Generally, I share with clients that I have an eclectic spirituality that is deeply rooted in the wonder of creation and the every-day miracles that I witness around me.

There are a lot of life experiences that led me to start my own death doula practice.  Possibly one of the most foundational was my own experience with an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis in my early 30s.