Welcome to a collection of inspiring words from Suleika Jaouad, a resilient voice whose journey through adversity resonates deeply with many. Suleika Jaouad is a writer, speaker, and cancer survivor whose insights on resilience, healing, and the human experience offer profound wisdom and encouragement. Her courageous battle with leukemia, chronicled in her memoir Between Two Kingdoms, has touched the hearts of readers around the world, earning her admiration and respect for her strength and vulnerability.
Through her writing and public appearances, Suleika Jaouad shares her reflections on life’s challenges, the importance of community, and the power of storytelling to connect us all. Her eloquent prose captures the complexities of the human spirit, inviting readers to embrace their own journeys with courage and compassion. As you explore the quotes below, may you find solace, inspiration, and a renewed sense of hope in Suleika Jaouad’s words of wisdom.
When I was growing up, traveling was my family’s modus operandi. Between the ages of 4 and 18, I attended six different schools on three different continents. Suleika Jaouad
I remember working as a paralegal at a law firm, being so exhausted that, midday, I would go to the utility closet to take a nap. And to me, that wasn’t the evidence of a serious illness; it was evidence that somehow I wasn’t able to work long hours or to work as hard as the people around me. Suleika Jaouad
I can always tell when my mother, an artist who grew up in Switzerland, starts to feel nostalgic for home. It is the smell of the crispy apple tarts, the ginger cookies, and the creamy muesli full of nuts and fresh berries. The scent alone delivers a rush of childhood memories for me. Suleika Jaouad
In my darkest days in the oncology unit, I promised myself that if I ever got into remission one day, I would become a stronger, healthier and better version of my precancer self. Suleika Jaouad
When you are talking to a dog about cancer, there are no judgments or taboos. Suleika Jaouad
To say that I’m healed, uh, would be to imply that there’s an endpoint. And I think healing is something that we all do, that we’ll all continually do, for the rest of our lives. Suleika Jaouad
In Paris, the doctors had struggled to make sense of my symptoms – anemia, fatigue and persistent infections. They ran test after test – I was even hospitalized for a week – but the results were inconclusive. Suleika Jaouad
While an increasing number of cancer treatment centers have begun offering post-treatment care plans and support groups to help patients navigate these challenges, many patients continue to fall through the cracks. Suleika Jaouad
And journaling became the place that I was able to find a sense of narrative control at a time when I had to cede so much control to others. It really – it became the place where I began to interrogate my predicament and to try to excavate some meaning from it. Suleika Jaouad
You know, illness is not something that ever crossed my mind until I got diagnosed with leukemia two years ago at the age of 22. And I don’t take things for granted anymore. Suleika Jaouad
I get along well with my medical team and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. But the idea of discussing my finances during a doctor’s appointment makes me uncomfortable. Suleika Jaouad
Traveling gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. You can imagine my excitement when, one year after my bone marrow transplant and two years after my cancer diagnosis, my doctors gave me permission to take my first big trip since cancer. Freedom, finally! Suleika Jaouad
Looking back, I call the first month after my diagnosis ‘the cancer bubble’ because I wasn’t showing obvious signs of my disease. I looked about the same – maybe a little more tired and pale than usual, but a stranger could never have guessed that I carried a secret, deep in my bones. Suleika Jaouad
I’ll never go so far to call cancer a gift. It’s a really terrible disease. It’s taken the lives of so many of my fellow friends in the oncology unit. But like any life-interrupted moment, there are silver linings. Suleika Jaouad
Getting healthy means listening to my body – and no longer comparing myself with other people at the gym. Getting healthy means being satisfied with small, sustainable, incremental changes to my diet and lifestyle. Suleika Jaouad
Isolated in the oncology ward, I began to think about my dream to become a writer. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer didn’t have to be permanent; in my case, I’m lucky that my cancer is curable, but infertility was. And it was the first time I realized that cancer wasn’t just something seasonal; it wasn’t something that was going to pass with the summer. It was something that was going to change my life forever. Suleika Jaouad
At the age of 22, I began to consider my own mortality. It had never occurred to me that, with all of the progress that has been made in cancer research, none of the standard treatments would work for me. Suleika Jaouad
I’ve found that I do some of my best thinking during our early morning walks – those few hours after the garbage trucks have gone and before the coffee shops open when Manhattan is as asleep as it ever will be. For that one hour each morning, I’m focused on the now. Suleika Jaouad
Soon enough I would learn the specific diagnosis: myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder of the bone marrow. In my case, the disease growing inside me had morphed into acute myeloid leukemia. I would need intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant to save my life. Suleika Jaouad
There’s a photograph of me in the transplant unit where I have a vomit bucket under one arm, I have my laptop on my knees, and I’m crying, not because, you know, I’m about to have a bone marrow transplant, but because I’ve missed a deadline! Suleika Jaouad
The hero’s journey is, you know, one of the oldest story arcs that we have. And it’s one, I think, that’s especially projected onto cancer patients. Suleika Jaouad
After my diagnosis at age 22 with leukemia, the second piece of news I learned was that I would likely be infertile as a result of chemotherapy. It was a one-two punch that was my first indication that issues of cancer and sexual health are inextricably tied. Suleika Jaouad
Having cancer changed the way I ate and thought about food. My symptoms dictated my eating habits. The sores in my mouth and the bouts of nausea, for instance, stole the pleasure of eating and made it an ordeal. At some points in my treatment, eating wasn’t even an option. Suleika Jaouad
Like a lot of other cancer patients lying in hospital beds or in chemotherapy suites, I have spent a fair amount of time fantasizing about jetting off to a tropical island. Suleika Jaouad
Even amid the shock of my diagnosis, I held onto the hope that I’d be able to make the most of my down time by catching up on reading or watching all those Criterion Collection movies I’d always meant to watch. Suleika Jaouad
There’s no denying that cancer is a gloomy subject. We repeat positive phrases to ourselves as a sort of mantra. And while positive thinking alone can’t cure cancer, attitude is critical to getting through the process and growing as a person. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer isn’t something that makes you want to share, it’s something that makes you want to hide. Suleika Jaouad
The bone marrow transplant procedure itself can be dangerous, but it is swift, which makes it feel strangely anti-climactic. Suleika Jaouad
The thought of going through a bone marrow transplant, which in my case called for a life-threatening dose of chemotherapy followed by a total replacement of my body’s bone marrow, was scary enough. But then I learned that finding a donor can be the scariest part of all. Suleika Jaouad
Our culture is steeped in positive thinking – from the self-help mega-industry to college courses in positive psychology to the enduring pull of the American dream. There is no dislike button on Facebook. Nobody wants to be a downer. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer has made me mentally and spiritually stronger. But as my life starts to go back to normal, I find that some of my old, bad habits are still lurking in the shadows. Suleika Jaouad
For cancer patients like me, and for others who suffer from chronic or life-threatening illnesses, natural disasters don’t put health on the back burner. Suleika Jaouad
Whether we’re too embarrassed or shy – or worried that a discussion about cost might affect the quality of our care – it’s clear that both doctors and patients need to do more communicating. Suleika Jaouad
With a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, I’ve always had a great interest in religion, but I’ve never practiced one myself. After I received a diagnosis of an aggressive form of leukemia at the age of 22, I put my faith in medicine. Suleika Jaouad
I joke that I was basically born and raised in airports. I feel most at home at JFK. Suleika Jaouad
It felt like 10 years, but I was actually in treatment for three-and-a-half years. I finally finished in April. Two years ago, I had a bone marrow transplant from my brother, which saved my life, so I feel really grateful. Suleika Jaouad
It is hard not to speak in cliches about cancer. It can be even harder not to feel as if I have to live up to those cliches. I sometimes feel a deep sense of guilt for not doing a better job of making lemonade out of metaphorical lemons. Suleika Jaouad
I think another aspect of being a young adult with cancer is that most of your friends, hopefully, you know, have never had to experience life-threatening illnesses themselves. Suleika Jaouad
My mother comes from a small village on the Lac de Neuchatel where there is one bakery, one butcher and one grocery store. Even after decades in New York, she prefers home cooking to ordering in. Suleika Jaouad
Growing up, I had always been an avid bookworm and a straight-A student. I approached my cancer the same way I approached writing my senior thesis in college: I buried my head in research journals, interviewed experts and scoured the Internet for information. Suleika Jaouad
For the better half of my early 20s, I was Bubble Girl. When I found out I had leukemia at 22 my world suddenly dwindled to four white walls, a hospital bed, fluorescent lights and a thicket of tubes and wires connecting me to an IV pole. Suleika Jaouad
When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 22, I learned just how much cancer affects families when it affects individuals. Suleika Jaouad
Youth and health are supposed to go hand in hand. And it was only when I got to a point where I was so weak, it was a struggle to walk up and down the stairs that I found myself in an emergency room. And within 24 hours I was on a plane back home to upstate New York, and I got the bone marrow biopsy that led to my actual diagnosis. Suleika Jaouad
Today, at age 24, when my peers are dating, marrying and having children of their own, my cancer treatments are causing internal and external changes in my body that leave me feeling confused, vulnerable, frustrated – and verifiably unsexy. Suleika Jaouad
To set a 100-day plan was to will myself into the future, no matter how uncertain it seemed. Suleika Jaouad
I think for a lot of women, when we find ourselves in the doctor’s office, there’s a kind of power dynamic there where sometimes it’s difficult to push back, to ask questions, to be persistenr. Suleika Jaouad
Often when I wake up in the morning and I’m thinking about my day, I try to imagine if I only had three hours today to do anything, what would feel most important to me. Suleika Jaouad
Sex can be a squeamish subject even when cancer isn’t part of the picture, so the combination of sex and cancer together can feel impossible to talk about. Suleika Jaouad
For my 100-day project, I decided to keep a journal. It could be just one sentence. Often, it was just one word, occasionally the F-word. But it gave me a sense of structure. Suleika Jaouad
One of the hardest parts about developing leukemia at age 22 was how restrictive it was: My treatments left me highly susceptible to infection and with limited mobility. Suleika Jaouad
Survivorship comes with unspoken pressures, responsibilities and challenges. After all, what is the point of saving a life if the life isn’t a meaningful one? Suleika Jaouad
Dozens of chemotherapy treatments and one bone marrow transplant later, I wish I could say that I’ve mastered the art of not working. But there are still days when I wake up feeling simultaneously restless and bored. Suleika Jaouad
Even the word ‘cancer’ is ugly, scary, burdensome – a roadblock for a conversation before it even starts. Who wants to go there? Much of the time, I’d rather not bring it up if I don’t have to – and I’m the one with the disease! Suleika Jaouad
Being in your twenties and trying to figure out who you are and what you want to do in life – with or without cancer – is a scary endeavor on its own. Suleika Jaouad
A growing body of evidence suggests that cancer survivors continue to struggle with medical, financial, professional and psychosocial issues long after the end of their cancer treatment. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer magnifies the in-betweenness of young adulthood: You’re not a child anymore, yet you’re not fully ready to live in the adult world, either. After my diagnosis, I moved back into my childhood bedroom. And as I get sicker, I increasingly rely on my parents to take care of me. Suleika Jaouad
Today, my brother and I share almost identical DNA, the result of a successful bone marrow transplant I had last April using his healthy stem cells. But Adam and I couldn’t be more different. Suleika Jaouad
I was born in New York City speaking French at home. Suleika Jaouad
In the world of medicine, a trial refers to clinical research that follows a predefined plan or protocol. A clinical trial must comply with strict health, safety and ethical regulations determined by the Food and Drug Administration. Suleika Jaouad
Writing about cancer is always a challenge for me because it hits so close to home. Suleika Jaouad
It took me a long time to be able to say I was a cancer patient. Then, for a long time, I was only that: A cancer patient. Suleika Jaouad
I think one of the difficult things for me was that I was putting on a brave face for my loved ones; they were putting on a brave face for me. But what got lost in that was the ability to talk about our fear. Suleika Jaouad
There are days when I even long for the paralegal job that once upon a time made me so miserable. It wasn’t the perfect fit for me but it was satisfying to go to sleep each night after a hard day’s work at the office. Suleika Jaouad
When I was first in the hospital, some of my visitors seemed so intent on not upsetting me that they avoided the topic of cancer altogether. Others just couldn’t seem to find any words. Suleika Jaouad
Every single one of us will have our life interrupted, whether it’s by the ripcord of a diagnosis or some other kind of heartbreak or trauma that brings us to the floor. We need to find a way to live in the in-between place, managing whatever body and mind we currently have. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer can catch even the best of us off guard. Sometimes the emotions come pouring out. Sometimes they stay locked inside. Suleika Jaouad
Being sick and young is hard in all the ways you might imagine and more, but mostly it can be incredibly boring. Suleika Jaouad
So, you know, when I think of survival as a creative act, it’s not trying to plaster over the isolation or to, you know, rewrite your predicament into something positive with a happy ending or some kind of neat resolution. It’s writing into the unknown. Suleika Jaouad
I remember my first day of chemo as if it were yesterday, hanging up my favorite summer dress like an athlete retiring a jersey. Within a few weeks, my waist had shrunk to a double zero – the size it was when I was in the sixth grade. My cheek bones jutting out. Rings under my eyes. Skin the color of chalk. Suleika Jaouad
If you have a chronic illness in America, there’s a good chance you also hold a degree in Health Insurance 101, whether you want to or not. Suleika Jaouad
Every time I see a doctor, get a CT scan, receive chemotherapy or pick up a prescription, insurance covers only part of the transaction – and there’s always a bill on top of it. Suleika Jaouad
We have birthdays and bar mitzvahs and funerals and weddings. And these ceremonies and rituals, I believe, really help us transition from one point to another. Suleika Jaouad
My column launched while I was in the bone marrow transplant unit. And I remember waking up the next morning and opening my inbox and seeing hundreds of emails from strangers all around the world. Suleika Jaouad
When I finally returned home after my five-week hospitalization, I could feel the stares of strangers on my bald head and thinning eyebrows. Everywhere I went, cancer spoke for me before I could say the first word. Suleika Jaouad
I’m a triple citizen of the United States, in Switzerland and Tunisia. And actually beyond just my immediate family, all of my family is abroad. Suleika Jaouad
And I had this sense, even though I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what it meant to have a cancer diagnosis at 22, that the person I’d been before was buried, there was no returning to that pre diagnosis itself. Suleika Jaouad
And there came a point in my treatment where I couldn’t see that end in sight. And that was the most challenging, I think, to know how to kind of anchor yourself when you’re swimming in a sea of uncertainty. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer makes people think about mortality. It scares your friends and family. And many cancer patients, consciously or otherwise, try to buffer bad news with a dose of positivity. Suleika Jaouad
Getting diagnosed with cancer at 22 really magnified the in-betweenness that I felt. All of my friends were starting careers and going to parties and dating, and I was stuck – literally – in this one hospital bed for weeks on end. Suleika Jaouad
The first time I fantasized about early retirement, I was 22 years old. It was a rainy spring morning in Paris, and as I waited for the Metro to take me to my new paralegal job, it occurred to me that I’d rather be sleeping in, or playing hooky at the movies, or sailing around the world. Suleika Jaouad
I think often when we talk about things like cancer, the kind of final act at the end of the story comes with a cure. But we don’t talk a lot about what happens after. And it took me a while to even acknowledge to myself how much I was struggling. Suleika Jaouad
I was born in New York but grew up between Switzerland, where my mom is from, and Tunisia, where my dad is from. Now I live in the East Village in New York, in the same building where my parents lived when I was born, so I’ve come full circle in my life. Suleika Jaouad
During the first year of my cancer treatment, adopting a dog was out of the question. I spent more time in the hospital than out. And in the time I was able to spend at home, I had to live in a germ-free bubble to protect my fragile immune system. Suleika Jaouad
Just a few years ago, at the age of 22, I learned I had an aggressive form of leukemia. I needed intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant to save my life. Back then, my doctors told me that I had a 35 percent chance of surviving my transplant. Suleika Jaouad
Like a lot of other young people, I never thought about health insurance until I got sick. I was 22, and my adult life was just beginning. Suleika Jaouad
Before my diagnosis with leukemia, two years ago at the age of 22, I’d always excelled at making resolutions. But I was never as good at keeping them. Suleika Jaouad
I’ve been fortunate to be treated by excellent doctors at world-class hospitals. In the last year alone, my insurance has covered over a million dollars in medical expenses, including a bone marrow transplant and 10 hospitalizations amounting to a combined five months of inpatient care. Suleika Jaouad
Ever since a therapy dog visited me in the hospital during my first cycle of chemotherapy in May 2011, I became fixated on the idea of having a dog of my own one day. Suleika Jaouad
After college, I moved to Paris to work as a paralegal. I hadn’t been feeling well throughout most of my senior year of college, but I chalked it up to burning the candle at both ends. After I started my job, I began feeling more and more tired. Suleika Jaouad
When opportunities and possibilities feel foreclosed upon, when you’re living with limitations, as I was, you have to find creative workarounds to exist, to hold on to some sense of self, to explore new parts of yourself that are emerging. Suleika Jaouad
For many of us, the holiday season triggers memories of food and family. That’s certainly the case for me. Suleika Jaouad
But no conversation between doctor and patient can magically turn an uninsured patient into an insured one. Doctors are just as helpless as patients when it comes to solving the problems of the uninsured. Suleika Jaouad
Cancer had given me a reverse celebrity status: all the attention for something you didn’t want to be known for. I had crossed over into a new land, the land of Patient. And with every step I was feeling less like Suleika. Suleika Jaouad
Well, writing for me had always been my first love and what I leaned on as a way to kind of endure difficult passages. Suleika Jaouad
The steep price tag of cancer treatment needs to continue to be a part of the national conversation, not just the patient-doctor one. Suleika Jaouad
My own cancer experience has taught me that the most comforting words from friends have often been both the simplest and the most honest. Suleika Jaouad
I’ve struggled with the awkwardness of cancer ever since my leukemia was diagnosed last May. When I told people my news, some people froze, falling silent. One person immediately began telling a story of an aunt who had died from the same kind of leukemia. Suleika Jaouad
Where cancer is concerned, it’s safe to say there’s no such thing as good timing. Suleika Jaouad