Danielle DuChateau

Two-Timed Danielle DuChateau

"The journals are those of a girl I once knew - who had cancer and wrote about her experiences. She wanted to share her story, in a way that would have helped her: in a book about having cancer as a teen - written by a teen who experienced it. She wasn't lost in battle, but she's been gone a long time; and I haven't been able to forget her, or let her go. The story seems unfamiliar, and yet I know it by heart. It feels like yesterday, but seems like a lifetime ago. It's the story I never wrote - because it was already written; and at the heart of it is my journey with cancer: a muse, a curse, and a blessing. I've read the book before, but I never closed the first chapter: a book of journals - written by a girl who had cancer." Cancer is a part of my story, and being a survivor is part of my identity, but it is not my entire identity as I felt it was when I was younger. At the end of my second treatment, I decided I was going to write my story and publish it. I even thought of the perfect title for my book: Two-Timed: An Adolescent Cancer Memoir. I thought of it because I felt two-timed by my own body, whose very defense system had attacked itself, and it had happened to me twice. But I didn't write the story. The years went by, and I decided I could not very well write an "adolescent memoir" when I was well into my twenties, but I still had my journals - all the journals. Several more years elapsed until now - twenty three years after the journey began - I am finally "writing" the story.