Naked in Bed with Cathy de la Cruz

Writing PromptsBodyMBCParenting
Written By April Stearns

Naked in Bed

After cancer changes your body, intimacy can become a whole new kind of reckoning.⁠

At 40, Cathy de la Cruz was diagnosed with DCIS. By the end of 2021, she was navigating sex, dating, scars, sensation, and a new “Frankenstein-ed body”—all while figuring out what it meant to be seen again.⁠

In her essay, “Naked in Bed,” Cathy takes us somewhere breast cancer stories don’t always go: the messy, funny, vulnerable territory of intimacy after surgery.⁠

And underneath the humor is something deeper: the slow realization that the person most concerned about her scars wasn’t necessarily anyone else.⁠

“No one had minded the scars but me.”⁠

Cathy’s story is honest about the awkwardness of finding your way back into your body—and the surprising places that can happen.⁠

Cathy was diagnosed at 40 with DCIS and was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. In 2009, she received her MFA in Visual Art from the University of California at San Diego, having completed a series of short experimental live-action and animated nonfiction films. In 2014, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Writing Prompts Inspired by Today’s Episode

Set your timer for eight minutes, write without stopping or editing yourself. There is magic in leaning into that time. The prompt is:

The ordinary in the midst of the extraordinary…

I invite you to write about a time you found yourself doing something normal in the midst of a time that felt anything but normal, such as cancer.

Maybe it was something small. Maybe it was something you never imagined you’d do again, or something you didn’t think you’d have the space to think about. Whatever it was, write yourself back into that moment of normalcy. What did you find there? And what did it reveal about who you were becoming on the other side?

If you find that you write best with a good prompt, check out our free prompts and learn about our writing workshops.

Happy writing! Until next time, take good care.

Episode Links

Read a transcript of this episode.

Purchase the 2026 “Worth” issue of Wildfire Journal.

Find Cathy on Instagram, Substack, and her website.

More about our episode sponsors: Amy Banocy Coaching

 

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April Stearns https://wildfirecommunity.org
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