Still Here: On 15 Years in Cancerland with Dana Donofree
Dana Donofree was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 at 27. She is a survivor, advocate, and the founder of AnaOno, an intimate apparel brand designed to support those affected by breast surgery and reconstruction. Dana is also the longtime guest editor of Wildfire Journal’s annual Body issue.
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Still Here
Fifteen years later… and still asking what it means to stay.
Diagnosed at 27, Dana Donofree has spent over a decade and a half inside Cancerland—building a business, advocating for others, and learning how to live in a body that keeps changing.
What does survivorship look like when there’s no clear map forward?
Dana names it plainly:
“Survivorship to me today is like a really massive question mark.”
In this conversation, she reflects on what it means to outlive expectations, to carry both grief and gratitude, and to keep evolving long after the milestones pass. The five-year mark. The ten-year mark. The quiet realization that survival doesn’t resolve the story—it reshapes it.
She takes us back to the beginning too—before advocacy, before AnaOno—when everything shifted in a single moment:
“Hearing those words that I had cancer at 27 was just an absolute shock.”
This episode is for anyone who keeps showing up—
year after year, in a body and a life that didn’t go as planned.
And is still becoming something new.
Writing Prompt 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:
What the mirror knows…
Think about that bathroom mirror, that bedroom mirror—the one that catches you as you move throughout your day. What has it witnessed that might reveal something about your relationship with your body that you’re not fully facing yet?
For me, I realized in year five of my own survivorship that I had stopped looking in the mirror beyond what was necessary. My mirror saw only the top of my head while I washed my hands, my eyes fixed on the basin. It saw me dressing quickly, eyes averted. I couldn’t face my body in that moment.
So what has your mirror witnessed about your relationship to your body? What might you be attempting to ignore, like I did?
Write from your mirror’s perspective. What has it seen? What does it hold that you couldn’t? What does it know about you that you’re still learning?
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.
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