By Blood Cancer United
Storyectomy and Blood Cancer United: The power of humor, and storytelling for healing
A community-driven storytelling event using truth and comedy to support blood cancer survivors and caregivers.
Part 1 of the Storyectomy series: Real stories told onstage, in their own words.
What happens when you say the hardest parts of your life out loud... and people actually laugh with you?
There is a kind of magic that happens when people gather to tell the truth about their lives—the honest, messy, beautiful truth. That’s the power behind Storyectomy, a partnership between The Crow, a club in Santa Monica, CA, and Blood Cancer United. Together, we’re building a community-driven mental health initiative that uses storytelling, humor, connection, and lived experience to break stigma and bring people closer to themselves and each other.
Meet Georgia
Georgia is a young adult whose blood cancer diagnosis interrupted everything at once—school, independence, and a sense of normalcy. In her story, she speaks to what it means to be young and suddenly navigating something you never expected. Watch Georgia introduce herself—in her own words.
Her story
On stage, Georgia moves through moments that once felt impossible to explain: returning to school without her hair, navigating treatment she didn’t fully understand, learning how to be in her body again. She doesn’t soften them. She tells them the way they happened—finding humor not because it was easy, but because it helped her make sense of it all.
Through storytelling, Georgia transforms these moments from private struggles into shared understanding—reminding us that even the most isolating experiences can still make us laugh when it is shared with others.
Watch the performance
Then, Georgia took the stage—turning the hard moments into something shared. Watch what happened.
If this feels familiar
Georgia's experience reflects what many young adults face. If any part of her story feels familiar, these resources can help:
- Reach out: Chat, email or call an Information Specialists, highly trained oncology social workers and nurses who can assist you through treatment, financial and social challenges.
- Check out: AYA support — Programs tailored for adolescents and young adults navigating treatment, identity, and independence all at once.
- Get guidance: School reintegration with visible changes like hair loss, fatigue, or mobility challenges.
- Find mental health support: Support for regaining mental health, balance, and peace after intensive treatment for your overall well-being.
- Connect with peers: Safe spaces to meet others who understand the emotional and social complexities of being an AYA with blood cancer.
Georgia’s story is one of many.
Each one is different. And each makes something a little easier to say out loud.
About Storyectomy
Storyectomy is a “story making” mentorship between creative talents and writers with blood cancer survivors, and helps them tell their stories live. It gives everyone, from caregivers to healthcare professionals and supporters, the space to speak their truth, find healing, and discover that what feels isolating is often what connects us most.
We attended a special event where blood cancer survivor storytellers shared their experiences with vulnerability, courage, and sometimes even laughter. Their stories reflect the heart of Blood Cancer United—unity, empowerment, and hope—and are deeply moving.
Six extraordinary people stepped on stage and offered us a glimpse into their lives. Their voices are shared exactly as they were spoken—raw, real, and powerful. In this shared space, storytellers like Georgia, Paul, Andrew, David and Ilana, transform deeply personal challenges into narratives that illuminate what it means to navigate blood cancer.
Through storytelling these truths aren’t just told; They’re witnessed, honored, and transformed into something that reminds us why laughter is one of the oldest forms of medicine we have.
Follow our Storyectomy series for stories that span the emotional terrain of returning to school after physical changes (like massive hair loss), preparations for fertility options and treatments, and honoring the complexities of cultural identities. They shed light on the urgent need for research, the heart behind fundraising, and the tenderness of an evolving parent-child relationship and switching roles as caregiver to patient. They speak to the disorientation of being treated in a children's hospital as a young adult, the daily realities of graft versus host disease, and the pressure of appearances and stereotypes of a cancer patient.
Learn about Storyectomy
(Coming soon watch our performers videos)
Can humor and storytelling help people process blood cancer?
