I write this, my first column, on an anniversary. One year ago I learned I had not defied death after all. Seven months after finishing chemotherapy, I had cancer again.

I was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July 2007. A 13-centimeter tumor encasing my right ovary turned out to be a rare kind of ovarian cancer called carcinosarcoma. Our desperate research turned up a total of six articles on carcinosarcoma. The sample size in these articles never exceeded a few dozen women, their cases trickling in over decades. The cancer is too rare to collect a sample size any other way. Each article lamented the nature of carcinosarcoma, beginning with something like: "This cancer of the ovary unfortunately is associated with an extremely poor prognosis."

My oncologist at that time encouraged me not to read the scant literature on carcinosarcoma. There was reason to believe I was different. Unlike every other reported case of carcinosarcoma, mine was caught at Stage IA. Biopsies of my left ovary, fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, pelvic wall, lymph nodes, appendix -- they all came back negative. There was no evidence of disease anywhere except deep within my right ovary. It was a miracle. With chemotherapy, I had a better than 90% chance of no recurrence.

But I wasn't different. Now I have Stage IV ovarian cancer. I am 45 years old. My daughter is 12.

I could well let myself cry as I write these words, but tears have become a bother, that's how seasoned I am on this, my one-year anniversary.

The call that came in a year ago was from a new oncologist whom I had hoped I would never get to know very well. A six-month CT scan to see how I was doing with my better than 90 percent chance brought bad news. More than 20 tumors were visible. They were in both sides of my lungs, which apparently are a prime site for metastatic disease. Within a few months, the cancer also moved into my spine.

It's a good thing I like my oncologist because we sure know one another now. After two regimens of chemotherapy, I now have fewer than ten tumors in my lungs -- they're very small and I can't feel them -- and a small amount of cancer still sits in my spine. At present I'm participating in a clinical trial that uses three drugs to try and interrupt the life of cancer cells by targeting certain over-expressed proteins and by shutting down a cancer's ability to generate a blood supply.

Before my diagnosis I was a happy mom and a workaholic civil rights lawyer. Now I am a pretty happy mom whose priorities have changed. For the most part I am busy figuring out three things: parenting as a mom with cancer, cancer treatment and the meaning of life.

If I had been invited to be a guest columnist and I didn't have cancer, my columns would have been about issues of civil rights and social justice. For example, this week I would have argued that the Cambridge police did act stupidly when they arrested Professor Gates in his own home. But to write a monthly column now is to write of cancer, health in the midst of illness, love and death.

Last Spring, when I was invited to consider writing a column, I replied that what I had to say "might be too heavy for your readers." I was definitely interested, but "my topics would be about having cancer with a bad prognosis. Facing death. Worries about my kid." And then I listed some sample titles for things I'd been thinking about. Titles like "The Shelf-Life of a Letter," "Go To Hell Buddha," "Texting is Deep," "Pimples But Not Periods," and "Side Effects Make You Smart."

I remember those titles almost splashing onto the page. So far my experience with cancer is that I think more deeply, more clearly, and more intimately than I ever have before. No, cancer is not the best thing that ever happened to me. I cannot believe it when people say that. But the deeper level of consciousness where I regularly find myself is definitely new. I notice more. More about myself. More about other people. More about life, culture, religion and the natural world. The special brilliance that life assumes when it's made suddenly precious is the flipside of every tragedy. That's what I'm learning and, once a month, I'll be writing about my view from one side or the other.

MY VIEW

ASHLEY OSMENT