About SueEllen

My name is SueEllen Thomas (SET). I am a wife, mother of four, educator, lifelong learner, and two-time cancer survivor.

I have spent more than 25 years working in education and am certified in secondary sciences, with a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration. As a lifelong learner, I still have goals of my own—including the hope of earning my doctorate one day. I believe we are never finished learning, growing, or discovering what might come next.

One of the things I have always valued most about education is the opportunity to help young people recognize their strengths, work through challenges, discover possibilities, and believe in what they are capable of accomplishing.

Life has taught me many lessons outside of the classroom as well.

My own path has included significant challenges beginning at a young age, including serious illness, loss, difficult circumstances, and experiences that required me to develop resilience long before I understood what that word meant. At 19, I faced cancer for the first time. Decades later, I found myself facing cancer again—this time, breast cancer.

Those experiences are part of what eventually led to All Set for Life.

Where This Blog Is Today

Right now, this blog is primarily a place for sharing resources, information, products, organizations, and personal experiences that may be helpful to people navigating cancer, treatment, recovery, and survivorship.

When I was going through breast cancer treatment and adjusting to life afterward, I found myself constantly searching for information and solutions—sometimes for things I didn’t even know I would need until I needed them. Along the way, I discovered products, services, organizations, professionals, and practical strategies that made certain parts of the experience a little easier.

My hope is to gather and share some of those things here so that someone else might not have to search quite as hard to find them.

I am not a medical or mental-health professional, and the information shared here is not intended to replace professional advice. I am an educator and survivor sharing resources and experiences that I hope others may find useful.

A Story Still Being Written

There is another part of All Set for Life that is still taking shape.

I am beginning to write my story.

Cancer is an important part of that story, but it isn’t the whole story. My life has included challenges that began long before cancer and continued in different forms throughout adulthood. It has also included education, family, faith, accomplishment, mistakes, perseverance, wonderful people, unexpected kindness, and many lessons I could never have learned in a classroom.

As I write, I am beginning to see connections between experiences that I didn’t necessarily recognize while I was living through them.

I hope that someday the story I’m writing can reach beyond cancer. I especially hope it might encourage young people who are facing difficult circumstances and adults who may still carry experiences from their younger years. I also hope it speaks to people facing cancer—whether they are diagnosed young, later in life, or find themselves trying to understand who they are after treatment ends.

More than anything, I want someone who is struggling to be able to recognize:

You are not the only one. You are not alone. And what is happening in your life right now does not have to determine the rest of your story.

Where All Set for Life Goes From Here

I’m not completely sure where All Set for Life will lead—and I’m becoming comfortable with that.

For now, this blog will continue to be a place where I share resources, information, and experiences that may make life a little easier for people affected by cancer. As I continue writing my story, researching, learning, and discovering new ways that my experiences might help others, I am open to seeing how this space evolves along the way.

What I do know is that some of the greatest gifts in my own life have come from people who offered encouragement, information, compassion, or support at exactly the time I needed it. Sometimes even a small act, the right resource, or simply knowing that someone understands can make a difference.

My faith has made me especially grateful for the people who have been there throughout my life. There have been far more angels in my life than not, and I like to believe that one way of honoring what they have given me is to find ways to pass some of that encouragement and kindness forward.

All Set for Life is one small way I can begin doing that.

I don’t know exactly where it will lead, but I am looking forward to finding out.

After all, the rest of the story is still being written.