Traveling Daisy

I’m Lisa Marie Wilson, a writer, comedian, and cancer survivor. In Traveling Daisy: A Generational Cancer Story of Disease and Dysfunction, I look deep into a life that began in a trailer park and ask a difficult question: Did my dysfunctional life cause my cancer?

Cancer has followed my family for five generations. My great-great-grandmother Carrie, her son George, his daughter Jan, her daughter Kathy, and then me all faced the disease. Through those generations, I learned firsthand what to do, what not to do, and how deeply cancer can affect not only the person diagnosed, but everyone who loves them.

In this memoir, I share what I learned while caring for my grandmother as she survived cancer, caring for my mother as she died from it, and eventually facing my own diagnosis. I write openly about both terminal and treatable cancer, family dysfunction, fear, grief, caregiving, survival, and the lessons that came from living through all of it.

Along the way, I offer practical tips and advice for anyone dealing with cancer themselves or trying to support someone they love.

The story is honest, personal, and sometimes painful, but it is also filled with humor. Because if cancer has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes laughter really is better than a Xanax.

Traveling Daisy is a story about disease, family, resilience, and finding a way to keep moving forward even when life takes you somewhere you never expected to go.