Mental health and appendix cancer are deeply connected. How to get the care you need.

Hi everyone. I wanted to introduce myself as we get this new resource up and running.

My name is Brook Sullivan, and I am a clinical mental health therapist in Birmingham, Alabama. My mom was first diagnosed with LAMN in 2023. Her cancer came back in August 2025 as poorly differentiated with signet ring cell features. In September 2025 we traveled to MD Anderson, where she had CRS/HIPEC surgery, and she went through several rounds of chemotherapy that winter. She is in a clinical trial now. We found Appendicure along the way, and we have learned so much from this group and from Amanda.

Mental health and appendix cancer are connected

I have spent years working with clients through cancer, grief, big life transitions, and other hard seasons. Going through this with my mom showed me something my training never fully could. Cancer reaches straight into your mental health, and a rare diagnosis like appendix cancer carries its own particular weight. The uncertainty rarely lets up. The information is thin. The people around you often have no frame of reference for what you are living through.

Therapy is a space that belongs entirely to you, where you can set down everything you are carrying and start to sort through it.

Therapists are only licensed to practice in the states where we hold licensure, so I cannot provide therapy outside of Alabama. What I can do is help you find care where you are. That might be a therapist, a support group, a psychiatrist, or another service near you. I am glad to talk through your options and help you figure out where to start.

I am also happy to talk about the many ways cancer and rare disease affect mental health, and how therapy can actually help. Plenty of us are lucky to have family and friends in our corner, and that matters. Therapy adds something on top of that. This season can be terrifying, shocking, infuriating, overwhelming, and devastating, sometimes all in the same day. You should not have to hold all of it on your own.

What therapy can actually help with

People sometimes think therapy is only for a crisis, or that they should be able to handle a diagnosis like this on their own. Neither is true. A good therapist gives you a place to say the things you cannot say to the people you love, because you are trying to protect them. We can work on the anxiety that shows up before every scan. We can sit with the anger, the guilt, and the grief that come with a rare diagnosis, none of which follow a tidy timeline. We can talk about how to keep functioning at work and at home when your mind is somewhere else. And if you are the caregiver rather than the patient, therapy is for you too. Caregivers carry an enormous load and rarely give themselves permission to put any of it down.

Finding the right person can take a couple of tries, and that is normal. The fit between you and a therapist matters more than almost anything else, so if the first one is not right, it is okay to keep looking. That is part of what I can help you sort out.

If you want help finding mental health care or resources where you live, fill out the short form below. I would love to connect with you, and I am grateful to be part of this community.

Find mental health support near you

By Brook Sullivan, Clinical Mental Health Therapist, Birmingham, Alabama.

If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, you do not have to wait for a form. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, or call 911 for an emergency.