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"&amp;amp;#8220;What would you do if you only had five years to live?&amp;amp;#8221; When Crystal asks me that, I consider it hypothetically. &amp;amp;#8220;What if you only had one day?&amp;amp;#8221; For her, though, it&amp;amp;#8217;s very real. The 27-year-old, a stunning and sophisticated redhead whose laugh weakens the knees, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2012. While she currently shows no evidence of disease, the statistics for survival are ominous. To call her &amp;amp;#8220;dynamic&amp;amp;#8221; is an understatement: Crystal conducts user experience for a national not-for-profit, directed a residency program and co-founded a cultural exchange network in China, runs a virtual vintage clothing store, and maintains a lively dating life. &amp;amp;#8220;Defiant&amp;amp;#8221; doesn&amp;#x27;t do her justice either. She&amp;amp;#8217;s doing all that, despite three major surgeries in the last two years and amid her mother&amp;amp;#8217;s battle with breast cancer. Read on as Crystal explains in her words how she&amp;amp;#8217;s fighting and living and loving with courage, elegance, and humor. Crystal before her third surgery. It was this or a photo of her holding a cake that reads &amp;amp;#8220;F*** cancer. Have fun in NYC.&amp;amp;#8221; Either way, the message is clear. When you were diagnosed, how did it affect you and your relationship with your boyfriend at the time? My boyfriend at the time was finishing a job in China and eventually got over to the States for the second surgery. I genuinely think he thought he was doing everything he could to be supportive (crashing with some friend&amp;amp;#8217;s friends, coming to appointments). I think that when bat*** things happen like this, relationships either get stronger and overcome or they break. Ours did the latter. He moved home to Australia during my recovery and we quickly realized that neither of us was getting what we wanted out of the relationship. How does cancer play into your dating life in New York City? The great thing about being post-cancer means I don&amp;#x27;t have to bring it up right away. But I still haven&amp;amp;#8217;t figured out exactly when is the right time to bring it up. Slide it in on a second date? Mention off-hand on a fourth date? The most important thing is that things roll out in the right order. I learned the hard way that it&amp;amp;#8217;s important to communicate before I find myself in an intimate situation where he discovers and asks, &amp;amp;#8220;How&amp;amp;#8217;d you get those scars?&amp;amp;#8221; Nothing kills a mood like dropping a cancer bomb. Do you approach love differently now? I generally approach love the same way. Things with my boyfriend made me more aware that I might need a pretty high amount of commitment from future relationships, but it also made me realize that it can be really dangerous to demand too much from a relationship that&amp;amp;#8217;s not ready for it. You say you&amp;amp;#8217;re not sure how to answer that question, &amp;amp;#8220;If you had five years to live&amp;amp;#133;?&amp;amp;#8221; How do you think about mortality? The scariest thing about cancer is that even if you beat it, it can come back. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve faced it twice now and I&amp;amp;#8217;d like to be the end of it. I&amp;amp;#8217;m trying to figure out how to balance the obvious momentum toward making every moment count with the realization that I need to take really good care of myself. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve also felt more dedicated to and grateful for my friends than ever. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve had friends lend me their car for months on end, send money and flowers, and cover plane tickets. Another best friend committed to going to every single one of my appointments with me and send email summaries to my mom when I had to revisit the melanoma. I do not think mortality is something that any young person knows how to think about. One week after a flurry of appointments and seeing some of the staggering mortality statistics, I turned to my friend and said, &amp;amp;#8220;Let&amp;amp;#8217;s plan a lot of fun things this year, OK?&amp;amp;#8221; Anything other experiences or advice you&amp;amp;#8217;d like to share? My best friend has the same abrasively hilarious but supportive take on my cancer as Seth Rogen&amp;amp;#8217;s character in 50/50, a comparable movie version of my experience. I was out late one night with her when she ran into a bunch of medical students she was flirting up. When one of them mentioned he was an oncologist, she triumphed, &amp;amp;#8220;My best friend had cancer! Crystal, show him your scars.&amp;amp;#8221; I had to assure her that she was in fact the only one who wanted that to happen. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think anything good ever came from cancer, but the surrounding events did lead to a great romantic relationship with my pharmacist, and to witnessing my oncologist&amp;amp;#8217;s fantastic bow-tie collection. I also think that having lived abroad and overcome cancer, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not easily intimidated by much. Except for needles. They still get me. Also, just wear your damn sunscreen. What questions do you have for Crystal? She&amp;amp;#8217;ll be answering comments below. You can also fight cancer with her and DoSomething.org. Read more in the &amp;amp;#8220;What It&amp;amp;#8217;s Like&amp;amp;#8221; series here: *What It&amp;#x27;s Like Dating Through Deafness: &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m Forced to Be More Intimate *What It&amp;#x27;s Like Dating as a Friendless High Schooler Turned Male Runway Model"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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