8 Year Cancerversary

Tomorrow is one of those days I used to avoid like the plague. 8 years ago, I became a statistic. Approximately 2.1% of men and women will be diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at some point during their lifetime, based on 2012-2014 data. Out of all types of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Primary Mediastinal Diffuse Large B Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is a whopping 2-4%. I feel like I should have played the lottery when I "won" those odds because not only did I get diagnosed with a rare cancer, I relapsed too. 

 

You go through treatment not knowing what each day holds. Chemo sucks. There is not a single positive thing to it besides it killing the cancer cells (and EVERYTHING else for that matter). I lost my hair. Did I mention I lost ALL of my hair? My world was suddenly thrown upside down into a life of a cancer patient. I had to get picc lines and had so many surgeries. Bone marrow biopsies, blood transfusions, platelets. Do you know how traumatic that is for a 21 year old? What is even more traumatic than that is I didn't have the support system that many others have. I learned very quickly that blood is not thicker than water and just because your family doesn't mean they will do anything for you. Friends turned into family and helped me through my toughest days. But even then, those same friends have lives of their own and still had college and work and their families. Those friends were there for me then and most of them still are to this day. Eventually, even cancer becomes routine.

 

I won't lie though. When I relapsed, It wasn't routine. I didn't think I was going to make it. The new chemo regiment they put me on was brutal. I spent more time in the hospital than I did out of it. I just literally had nothing left in me. But I survived. I survived the numerous times in the ICU. I survived the blood clots. I survived feeling lost and broken. I survived cancer not once, but twice.

 

And I'm still surviving. I survive the long term side effects that 16 rounds of chemo did to me. I survive the doctors appointments where I get stuck 5-6 times just to get blood drawn. I survive getting seriously sick and having to be in the hospital more frequent then not. I survive having pain in some form everyday. I survive the hiatal hernia in my esophagus and the ridiculous amount of heartburn and reflux I get throughout the day because of the toxicity of the chemo. I survive the anxiety and stress that comes with being a cancer survivor. Things that didn't bother me before, now do. I'm no longer a people person. I live with a healthy concern of getting sick. I literally just got over a severe case of clostridium difficile that could have killed me. I worry what germ will invade me next. I can't fight being sick like the normal person. A simple cold gets to my lungs. The neuropathy makes my fingers and toes hurt. But even so, I survive.

All of that said, I no longer hide from tomorrow. I face tomorrow with a smile! I survived cancer twice. Why would I not be proud of that? I've been through more in my 28 years of life than most will in their lifetime. And a week from tomorrow, when I turn 29, I will celebrate too! I have made it another year when statistically, I shouldn't be here today. Next weekend, we are having a birthday party and a cancerversary party. We will celebrate my being alive. I'll be surrounded by my friends and friends who have turned into family. We don't know what the next 5 years hold. Heck, we don't know what next month will hold. What I do know? I do know I will keep on keeping on and not let anything get in my way...