My Story - Part 2

Its difficult to explain what it feels like to walk out of a hospital with nothing more than a cancer diagnosis and a list of names that mean nothing to you.  To have had your normal 23-year-old world flipped upside down in the matter of an hour.  Where the 24 hours earlier my biggest worries had been where happy hour should be and what cut of jeans was most flattering on me, I was thrust quickly into a world which much bigger worries.

Over the next day or so, called my closest friends and very matter-of-factly explained the diagnosis to them.  While they cried, I didn't.  In many ways, I was relieved.  For months, along with the swollen lymph node, I had been experiencing symptoms that I couldn't make sense of.  I would fall asleep at 7pm, sleeping straight through until 7am and wake feeling like I had pulled an all-nighter.  I went from running 5 miles a day to being unable to make it through just one block.  Night sweats would drench the bed, causing mid-night sheet and pajama changes.  I had never connected these dots until, finally, the diagnosis made them make sense.

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My mom loves to tell the story of how I bit my pediatrician when I was young and needed to get a shot.  I have never, ever liked doctors.  But when I met Gordon Ginder, I knew I would like him.

Dr. Ginder's name wasn't on the list I had received from the ENT.  In what I can now describe only as a twist of fate, I happened to know someone who was working in Dr. Ginder's lab when I was diagnosed.  He specializes in lymphoma and is the Director of the Massey Cancer Center.  Even so, I was pretty much brand-new to Richmond, and I am sure I never would never have found Dr. Ginder if not for knowing someone who worked with him.  And I really dont know how my story would have panned out if I hadn't.

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Dr. Ginder re-ran my biopsy and came up with the same diagnosis - Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  We then went about the weeks long process of staging my disease - blood work, CT scans, x-rays, and a bone marrow biopsy would teach us that my cancer was stage IIB.  Stage II means that I had more than two lymph node regions involved on one side of my diaphragm.  For me, these were in my head, neck, chest, and abdomen.  B means I had systemic symptoms - like the night sweats and extreme fatigue.  The treatment plan we came up with consisted of 6 rounds of intravenous chemotherapy followed by about 3 months of radiation therapy.

My chemotherapy was administered through an IV in my left arm.  They administer it in a room full of comfy arm chairs and TVs, helping the hours to pass pretty easily.  After the first scary and frustrating dose (the one where they explain all of the things that can go wrong while poison is being pumped into your body, and why you need to take 8 pills just to counteract some of the fastest developing side-effects, and where you are inevitably thinking "oh my goodness how can this possibly go well??"), chemo became a "normal" part of life and the infusion room became something like a second living room.  I grew close to the nurses there, talking about life and plans and their families.  It was a good place to read a book and I took in a lot of daytime TV I had missed while working.  I even studied for the LSAT there.  I ended up needing an extra round of chemo because my cancer didn't respond exactly as planned, but I also didnt lose my hair as expected, so it seemed like a decent trade to my 23-year-old self.

Because of where my cancer was, my radiation therapy involved a mesh mask made to fit my face.  While I was in the radiation phase of my treatment, five days a week they would place the mask over my face, screw my head into the table to immobilize it in exactly the same way, and a large machine would quickly zap me.  Along with the mask, I was given four tattoos that would further help align everything correctly.  Even though I have other tattoos, those four mean the most to me.  Every time I seem one of them, its a reminder of the months spent in that room.  All in all, a radiation appointment would last under 20 minutes.  It was hard to believe something so quick was destroying a killer. 

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No one's treatment journey is exactly the same.  And being 23 with cancer changed not just my life, but the lives of my friends as well.  Shopping trips changed from searches for Friday night outfits to searches for scarves to help cover my thinning hair.  My body didnt replenish its white blood cell count between doses, so the same friends that had shared cabs home from bars with me had to learn to give me daily injections of the drug that would help make that happen.  Saturday nights out changed to gatherings in my apartment over movies and cookie baking.  Friends I had once cooked dinner with now picked up meatball subs after chemo for me, because it was the only thing my stomach could handle.  Even after my treatment was over, things didnt just go back to the way they used to be.  The smell of beer and wine made my stomach turn, beach days were limited since I wasnt allowed in the sun, and it took quite awhile for my energy to return back to a "normal" level.  Cancer stole our early 20s from all of us in a lot of ways.  But it bonded us all in a lot of very special ways too.   

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After months of chemotherapy, my nurses sent me out of the infusion room a final time amidst a shower of homemade confetti.  And a few months after that, I walked away from radiation oncology for the last time - given permission just days before Thanksgiving to leave the state to celebrate the holiday with my loved ones.  

I was in remission.