Voice Post

The author of http://dlbcljourney.blogspot.com/ was diagnosed with cancer back in 2009 as a 26/27 year old primary school teacher from Melbourne, Australia who was used to being pretty healthy. Her writing style is very casual, generally to the point, and like the woman who I had written about in my profile post, very honest. A lot of her writing is sort of stream of consciousness-like but I find that these sorts of blogs/writings are more easily relatable because the author isn't as fixed on being grammatically correct as they are in getting all of their thoughts and ideas across on a page for everyone to see.
Like most blogs I have found about cancer (including my own), this one seems to be made both for the author herself, as it is therapeutic in some ways, as well as for others (family, friends, whoever else might happen upon her blog) to keep them up to date and inform them on everything cancer that she knows about from her own personal experience.
She really likes to set the scenes in some of her posts (there are only 40(?) on there) starting posts like: "Two years ago I was in the car on the way to spend some money in the post-Christmas sales when I received a call from my oncologist..." which is nice because it makes it more personal but also puts a little humorous twist on a rather grim topic. I tend to do that as well--a very "Now picture this...!" moment.
After all, the top of her blog promises the reader with story-like posts:

This is a a strange story for me to write. It will at times be a sad story, in many ways it will be happy and perhaps even funny. It will be an adventure that entails anxiety, flirting with danger, fortitude in the face of adversity and many attempts to look on the bright side. There will also no doubt be moments of anguish and despair, and a lot of uncertainty. It's a story that will hopefully be cathartic for me, but also interesting and perhaps informative or even entertaining for other.

She has used words like "gobbledygook" to explain what comes out of a doctor's mouth instead of a simple answer and also recognizes that we too, as cancer patients and or survivors give a sort of gobbledygook answer to our friends and family that don't understand doctor-speak either. For them, she tries her best to explain in simpler terms the disease and the treatment process.
Then she eventually talks about hair loss. In 2010, the posts are titled like "Hair today, gone tomorrow" sort of brushing off (not the best phrasing here woops) a problem that many cancer patients have to go through but 2011 rolls around and her posts sounds more like "I want my hair back." explaining how she is struggling to cope with the hair loss and hair regrowth as her wedding date nears. I so appreciate that she is able to show the very real emotions that come with these side effects and life after treatment.
In the post "I'm over it" she describes how she feels as "crappy" and goes through a list of things she does that should prove that she should be healthy asking many "why me and not them?" sorts of questions. And then she loops back through her emotions again saying:

...I'm really just over it. It's really hard to keep pumping your body full of poisons that make you feel really crappy and tired, without a guarantee of being well at the end.

But even through all of the disappointment she goes on to say that she's just go to "keep focusing on the good things" and ends her post thanking everyone that has been there for her (mainly friends and family) and I think that this really gets across the truth behind cancer really having its ups and downs in coping and crashing.

Profile Post

From what I gathered, jdolce27 of mynhlfight.wordpress.com is in her 30's, a teacher at a residential college, an owner of two cats (her husband, Jeff, is the other animal parent), and a cancer survivor. Her posts are all very relatable to me considering that we were and continue to still have similar experiences. A lot of the way she has written over the span of her blog have been updates on her own health as well as general information about everything involved (from the disease to the treatment process/side effects to life in remission and everything in between) for those that may not know as much as we do on the topic. She has been blogging since 2013 and was diagnosed in 2012 and posted every month for a while until 2014/2015 where there were a few scattered posts/updates and then her latest on March 28, 2016 acknowledging that she hadn't been writing in a while but updated us all on her cancer status and what side effects and life changes still linger with her today. Her blog's layout is pretty bland and simple (grey on grey) leaving no room for distraction from the message she may be trying to get across. Though it may seem a little more boring/depressing than some of her posts I feel as though it just makes everything easier to read and go through. Her blogroll shows that she has a lot of information on the topic-- after all, it is a blog on her long, personal journey battling cancer and her comments to the many questions/statements about how thankful people are that she is posting about this at all shows that she cares and is glad to be a source of relatable or easy to understand information.
Her first post was so genuine to me because she stated that she felt "the need to blog about [my] experiences (in as honest a way as [I] can muster) so that my friends and family can easily keep up with [my] progress" and that is exactly what I want to achieve with my own posts. The process to her being diagnosed was almost exactly like mine-- starting with symptoms that were so normal that doctors almost immediately overlooked them and ending in an x-ray that would "set off a domino effect that would ultimately lead to [my] general cancer diagnosis...and first chemotherapy treatment eight days later." A post like this scares most people because the second they read "cold symptoms" they basically go psycho-web-MD and self diagnosis themselves with a crazy disease that they'll probably never get...but it also makes known the importance of following up with a doctor if something really doesn't feel right with you and that will always be important to me from now on.
In her most recent post 'Things no one tells you about being a survivor..."  she basically writes a letter to her past self that was about to be diagnosed talking about what there was to expect down the line. I agreed with almost everything in her list from side effects with neuropathy, immune system problems, and "chemo brain." This very real post shows to her viewers that even years later and in remission, a cancer survivor's life really revolves around their battle with cancer even after all the treatment is finished. It also, to me, says that the author cares enough about her audience and the cancer community to take the time to update them after about an eight month absence from her own blog.

On Getting Better

When everything started to get better I wasn't 100% sure how to feel.

My last chemotherapy treatment was on Halloween of 2014 and I left with a sort of weird feeling in my stomach. Yeah, I was nauseous, sure. But that wasn't it. I just didn't feel done. But I was. I hopefully still am.

When my taste slowly returned, I was happy to have it back so I started to eat everything I had missed the taste of.

I was finally able to eat "things that came from the ground" again so I had lettuce in an Urth Caffé sandwich and onions and lettuce in my In-n-Out double-double and I only worried a little! 

When I got the feeling back in my hands I was happy my handwriting didn't look like a four-year-old boy's. Just in time for school notes! Yay...school...

My hair started to grow back and it was weird because it short and curly and I hated it so I wore a wig for a while...but it was growing back. IT WAS GROWING BACK. (but I had to deal with the beginning of school and wearing a wig so that was frustrating....BUT IT WAS GROWING BACK.)

Scans kept coming back looking just fine but I was always scared before I got the news that something would come up active. So scans were okay and I was still okay and I still didn't need any more treatment. Cool. Breathe. 

Getting better is hard sometimes. I went from not being able to stand for long periods of time or walking very far to being able to stand for much longer and walk five blocks without feeling like I'm on the verge of death. I can hold more than just a notebook in my hands and not shake and feel faint. 

I am going to the gym more to get my strength back up and I am slowly noticing more and more improvement. I am able to say "I would not have been able to do this exercise this time last year but LOOK AT ME NOW!" alongside "oh my GOD this is a lot of weight who do you think I am?!"---but I can lift a weight, right? Not a big accomplishment for you, maybe...but for me? Well, I couldn't life a weight this time last year! So, look at me now. 

Getting better means less doctors' appointments, but still going to doctors' appointments. But there are less of them and they are mostly just checkups and scans and you telling them that "well yeah, my back hurts a little but it's NOT from the chemotherapy or the cancer I actually just strained it working out" and "well yeah, I have a cold but I don't think it's my immune system being THAT shitty...I think it's because my friend's boyfriend literally sneezed at me the other day and now I'm sick. College! Ha." And getting better means less medication. You have no idea how much I missed the days where I didn't have to take a single thing to function normally. For a while there I was taking anti-nauseas once a day and anti-anxiety and anti-nausea pills just to sleep soundly.  So I'm takin' less and I'm feelin' good for the most part. 

Getting better means less people realizing that you even ever had a disease to deal with in the first place. This is where things get weird sometimes. 

Some people have watched you through your entire journey with the disease. They are proud of you and say from time to time "you've gone through so much" and "you're looking so good" and "your hair is getting so long!" 

And then there are new people you meet that have no idea what you've gone through and sometimes you almost feel like it's necessary that they know----after all, it has been a huge part of your life that has changed you indefinitely. But is it important that they know that you've struggled to become who you are now? That sometimes you do not take everything seriously because you taught yourself not to? That you do not take every little problem they take as seriously because you indeed, as said before in other blog posts, have gone through worse?

And when you do tell them will it totally put a damper on the conversation even though they did just ask why you have a scar or your neck? Most times, yes. Other times, the have stories to tell you about struggles of their own and funny (to me, at least) relatable stories that we can share in. Or they ask questions and you can inform them on something that you actually have something to say about. 

But most importantly, and with the most amount of cheese,

Getting better means getting better and THAT is something to be proud of.

How does that make YOU feel?

A lot of the time while I was sick I was concerned about other peoples' feelings. I remember when I was first diagnosed there were a lot of tears---just not on my end. My mom was crying, my friends were crying, and I was the one telling them it was going to be okay.

                              

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to complain. It was easier for me to be focused on trying to make everyone else feel better than it was trying to figure out how bad I was actually feeling about the whole ordeal. Sometimes getting your mind off of it all is just a better coping mechanism. Sometimes it made me feel better hearing myself say "I'm going to be okay." Maybe I was starting to convince myself or do my best to cover up the fact that I was actually terrified that everything might go downhill. For now, "I'll be okay." Repeat that and it might just work. Fingers crossed?

                              

This all being said, when I was asked about how I was really feeling I had a hard time putting into words that people who weren't going through this could understand. I was tired but I couldn't explain to my friends without feeling embarrassed that sitting up in bed for ten minutes was more than I could handle and that I would love to see them for longer but I could not physically do it. I could not find the words to correctly express to another friend that going to a concert with her was nearly impossible for me---and that no, being in a wheelchair at it would not make the experience easier on me. I could not easily tell the person I loved most at the time that I "just needed them there with me" at treatments because they were the only person I would let see me like that. So I was better off just saying something along the lines of, "It's fine! I'm alive, aren't I? Don't cry!" or "Hey, I have treatment on this day... do you maybe want to come with me if you have the time? If not it's totally fine and I get it. I love you no matter what." or just not responding at all.

When the going gets tough.....sometimes you don't care about how other people feel. You spend your time wondering why other people are feeling so sad when YOU are the one dealing with the disease and going through all the treatments and experiencing all the side-effects. There are times where I was disgusted by things people would say to make my situation seem less shitty that were equivalent to that of an "it could be worse" sort of speech. And then there were times where I was too busy feeling sorry for myself that I had no sympathy for people going through what I deemed a smaller problem. Of course, whenever anyone says "I shouldn't be complaining about my problem when you've gone through so much worse" I am torn between feeling badly because I know how it feels to be caught up in something that feels bad and problematic to you and feeling like...well..yeah...your boy toy not responding to you in not even in the same realm as me feeling gross post-chemo. But I too have been wallowing in my sad love life and know that it is still bad and still sad. Our problems and bad situations are all very different, but they are still problems and bad situations.