Attitude is Everything or Whatever

   I thought having to sit for seven hours on end with chemicals pumping through me was torture enough until I was introduced to the social worker that would be coming to each of my treatment sessions. She wasn't 100% terrible and actually ended up doing some really cool things for me like getting me a gallery space in the Jennifer Diamond Library in my cancer hospital for the "Survivor Art Series" but I still wasn't ever fond of her visits mid treatment.
   Don't get me wrong. Social work is very close to my heart as my mother is a social worker and I have always wanted to get involved in that field...but being on the patient/client side of it all when I didn't ask to be? That was asking too much of someone that already felt like they had no control over what was happening.
   I was sent this peppy, pretty blonde that bounced around the hospital as if she wasn't surrounded by death and disease. Bright and cheery and here to tell you that "Things get better!" and that you just have to take things "one step at a time!" which I'm sure is very helpful for a lot of other people...I just don't personally like going to people for help when it comes to coping with what's happening to me. Again, I didn't ask for her...so it sort of felt forced upon me.
   She would make whoever was with me leave the room (which was generally just my dad) and ask me a series of personal questions all revolving around how I was feeling. For the most part I was rude and stand offish and gave her short, unhelpful answers.
"I'm no better than last time"
"Okay"
"I just hate it here"
"I just don't want to be here"
"I don't know"
All of which warranted responses like "Why do you think that is?" or her trying to figure out how she could help me even though I figured I had made it very obvious that her presence was only a bother (and the "Bite Me Cancer" merchandise that she gave me wasn't a big help either).
   I refused to go to AYA groups or anything that involved being in a supportive place surrounded by people I didn't know.
(She asked me if I wanted to go to some makeover day too to "feel prettier" and I think that also made matters worse)
All I'm sure she got out of me was that I hated being there, I hated that I was losing my hair, and I hated how sick I felt. I wasn't ready to divulge the rest of my feelings with anyone and I wasn't about to start with her. It must be sort of hard to understand when you aren't the one being thrown into the middle of a terrible situation. Right? But I guess they're trained or whatever. I guess I wish I had the option to tell her I didn't want to see her but maybe in the long run it was helpful to have someone outside of the entire situation that tried to care. Maybe. I'm still on the fence about it.
    It wasn't until after the entire treatment process that I was able to try and appreciate her incessant tries and also figure out how I felt about the situation more.
   In the hospital I was indifferent and cold and closed off.
   Behind closed doors, distanced from all the loud beeps and nurses and medicine I tried so hard and was eventually able to word how I thought a little like this:
--
Your bones scream for mercy from this sterilized sickness and the chemicals
You are dying from the inside out and you're going numb
You can't feel your fingertips anymore but what would you want to touch anyways?
There is a sword hanging above you held by a breaking thread and there's already a sharp needle in your arm
Your coughs taste like saline and as you brush your hair behind your ear you lose some in your fingers
And you are breaking and nothing feels right
You are asked if you have a will
You refuse to listen to these words
You don't listen to most of what's coming out of anyone's mouth because all you're hearing is how much pain you're in and how you'd rate it on a scale from 1 to 10
You are helpless in a body you thought you'd have a little more control over by age 20
And you are at a 10 and dead inside
--
Things were up and down always. But this quote stayed with me for the most part:
"Cancer may have started the fight, but I will finish it"

So yeah. Bite me, cancer! You fucking suck(ed)!...but you showed me a support system I didn't know I had and for that, I suppose I'm grateful.

Birthday Biopsy and a Disappointing Diagnosis

It's just a few days after Christmas 2013 and I start to get a cold. This is nothing major. I've had more colds than I can count on all my fingers and toes together. A few weeks go by...whatever. Finals time rolled around and I hadn't been feeling myself for five or six months. I had two back to back colds and I was finally so sick of dealing with the excessive coughing that I finally got myself in to see a doctor at Student Health. Of course, like many of my experiences Student Health, this one just wasn't any help. The doctor listened to my lungs, said I was fine, and sent me on my way. The cold like symptoms persisted and I had to go back. (No, this does not mean that every time you get a cold now you should be worried that your fragile body is riddled with cancer. This is a special case.)

The next doctor didn't feel quite the same way as the first. She knew there was something more to the story. There was what looked like a distended vein on my abdomen from my solar plexus to my bellybutton--like the ones that puff up on your hand--and I still had a terrible cough. She decided to run tests and have some x-rays done. Unfortunately, there was a mass above my heart that needed to be looked at further. (It ended up being what caused the vein which popped up because what normally helped get blood back to my heart was being blocked off.) I didn't have very many details so I visited my next doctor worried but hoping that it could just be something that could be taken out and that would be that. The word cancer never crossed my mind. I was sitting in the waiting room scared shitless that I was going to receive terrible news and my parents were doing their best to reassure me that the news just couldn't be that bad. 

We were finally called into the doctor's office. He sat us all down and said it could be a few different things-- lymphoma and three other things I didn't care to remember the names of because they were too rare and too terrifying to be considered by someone who barely went in to get her yearly flu shot. I had no idea what lymphoma was. I always blocked anything scary and medical out of my life. I tuned out and looked at my phone bringing up safari quickly to search up what that could possibly be and skimmed Google's results:

Lymphoma is a cancer

Lymphoma is any of a group of blood cell tumors that develop from lymphatic cells. 

Lymphoma is a group of blood cancers that develop in the lymphatic system.

So it was cancer. My stomach dropped and I'm sure the color drained out of my face. You are trying to tell the girl that refuses to ever visit the doctor that she's about to deal with something like THAT?

The doctor finished saying whatever it was he ended up blabbing about to my parents and excused himself for a moment. I turned to my parents and just remember saying "Cancer. Lymphoma is cancer. I have cancer." They were in disbelief and kept shaking their heads saying it absolutely couldn't be and that there were other things it could be. Why would their little girl have cancer?

I was convinced. After all, that was the doctor's first guess. Why would he be wrong? I had to schedule an appointment for a biopsy to confirm that it was indeed one of my worst fears.

I walked out, trying not to cry. I was so angry. Of all people...why in the world would I get cancer? Why now? Why ever? The whole ride home I barely spoke. I couldn't think about anything else.

I went to get the biopsy done a couple days later but I was so scared that my palms were sweating. I had never had an IV put in my arm nor had I ever been put out in my life. Dentist's visits didn't even get this scary and I was sure that was as bad as my life could get. I was sure that I would be like one of the actors in those freak surgery accidents that woke up in the middle of it all, awake, and unable to scream for help. No one was able to make me feel better about it but the IV was finally in and the anesthesiologist was explaining to me what was about to happen--even though I told them multiple times that I didn't want to know. They injected the anesthetic into my IV and I started getting tired fast. I said goodbye to my dad and they rolled me into the operating room. I was so close to being asleep at that point but they were asking me to move onto a different bed (which was totally unreasonable because I could barely lift my head to look around). I moved over with a whole lot of trouble and one of the last things I saw was some terrifying slew of words about what was happening with me written on a small white board. From there I took a few breaths from the oxygen mask and I was out. 

Next thing I know I was waking up in a bed but I could barely keep my eyes open. It was done and I had a huge bandaid at the base of my neck. They told me to get up pretty soon after to go home but that was also pretty unreasonable seeing as I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to understand what was going on around me. 

So I left and the ride home was miserable and I slept on the couch all night.

Two days went by and on my birthday, May 12th, it was confirmed. I had Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and would need to undergo treatment. Happy Birthday. 20 is about to absolutely suck.