Frustrated, Scared, and a Lot of Other Emotions

Since day one of my diagnosis, I have not been allowing myself to feel scared or even admit there was any fear. After getting my Port-a-Cath placed this all started to become more real for me. I cried after surgery, not only because of the pain, but because I was scared. People who don’t know me and have told me that it’s hurting me to hold in my emotions and not talk about what’s going on but I only do that because when I talk to my parents about my feelings they either don’t care or they care too much, there’s no middle ground. After my surgery none of us slept well.  My parents were too concerned about me because I was obviously in a lot of pain to the point of tears and I didn’t sleep because I was scared.

Things I’m scared about:

1. Eating Disorder Relapse (my oncologist doesn’t know I have an eating disorder)
2. Feeling crappy all the time
3. Radiation Therapy
4. Symptoms from the drug cocktail
5. People treating me weird
6. People assuming that I’m dying/going to die
7. Running out of things to do during my long chemo sessions
8. Getting an infection
9. Fevers
10. Wearing a mask
11. Not being able to spend time with friends
12. Being confined to my home or a hospital room

This past Monday I was supposed to start Chemo but due to errors on part of both the insurance and my doctors office that didn’t happen. I was pretty pissed off because I had mentally prepared myself for being there for day (about 8 hours total) but then it freed me up to go to the movies with some of my friends today and then I get to go hang out with another friend tomorrow, without having to worry about germs. But I am also frustrated with not being able to tell the guy I like, that I like him. This kinda goes with being scared, because originally I was going to talk to him about my feelings toward him before I left for school so if things were awkward I wouldn’t have to see him for very much longer, but now that things have changed I’m basically like crap, what do I do now? One of my friends that knows him told me she ships us because of our similar personalities. I don’t want to tell him that I like him now, because I don’t want him to feel obligated to date me or feel bad if he doesn’t like me back. So…that’s a no go and I will just ride out the wave and see what happens I guess…

This is just a quick update of what has been going on lately. I see my therapist on Wednesday (for the first time in like 2 weeks) so I get to talk about all of this crap happening in my life…Yayyyy.

Life Turned Upside Down

When you are told you have an illness you thought you’d never get, what are you supposed to do? I laughed at it and said “of course that would happen to me.” Then I met with a specialist. Tests, tests, and more tests. PET scan, MUGA scan and, CT scan. Blood draws. I can’t work at my job, the risk of infection is too high; okay that’s fine. Stay away from sources of high infection aka children; okay that’s fine. University this year? No, not an option; the tears start to fall. All I’ve wanted to do the entire time I was in High School was to do my best so I could go to University. Call the school and talk to them about deferring. They tell me I am going to lose all of my scholarships and grants provided by the University but I can try to appeal it next year when I can attend and hope the will give them to me. Crying because there’s nothing I can do anymore. I DON’T CARE I’M GOING TO LOSE MY HAIR, I DON’T CARE THAT I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE CHILDREN OF MY OWN, I DON’T CARE THAT I AM GOING TO FEEL LIKE CRAP. ALL I WANTED WAS TO GO TO UNIVERSITY.

I have so many amazing friends that have told me they’ll bring me starbucks or they’ll come over to just hang out with me. One told me that we will make matching flower crowns and headbands. My therapist is willing to come to me to do my sessions if I am not feeling up to coming into her office.

There’s no right way to tell people you have cancer and there’s no right way to be told you have cancer either. There are some that I don’t think would understand that I’m not going to die and that the cancer I have 90-100 percent remission rate. There are others that will just feel bad for me and I don’t want that (I hate when people pity me). Then there are others that will just not know what to do and be speechless.

I have Nodular Lymphocyte Predominant Hodgkin’s Lymphoma stage 2B. I start Chemotherapy in a week.

I have had no choice but to try to process all of this but I can’t every time I talk about it I make a joke or change the subject because that’s the only way I can cope with it. I don’t know what to feel except everything all at once in waves. I pretend to be strong and okay because that’s what I do.

This why I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been to overwhelmed with this shitty illness that has basically put my life on hold for the next 3-9 months (possibly more).