Hey, remember that time I used to blog about my life as a cancer survivor?

Yeah, me too.  Good times.  Good times on the internets.  Well, following certain recent events that I will discuss a few lines down, I feel the need to b-log once more.  I am and have been struggling quite a bit lately with who I am and what's next for me.  Now, I recognize that uncertainty and doubt are pretty much the norm for recent college grads, especially these days when there are so few jobs floating around.  Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown into my works three years ago when my body decided it would be cool to go and give itself cancer.

I am, only now, beginning to feel like everything is catching up with me.  Basically, from the day I was diagnosed until I graduated on May 17, 2009, I did not stop.  I did the treatment thing; then I did the school thing; and then I did the Washington, DC thing.  The past three years are a blur.  I feel cheated of my college years, in a sense.  Sometimes I wish I hadn't been stripped of my innocence and invincible attitude.  Sometimes I wish I could have graduated and moved into some tiny apartment somewhere, barely making rent and living on PBRs and Cheerios.  But wishing never did anyone any good, nor does dwelling on what isn't.

This past week I went to Jackson, Wyoming, to climb in the Tetons with a bunch of young adult cancer survivors through an organization called First Descents.  Initially, I had been more interested in the climbing aspect of the trip than the cancer part.  I want to get more involved in climbing, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to climb in some of the most beautiful mountains in the U.S.  And, hey, I had cancer, so I was eligible for this program.  Bonus.  But I wasn't really thinking about the cancer part or what it would mean to spend five days with other young adult survivors.  I certainly didn't realize how inadequate and lost I would feel among 13 or so other people who have all had cancer and who all seemed so much more together than myself.  Some of the other people there were closer to their treatment than I am, but I was the youngest young adult there.  While I didn't feel younger in terms of maturity, I felt like the person with the least direction.

Over the years, I have gotten pretty good at deluding myself into thinking everything is okay.  I realized out in Wyoming that while I am pretty comfortable with myself, I am still not okay with this cancer thing.  This was the first time I have ever been around a bunch of people my own age who actually understand what cancer really looks like, feels like, smells like, is.  What it means to be in your 20s or 30s with cancer.  It was extremely painful for me to have it all brought home so quickly.  With my friends, I can pretend that I was never sick, that everything is okay.  But at camp, it was inescapable.  Right at the point when I was desperately trying to pretend that none of this ever happened, I found myself smack in the middle of it again.

And you know what?  I needed that so badly.  I needed to be with people who understood.  I needed to hear from someone who knows what I am going through that things will work out okay.  Just talking with them gave me hope and a little bit of peace.  The men and women I met out in Wyoming are some of the most amazing, strong people I have ever met.  And they are all just living their lives.  They have made it past diagnosis and treatment and a few are even a couple years removed from it all.  I am so grateful for their shared strength.  

Wyoming was one of the best times I have ever had, between the climbing and the spontaneous dance parties in the middle of a road and the juvenile humor and the laughter.  So much laughter.  I haven't laughed so hard and so truly in a long time.  It is amazing how just a few people can change your perceptions, even if only slightly.  I am still struggling with this whole cancer thing and how much I want to embrace it right now, but I am not as scared or uncertain.  We have all made it this far, and we will just keep on keeping on.  

"People call us renegade cause we like living crazy."

Wyoming is pretty much a photographer's dream.

Andre, aka 007

All of us together on Jenny Lake at the foot of the mountain

Just thought I'd drop in...

Yes, I know, I am technically supposed to be finished with this blog. But I have come to realize that even though the majority of my treatment has ended, cancer is still everywhere in my life. This morning, for example, I opened up the New York Times website, and this was the story that greeted me:

Advances Elusive in the Long Drive to Cure Cancer

I was very impressed with this story. It is honest without being insensitive. Kolata's story echoes what I heard last year at the CALGB conference I spoke at, that foundations and researches are wary of spending money on radical new trials, and progress is being made only incrementally. I had never really thought about, as well, her point that cancer rhetoric focuses on "cures," and "survival rates" and such. It makes sense from both sides though. Of course we focus on the positive aspects of cancer. No one wants to think about dying, and I'm sure no pharmaceutical companies want to advertise their drugs as "only possibly adding a few more months onto your already truncated life." That's just a downer. And yet, it is all a bit delusional, especially the curing cancer pledge. Even I, who had one of the supposedly "curable" cancers, don't believe a cure is possible.

On the other hand, that in no way means we should stop fighting. Last weekend I drove up to Boston for Boston University's first ever Relay for Life. I think eight or nine hundred people showed up, and we raised near $80,000 for the American Cancer Society. The whole premise of Relay is that people spend 12 or 18 hours walking around a track in recognition of the fact that cancer never sleeps. By the end of the weekend, after the all-night event, catching up with my friends, and two eight-hour bus rides to and from Boston, I was exhausted and sick. But I am so glad that I went. It was amazing to me to see so many people all gathered together in support of a single cause. We all want to keep this fight against cancer going.

Like I said, I don't think there is a cure, but there are certainly improvements to be made. If the slightly misleading rhetoric means that more people will change their lifestyles, that's great, but we need to be brave enough to face the reality of death as well. I guess I just hope that we don't lose hope but that we don't get ahead of ourselves either.

And that's my bit. Incidentally, I am healthy and still tumor-free. Follow-up for me now consists of scans and doctor's appointments every three to four months, gradually every six months, then every year or so for however long my doctor feels comfortable. ALSO. Today, TODAY! was my last day of class/work/college. The DC program finished today, which means that I am finished with college. In four years. Who woulda thunk it.

www.ccbinsight.blogspot.com

A brand new year and you know what that means...

Or at least, I hope you know what that means and can please tell me because I have no idea what this new year means for me.  New places; new experiences; new jobs; new relationships; new fears; new stories to share.  

One week from tomorrow will find me excited and probably bewildered in Washington, DC, starting out on whatever adventure the next few months will bring.  This will pretty much be my first time (ever) not really knowing what I'm getting myself into.  This will not be like beginning a new semester of classes, where, yes, the classes may be new, but I generally know how things will go.  I have a vague idea of what I will be doing the next three and a half months: A photography internship where I get to take pictures of and around DC.  An element of my program, the "newsroom," has us students acting as the DC correspondents for a number of small, New England newspapers, reporting and filing stories for publication.  And then we have a class called political reporting, which is about what it sounds like.  This won't be your typical internship/classes study-abroad program.  This is journalism in Washington, DC in the first year of a new and historic and exciting presidency.  This is kind of the beginning of what I really hope is my life after school.

I am scared.  But I am also deliriously excited.  And, oh, hey, I'm also leukemia-free.  tumor-free.  all mass and bad cell-free.  As of December 17, 2008, two years and nine days after my first diagnosis and my last Wednesday living in Boston, all scans were clear and all tumors completely disappeared.  Haha, of course, the universe has never been and probably never will be truly kind to me, and it turned out I actually had pneumonia.  But hey, at least it wasn't cancer...?  I went on antibiotics for a few days, and now I should Finally be all set.  I have a follow-up scan in March, and then another scan every three months for a while, but that is it.  I still have the Fear, but I'm not going to let it run me.  I, instead, am going to start running for real this time.  I am going to bike.  I am going to try and get involved in some sort of outdoors group around DC.  I want to hike!  and kayak on that river that's right down the street from where I will be living.  I will live again without pain or fatigue or the persistent cold that Did Not Go Away.  I will live.  Maybe not as long as some people, definitely longer than others, but I will be alive to see whatever this new year will bring.

This b-log never really became a "blog," per se, in that it never really connected with other blogs or internet sites or activities or interesting nonsenses.  There was very little media, aside from the sporadic photos I put up.  But it served its purpose for me.  It helped me get through two years of chemotherapy and treatment for leukemia and a subsequent face-tumor.  It gave me a channel for my thoughts and hopefully gave everyone reading it some insight into what I've been going through.  I hope these posts have helped illuminate what it's like to be 20, 21, 22 and dealing with cancer treatments.  I cannot say my experience is necessarily similar to anyone else's, because everything that I have felt and experienced and grown from has been unique to me.  That said, I'm sure a lot of what I have gone through is not uncommon for other survivors my age.  So, you know, we're not all wimpy, sad, bald kids to be pitied or misunderstood.  We're just trying to get through our days, the same as everyone else.  It is Hard to be a student and a patient.  Good Lord, was that hard.  But it's just another thing to deal with.  Somehow, I did it.  I'm not sure how, really.  Well, that's not true.  My friends helped a lot.  The b-log helped a lot when I wasn't in school.  But mostly it was my desire and drive to be healthy once more, to live to see better days.  I am positive that that sentiment is something we all possess (or, I hope anyway), and so if you ever find yourself where I was just over two years ago, scared and uncertain and alone with a doctor and a hematologist in some nurse's lounge in some strange and sterile hospital, be strong.  (or if you are in a completely different scenario, that's fine too.  The point:)  Have faith in yourself, because when the shit hits the fan, which it is apt to do, you have to be there for yourself.  And you'll make it through.  Seriously, the bad days can't last forever.  They have to change over at some point.  That's what I tell myself, and I think it's generally true.  So.  Good luck.  Good luck with your tomorrows.  I'm around if anyone wants to say hey or chat or cry or laugh or whatever.  I'm always around.  Thank you all for everything.  Peace, pax, I'm out.

cbridges86@gmail.com

I feel like there was something important I was going to say here....

Oh right.  Two years.  Two years and a whole lot of pain.  Two years and a whole lot of anger, frustration, depression, fatigue, drive, motivation, happiness, life.  Two years and life.  Two years and so much growth I don't think I would recognize the person I was two years ago.  Two years and I am still scared.

I found out I had Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia two years ago, yesterday.  Two years later and it is almost finished.  Two years later and I am sitting in Starbucks, freaking out because I have so much work to do and I don't know how I'm going to get it all done.  So, instead of doing it, I am blog-posting...  hmm.  But no, really.  I am tremendously overwhelmed right now.  I have been completely and necessarily unproductive pretty much all semester.  I just sort of "got by" because I was in too much pain or uncertainty or exhaustion to do anything else.  And now I have two essays, a poetry portfolio, a final project, and a website to complete in 48 hours.  It's funny how the entire semester has caught up with me in the past week.  Last week, too, I spent pretty much all day, every day, working.  I know most of my friends are in the same boat.  We are all so close to finishing up this semester.  It's like we are standing on the edge of a cliff, literally right on the edge, ready to jump and fly, but there is something, a rubber band, a harness, whatever, something is gripping us around our stomachs, squeezing out our air, holding us back.  We can see the end of all of this, but we aren't allowed to touch it yet.  Frustration-central.

And then my final scan is next Wednesday.  I am praying so hard that it is my final scan.  I spent yesterday eating way too many cookies and convincing myself that the tumor isn't actually gone and the headache I have been nursing isn't because I'm tired or over-caffeinated but is a result of the tumor growing back.  Yesterday kind of sucked, actually.  But today is a new day, and I will get all my work finished.  We all will get everything done; it just happens, somehow.  And in terms of my tumor or leukemia, well, all of this happened for a reason.  I don't know what the reason is yet, but I know there is a reason.  There is a purpose behind my still being here.  Two years ago, I could have not gone into the student health center.  I could have finished my semester, gone home thinking I was just tired, could have slept over winter break, could have come back to school, and then who knows what.  Died?  Yeah, I could have died.  I probably would have died.  Funny story though.  I didn't.  I am still here, for better or for worse.  I am going to keep on being here, and whatever happens, will happen.  Life will happen.  Hell, life Is happening.  So that's something.

Finally, shameless plug:  I actually have mostly kind of finished one of my assignments.  My website.  I am putting up the link - again, for better or for worse - in case anyone wants to follow my photography past and my photography future.  I plan on keeping it up and updated while I'm in DC next semester.  Warning: it's still new, so don't judge too hard.  I guess that's about it.  For all of its completely ridiculous and frustrating complications, life is pretty exciting.  I hope everyone can smile about something today.  Peace from my new home that is Starbucks.

(p.s., the date says it's yesterday because I started this post yesterday.  But today, right now is actually Tuesday.  k, thanks.)

people.bu.edu/bridgec

Sometimes the words just can't come out...

I have been trying to write a new entry for this here b-log for almost two weeks, and I have been unable to put my emotions and abstract thoughts into coherent sentences.  So, right now, instead of writing the essay I have due in a few days, I am going to try and get out some cancer-centric verbiage for your enjoyment and information.

As of this coming Monday, it will be three weeks since I had my last treatment for any sort of cancer-related evil lurking in my body (or face).  Three weeks ago was my last infusion of Rituxan, which was/is supposed to attack and Destroy! the lymphatic tumor that was growing in my face.  So, the good news:  I am pretty positive the treatments worked.  My face doesn't hurt at all anymore; I can just about speak completely normally now; I can hear out of my right ear.  And the best part is that I can actually sing again!  My voice is super rusty, and there is still something taking up space in my sinuses prohibiting optimal vocalness, but it is still much better.  So, the bad news:  I don't have my final PET scan until the middle of December.  I won't know for another two and a half weeks whether or not this damn thing has shrunk sufficiently.  If the scans show that it has disappeared completely or mostly, then I am good to go.  That will be it.  Two years and a whole lot of nonsense, but it will be over.  On the other side of things, if for some reason the tumor has not disappeared or shrunk enough, then, once again, the proverbial wrench will be thrown in to the machinery of my life.  If all is not well, then my doctor and I get to figure out what to do next.  More chemo?  probably.  Radiation?  possibly.  Washington DC?  definitely not.  Like I said though, I feel so much better, and I am positive everything is going as it should in my face.  The reality is that there is a chance this isn't over yet.  Truth.  But, and this is a big but, I am confident everything will be fine.

To that end, the past three weeks have been mildly ridiculous by Caroline-standards.  I spent the first two weeks after I finished my drugs staying up way too late, partying a little too much, and being just a little reckless.  I spent the next few days trying to figure out why on earth I had done the things I did.  And now, after some soul-searching and a few epiphanies, I think I have reached a sort of happy medium.  I am not going to detail the specifics of my actions for fear of reprimand by my mother, but suffice it to say that I was acting like the thing I have so often maligned: a "normal" college student.  I didn't understand for a while why I was acting so seemingly out of character.  Even while I was having an awesome time, it was bothering me.  And then I realized something: I feel healthy.  I haven't felt even vaguely healthy since the middle of July.  I had been in pretty much Constant pain since September, and I was mostly nonfunctional for the first two and a half months of my senior year of college.  And then it ended.  The pain went away.  I could speak again; I could hear again.  I still have a whole lot of leftover mucus that keeps finding its way out, but other than that, I could be any other person.  I started running again.  Just like that.  I haven't run since July!  This past Wednesday, I ran 2.5 miles.  It felt fan-freaking-tastic.  All of a sudden, I felt how I wish I could have felt for the past two years.  I could drink again because I wasn't taking any conflicting drugs.  I could stay up late and wake up early because my energy had returned.  I could think and contribute to conversations and classes because all of my thoughts were no longer focused on the pain in my face.  If you've ever been sick or injured or somehow incapacitated for any length of time, you know how amazing it feels to return to life again.  If you haven't ever felt that, you are super lucky, but please take my word that it is pretty wonderful.

This weekend is the Thanksgiving holiday.  Thanksgiving has, at least for the past three years, been a sort of Caroline-gauge.  My freshman year, I had a really bad cold, and I was struggling with food issues (I didn't want to eat any).  Sophomore year, Thanksgiving was awful.  Refer to last year's post if you need a refresher.  Basically, I was one week away from my cancer diagnosis.  I was So sick, and I was still struggling with food (I think I had a Dr. Pepper and a couple of Doritos on Thanksgiving Day).  Last year I was in a really strange place.  I was back at school; I was eating, thank God.  But I was terrifically unhappy, which I say in retrospect because at the time I thought I was doing pretty well.  But no, I was lost and lonely and struggling to figure out who I was: college student or patient.  So now it is one year later, and once again, Thanksgiving is a pretty good gauge for how far I've come emotionally and all of that.  For the first time in three years, I didn't feel ill on Thanksgiving, which is kind of funny, considering.  Yes, I was mostly by myself on the day itself, although my friend did stop by and bring me a pie she made me (mmm, pie).  I do not, however, feel lonely anymore.  I have come to terms with the fact that I am both a cancer survivor and a college student, although I am more than ready to be not a college student.  I am more comfortable with myself than I have ever been.  Oh, and here's the really strange thing:  I actually feel happy.  I know I've said that for years, but this feeling isn't one I've really ever felt before.  I've never walked down the street smiling just because.  For the first time, maybe ever, I am enjoying my present.  My present has basically sucked for the past two years.  My coping mechanism was to look to the future and ignore the past and present.  But now my present isn't that bad.

So I finished chemo, and on the assumption that I am finished forever, I started living in the present and having a grand old time.  This whole business isn't quite over yet, and I still have a sore throat, but Monday brings a new month and a new set of possibilities.  I have a Ton of work to do before my semester ends, work that I really do not want to do.  Somehow, it will get itself done, and I will be finished with class, and life will be pretty much freaking awesome.  And right now is pretty damn good, too.  Alright, waaay long post, but thanks for reading, and I hope you can enjoy your RightNow because, most of the time, it is worth it.  I love you all; thank you for supporting me the past two years.  Peace.

Rain in Boston and other seemingly random, but actually not, happenings

Well, hello b-log world! Have you missed me, thought about me, wondered if I'd died yet? I have not, in fact, kicked the bucket. I have, however, been too busy with school and work and face tumors and more school and have not had the time or the concentration to update the b-log. That being said, I apologize to everyone who has been wondering what happened to me. I certainly did not mean to worry anyone, and although the past almost three months have been an absurd combination of positives and negatives in my life, I have generally been doing splendidly.

Okay, so, the last anyone heard from me, I had just returned to Boston from my vacation in Canada. I was on the radio for a Jimmy Fund fundraiser, and I was getting mentally prepped for the upcoming semester. I was also battling the sickness. You know, sore throat, stuffy nose, headaches, wracking cough. Same old stuff. The school year began, and I was thrown headlong into my senior year of college. I began this year a completely different person from the me who had returned to Boston last year after my semester off. This year, yes, I was still getting some chemo, but I was so much stronger, literally and figuratively. So good, grand, I was ready to go. Unfortunately, I was also still contending with the Sickness. I was actually a sick mess. My doctor put me on antibiotics, and those cleared up my chest congestion and cough, but then my sinuses started giving me grief. So my doctor put me on different antibiotics, and wouldn't you know, my sinuses got worse. And worse. And then pretty much the entire right side of my face started hurting like woah. On September 10, my doctor finally said I should probably get my head scanned. I scheduled a CT scan for the 13th. He called me on the 15th, said there was something a little odd but not worrisome in my scans, and he wanted me to meet with an ear-nose-throat doctor. Okay... So I call the ENT for an appointment, which was scheduled for two weeks later, September 23. In the meantime, I was in an extraordinary amount of pain. Basically, I started shutting down. I could barely sleep; my appetite disappeared; I gave up on being social or even trying; and I was popping Tylenol like it was nobody's business. I was still working at the gym and going to class, but that was just about it. So, okay, September 23 rolls around, and I meet with the ENT. She sticks a lighted camera up my nose and into my face and confirms what the CT scan suggested: there was a fairly large mass in the pharyngeal area of my face (behind my nose ish). The really fun part is that it was sort of coated in mucus (mmm), which is what I had been curiously hacking up for a few weeks. Her suggestion: a biopsy. Woah now. She floated the word lymphoma... She also said it might be some sort of infection or fungus. I hoped it was a fungus.

After that, I really turned off. I had no idea what was wrong with me, and all sorts of worst case scenarios kept running through my head. I finally pretty much stopped thinking about it because I knew there was nothing I could do until after the biopsy when we knew what exactly my face tumor was. On September 30, two days before my 22 birthday, I went in to the hospital for a biopsy of the tumor in my face. I had to wear a hospital gown and blue non-slip socks. I kept the socks. The best part was they knocked me out for the procedure. The anesthesiologist came over with his tray full of various vials of drugs and happy things and was like, So, you're a college student, I assume you drink? me: Yeah, a bit... him: Okay, well, think of this as drinking three of four beers all at once. I was like, oh please. Felt nothing... Felt nothing... And then they started wheeling me off to the operating room, and it hit me. I looked around and everything was sort of shifting and wavy. And then I blacked out. Good times with narcotics. Anyway I'll move on. The biopsy happened, went well I guess, and I went home with bloody snot and a prescription for vicodin.

I didn't go to class that week, and I spent my birthday slightly drugged and sleeping. I canceled the bar-hop I had planned, and some friends came over to my apartment instead with cake and laughter, and we watched the vice-presidential debate. My college experience certainly hasn't been like anyone else's. But we all already knew that. One week later, they scheduled me to meet with the ENT again to go over the biopsy results. I showed up, and wouldn't you know, the results weren't in yet. She once again suggested lymphoma, a little more definitively this time. She also said they were sure it wasn't a fungus. Wasted appointment, although she did prescribe me Tylenol with codeine because the vicodin hadn't been working for my face. Oh, p.s., at this point too, the right half of my face had gone numb, and I couldn't open my jaw much anymore. The ENT doc did explain that though: I guess the tumor in my face was growing through a crack in my skull up towards my brain and was pushing on the nerves that controlled my face. Hooray!

One more week, and I was scheduled for a PET scan, which, I think, scans for lymphoma-type oddities. Finally, on October 15, more than a month after the first CT scan showed the mass in my face, my doctor had an answer for me. It wasn't leukemia, which they had been worried about. It wasn't quite lymphoma either. It was something called Lymphoproliferative Disease, LPD. Apparently, it isn't that uncommon in transplant patients and people with rheumatoid arthritis, but I was the first ALL patient he had seen with it. Basically, it is a proliferation of B-cells in the form of a tumor. The Epstein-Barr virus is related as well. I think the tumor was an inflammatory reaction to the presence of the virus, but I am not quite sure how that works. Something about immunosuppression as well.

In short: it isn't cancer, and it is treatable. The treatment consists of a weekly infusion of an antibody called rituxan, which is commonly used to treat lymphoma, although it isn't chemo. So for the past three weeks I have been getting this infusion. This coming Monday will be my last one. My doctor hopes/thinks that it will only take four infusions to make the tumor go away completely and for good. I hope he's right. I am pretty sure the treatments have been working. I have started functioning again. The feeling is almost completely back in my face (yeah!), and the pain is substantially less than it was. Actually, last night was the first night in a long time that I've slept through the night without taking any of the painkillers. (Oh yeah, my doctor eventually prescribed me oxycodone because the tylenol + codeine wasn't really doing anything either, although it kind of worked when I combined it with the vicodin...) The other thing is that because of all this, my doc decided to stop entirely the rest of my leukemia chemotherapy. So I am technically done with chemo!! Funny how that works out.

This is a ridiculously long post, and maybe you've read the whole thing? A whole lot of other stuff has happened over the past few months, not the least of which is I sued my landlord, went to court, etc. I also applied and was accepted to BU's Washington DC journalism internship program for next spring. Praying all goes well, I will be photographing in DC next semester! I also had my brand new computer stolen a few days ago. I know it sounds like my life has kind of been the pits this year, and I'm not saying it has been amazing. Strangely though, I really am doing pretty well. I am so glad to be in Boston with all my friends who have helped me immensely through this. I love all of my classes, even if I haven't been doing all the work quite on time for them... And I have so much to look forward to. Also, I am just happy to be me, to be here, right now. Face tumor be damned, I am still alive, and I am still doing what I do. I hope everyone out there is keeping on as well, and thanks for reading if you have and thank you to everyone who has expressed their concern as to how I am. I am good. Peace.

p.s., cbridges86@gmail.com. word, yo.