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.

Apparently I have a lisp?

For all you loyal readers who have ever wondered what I actually sound like in person (and didn't hear the Globe audio), I was on the radio today, and the convo was posted online! Like I mentioned a few days ago, I participated in a Radio/Telethon fundraiser for Dana-Farber earlier today. It is an awesome two day event that raises a ton of money for Dana-Farber and The Jimmy Fund. Sadly, I was not on TV. A few sports bigwigs received that honor this afternoon, but I was still interviewed for the radio. It was pretty exciting even if it was only 7 minutes long.

Anyway, so, I am posting the link for everyone to click on and proceed to laugh at my lisp (gross) as well as my routinely idiotic comments about life. Haha, whatever, I think it's hilarious. That's about it for now. I got chemo yesterday, woke up for work at 5 this morning terrifically nauseous, and wandered around BU most of the afternoon with my camera. So much for resting. I also got antibiotics and an inhaler from my doctor yesterday, so the sickness of death will soon be no more. Have a wonderful Friday and weekend, and, I don't know, enjoy life. K, thanks. Pax.


Caroline on the Radio, online!

oh, hey...

So... Remember that one time I disappeared for two months and everybody stopped checking the b-log looking for an update? Yeah, me too. There is good news, though, for anyone still maybe somewhat around. I am not done here yet. After last semester ended, I pretty much crashed. I read a whole lot of books, biked a whole lot of miles, started running again. Basically, I did everything I could to try and turn my brain off. I needed a complete mental break, and now I feel much better. Classes resume in three weeks, and I can't wait to begin my (hopefully) final semester in Boston. I have much going on and much to look forward to both academically and extracurricularly (is that a word? it is now). But first:

Cancer. Cancer is a terrible, smelly, mean jerk, and I hate it. I hate that I had cancer, and I hate that people continue to be diagnosed with different types of cancer. Every time I think about it, I get angry. I do not want anybody to have to go through what I and millions of others have gone through. I am thankful for the advances in diagnosing and treating a lot of forms of cancer for a lot of different types and ages of people, but we still have such a long way to go. These past few months, I have met so many wonderful people who are committed to eradicating cancer. I have gotten involved in a few different fundraisers for Dana-Farber, and I have done a number of different things unrelated to Dana-Farber but still raising cancer awareness. Every event that I attend or speak at or even hear about reminds me how much I want to help make this disease go away. Luckily for me, a number of people have invited me to be a part of their events these past few months, and hopefully I can continue to help.

All the way back in June, I spoke at a major conference for a national group of doctors. The group, Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), basically leads a huge number of national studies and clinical trials that are all helping improve cancer care and quality of life for patients and survivors. The theme of their conference this year was "survivorship," and my doctor from Chicago had asked me a while ago if I would be able to come and give a speech about my experiences as both a patient and a survivor. I said of course and talked about what it's like being a young adult patient/survivor because that's what I know, and it is an important topic. I only spoke for maybe 10 minutes, but I feel it is significant that the doctors even asked me there in the first place. I couldn't speak about any of the technical, medical details. Instead, I offered the reality of what it was like to be 20 and a patient stuck in a hospital room. (The reality is that it bites). At this point, I can only hope that what I said will have some influence even in how the doctors think about their young adult patients. Possibly I'm being idealistic, but it's nice to think that maybe I made some small difference. Baby steps as we young adult survivors become more vocal and more involved in our care.

Which leads me to the next major event where I spoke. The Mark Ungerer Memorial Golf Tournament is an annual event that raises money for Dana-Farber. This year, all of the funds raised will be donated to the Adolescent and Young Adult program at Dana-Farber, which is pretty much amazing as this tournament raises a tremendous amount of money. Once again, I spoke to a large crowd of people with whom I have very little in common aside from our desire to fight cancer. That is enough though. Besides, I managed to get a rise out of the primarily middle-aged male golfer crowd when I cracked some joke about how I used to sit in my hospital room wishing I could just be one of the masses again getting wasted on the weekend. My mind continues to be blown by the realization that my words and my experiences can actually have a positive effect on people. I am also continually amazed by the generosity and support of people. Every once in a while, I hate people, but most of the time I am reminded that we are all pretty generally decent.

So, okay life, let's go. I am yet again at a bit of a crossroads of my life. So many ridiculous things have happened this past year, and I am just trying to take them all in and grow from everything. I am doing an okay job so far, but I am still working on it. I just got back to Boston from a three-week vacation in Canada and Chicago. I was SO thankful to be able to go up to Canada this year since I missed last year. Unfortunately, I also got wicked sick up there, so all is not exactly peachy. The sickness of death is nothing new though, and I know it will eventually (maybe) go away. The good news is that I am mentally ready to attack this upcoming semester and all of the exciting things that are pending. First on the list, the Jimmy Fund Radio/Telethon this Thursday and Friday. Check out NESN or sports radio 850 AM around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday if you want to hear yours truly speaking my bit and urging people to donate to the Jimmy Fund. Woo! I'm sure I'll get to meet some cool people, and at the least, I get to go to the Red Sox game that night. Anyone want to join me?

Alright, so I am set and ready to go. Good luck to everyone this week with any and everything you may be working on or challenging yourself to. My challenge is to go on a date... Seriously. That is all, and check back soon. I promise I'll update. Peace and homefries!

18 months and 200 posts later...

By sheer coincidence, I am writing my 200th post 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. That December day seems so long ago. It was long ago, kind of. But it also feels like everything just happened a few days ago. And as I sit here in the Pro Shop, handing out towels and Lysol-ing rock climbing shoes, a small part of me feels like nothing ever happened, nothing changed. I know I have written this before, but the past year and a half feels like some sort of weird time-warp. It still blows my mind that I actually had cancer and that I am still getting chemotherapy.

I was going to write a book about it. I was going to write about how my mind was blown and my life was changed when I was diagnosed with cancer at age 20. I was going to combine my blog posts, journal entries, and personal reflections into some sort of strange memoir. I had a literary agent in New York who was willing to take my story and get it published. I was working on a title; I had my chapters figured out; I had someone to write the foreword; I had even started my text. And then I realized that I do not want to write my memoir-ish right now. I am not ready to try and sort through and explain my experiences and sum them up for a neat and tidy inspirational 250 pages. As much as I have changed and grown, and as much as I have learned about myself throughout all this, I am still weathering this storm. Yes, it has already been 18 months, but I still have six more. I need to be totally free of the drugs and the nausea and the constipation and the drugs for a little bit before I can step back and figure out the moral of all this. I do still want to eventually publish my blog and my story. These past nearly two months of communicating with the agent have reassured me that one day I will be able to publish this. Now would be a great time to do it, I realize that, but I can't commit myself to this project if my heart isn't in it yet. Also, I just finished classes. I need to be deadline-free for a bit. I desperately need to de-stress.

So I have been working at ye olde Pro Shop, doing my awesome internship thang (I'll have photos in the next issue!!), and I have been biking a lot. I am actually even trying to start running again, which is kind of fun. I hopped on the treadmill the other day, and to my surprise, did not die. OH! I almost completely forgot the most ridiculous thing that happened to me since I last blogged.

Nearly two and a half weeks ago, specifically, the night after I last blogged, I found out that my two-person apartment had a few extra occupants. And by a few, I mean a lot. And by occupants, I mean bed bugs. And by found out, I mean freaked out like woah. I had suspected for some time that there were bugs, but I had tried to ignore it and hoped the problem would disappear. Instead, it got worse. In short, I finally bailed on that infested hole of an apartment I lived in. I put up with the smoking neighbors, with the slanted floors, with the mice and the pigeons who roosted directly outside my window. I dealt with the grime and the cigarette burns in the carpet from the previous tenants. I had accepted that the curtains were broken and the landlord was not going to replace the two missing screens. But bed bugs I could not handle. Not when they were eating me and taking over, and especially not when my immune system was about to be knocked down by the chemo devil. To his very small credit, my landlord sent over an exterminator. The exterminator, however, only sprayed my bed and the baseboard in my bedroom, no where else, and he only did it once. Now, I'm not bug expert, but I did my research, and I know that is not enough to get rid of a bed bug problem. So I left. I, somehow, lucked out and found an apartment on craigslist directly below the one I am moving into in September. This place is huge... Hardwood floors, and bed bug-free. The shower is a little gross, but I can clean that. I am so much more comfortable knowing there aren't little brown bugs crawling over me and stealing my precious blood. So that was the unpleasant stressor of my past few weeks. Who knows what is next.

And that is my life. Long post, hooray! I hope everyone is enjoying their June so far and staying cool if you're in the oven that is Boston right now. Thank God for the sun though. Alright, stay happy and, as they say, don't let the bed bugs bite. Pax.

If you give me a pint of lemon sorbet from Trader Joe's, I will eat the Entire Thing.

I swear, this stuff is like crack. Only cheaper ($1.99!) and much more delicious. I will be on a sugar high for the next 15 minutes before passing out on my couch. I am fine with that.

So I've been sitting here on my couch in my apartment, trying to figure out what to say about Jon Lester's no-hitter yesterday and Senator Kennedy's diagnosis with a brain tumor. There has been a ton of media coverage on both today in Boston, although Lester has been overshadowed by Kennedy. The two stories are nearly diametric opposites, and I am not sure how I feel about the extent and slant of the media coverage of either. Lester is being lauded for his amazing athletic achievements, which are all the more amazing because he is a cancer survivor! And he's only 24! And he beat cancer! The stories about Kennedy, meanwhile, are focusing on life expectancies and the treatability of his tumor. They are more like obituaries, highlighting Kennedy's achievements throughout his lifetime.

The more I think about it, the more I get uncomfortable with the stories about both men. It upsets me to watch and read the reactions to Kennedy's cancer diagnosis being played out by the media on a national scale. These reactions are typical of many people when they find out someone has cancer, and I find it jarring to see it all so publicized. "How long do they have?" is often the first question people want answered. Or, "How bad is it?" How depressing to think that most people automatically assume the worst. I am not saying Kennedy's tumor isn't awful. It is; I am really sorry for the senator and his family. I just hate that it seems like everyone is already preparing for his funeral.

The other side of this, as with Lester's case, is the amazement that people have when someone who had cancer accomplishes something outstanding. Lester pitched a no-hitter. Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France 7 times because he's ridiculous. This woman ran a marathon. That man sailed around the world. I feel as if there is almost an unconscious disbelief that someone can have cancer (gasp!), get over it, and move on with life. Those accomplishments are all amazing, but they are amazing for their own sakes, and not necessarily because the person had previously had cancer. I don't know. My emotions and thoughts are all muddled over this. I didn't mean to get off on such a tangent.

I did mean to talk about a few of the things that have happened in my life these past few weeks, but I fear that might be slightly hypocritical... Oh well, I'll do it anyway. This is still my b-log, after all. First and foremost, I finished school. Oh my God, am I relieved to be finished with this past year. Somehow, I ended up doing (fairly) well in my classes. Ironically, the class in which I had to ask for my first college essay extension was also my first college class in which I received a solid A. I didn't see that one coming. And now, I am a senior. I am a college senior. I still don't believe it, and I still get giddy when I think about it.

I am now also a photo intern at the Improper Bostonian, a fairly large and well-known magazine here in Boston. I actually got a summer internship for photography! That fact also still makes me giddy. I don't know how many other people applied for the internship (3? 50?), but for once my photos made the cut. It isn't hard news photography, but that is fine. I'm going to learn so much working with professionals and learning all about acquiring, editing, and publishing photographs for a magazine. Oh, and my own photos will hopefully even be published! Woooo! I am on my way, baby.

Otherwise, I have had a sore throat for about two weeks now. Oh well. I also go in tomorrow for my drugs. I am more prepared for this next week, so hopefully it won't be too bad. Thank you all again for putting up with my mildly incoherent rants. Hopefully someone's still reading here because I still plan on writing. Anyway, enjoy the rest of the week, and I'll think happy thoughts for you all tomorrow as my nurse shoots me up. Peace and delicious, delicious sorbet.

Is tomorrow really the last day of classes for this semester?

I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and there will still be six weeks left. I feel like I am just barely getting comfortable in my classes, and I couldn't tell you what I was supposed to have learned over the past three and a half months. I am also sorry I haven't blogged more. I have grown tremendously as a person this past semester, and I'm not sure how well that has come across in my blog posts. I cannot emphasize enough how difficult and rewarding this semester has been. You all have been privy to some of the bigger events and challenges I have faced, but you may not realize that not one day goes by where I don't think about cancer and what it has done/is doing to me.

To illustrate my point, sort of, I got my monthly chemo shot one week ago. When I started my maintenance therapy, I had no idea what it would be like. Last week was my fourth injection, as I only get them every four weeks, and they began in January. Way back in January, I was under the impression that the maintenance therapy was not going to affect me at all. I thought, wrongly, that this semester I could get back to being busy and working too hard. It wasn't until the end of March and beginning of April, when my body essentially mutinied, that I was forced to rethink and reorganize my expectations. Now, you may say, Caroline, in March, you had only had three injections, and even if they are only once a month, you are still getting deadly chemical drugs pumped into your system. It is understandable that you wouldn't know how you would react, and it is absurd that you expect yourself to be able to ignore the fact that you are still getting chemotherapy. And I would agree with you, now. But I was, I still am, so eager to move on from chemo and cancer that I ignored and even completely denied my limitations. All I wanted was to be a student; I didn't want to accept that I was still a patient.

I don't think I have written this yet this semester, but it needs to be noted: I started seeing a psychologist back in January, and we have met maybe six or seven times over the past three months. It was hard for me to enlist the help of a professional in trying to make sense of myself with cancer, but it has been probably the best thing for me. It has taken me a while to get comfortable with my doctor, but she is one of the primary catalysts in my realization that it is necessary and okay to accept my limitations. Haha, I think she was pretty happy when I told her I broke down and asked for that paper's extension. Sort of a, maybe there's hope for me after all, type of deal.

But like I said, I am still learning. I realized (maybe better to say that I accepted) the other day that I am no longer a student. I mean, technically, yes, but not really. The student mentality of invincibility and actions-without-consequences doesn't exist in me anymore. I almost died; I can break. And a few months ago, maybe even a few weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to admit that. Even this past week I was forced to sigh and accept certain fun and unpleasant bodily reactions to chemo that I had previously tried to ignore. Briefly, I have been having some wicked intestinal issues in response to the drugs. Yes, it's gross, but that's what you get. The injection dehydrates and plugs me up, and yet the steroids I take make me want to eat All the Time. And while I want to eat All the Time, I was strangely craving mostly pizza, All the Time. Now, pizza is wonderful, but greasy cheese is probably not the best thing to eat when your organs could use a roto-rooter. So these past few days I have been trying to find some sort of balance between eating, drinking water and pooping, all while my stomach is contending with gut-wrenching cramps. Haha, it's awesome! And you wonder, I'm sure, how I thought I could just get on with my merry life.

But again, I am slowly learning and accepting and growing up, growing far beyond anyone I thought I would ever be. The best, or worst, part is that it's only (almost!!) May. I still have seven more months of this, but I think I will be able to handle them a little better than I have the past four. Thank you all for reading, and I will try and update with a bit more frequency during the summer because Internship?! Book deal?! Biking?! There are many things to share. Stay tuned, and stay in tune with yourself. Peace.