All posts in category hodgkin’s

An update

My PET scan was, not surprisingly, CLEAR.

The good doc was kind but firm when he said, “at this stage, we aren’t expecting to see anything lymphoma related. We didn’t need to do that scan.”

And I realize he’s right. As I stated in my last post, I need to step back from the experience of cancer, to set some new goals that are in no way related to ‘what I went through.’ I need to stop viewing myself through the lens of what happened and start viewing myself and my life through the lens of what is currently happening. To start accepting accomplishments as ‘I did this thing and it was great’ not instead of ‘I  had cancer, so it’s really great that I managed to do this thing’, and setbacks as ‘this is what is currently happening, how will I work through it’ instead of ‘this bad thing is probably happening to me because I had cancer… /long pause/ … how do I work through it?’

 

I may or may not step back from this blog, but if I don’t – my posts will change dramatically. It’s okay if you don’t want to follow along as I find this new, new me. (Again, yup. No longer viewing myself as ‘post cancer’ me, just ‘me’.) Naturally, there will still be the occasional cancer-related thought (so potentially a post) – it’s intrinsically changed who I am as a person, and that experience will forever be a part of me. I just don’t want it to be the biggest part anymore. I want to relegate it to just that, an experience.

 

I’ll leave you with the Facebook post I wrote after receiving the news.

 

today, sitting in the cancer clinic waiting room, I felt like I didn’t belong. This shift may SEEM small, but it’s actually so. so. huge. I knew, then, feeling that feeling, that it meant it’s time to start moving on from the last three years.

Three years ago almost to the day, my entire life was uprooted and changed in an instant. I had to shift my entire focus to literally surviving, which meant I was in fight or flight mode, constantly. And if I’m honest, I’ve stayed there for the greater part of the last three years because it became safe. It became the new normal. I have spent three years waiting for the second shoe to drop, never planning anything further than a week in advance, always finding ways to self-sabotage any progress I was making because I really didn’t believe that it was safe to move forward, that I was safe, period.

Did you know that I still have my radiation mask and my wig? I still have a medicine cabinet full of Zofran and Ranitidine (chemo standbys). Most people can’t wait to get rid of that shit. Not me – constantly being in fight or flight meant I needed to hang onto them. They were security measures against what could – more likely in my mind, would – happen again. I was convinced as soon as I let myself relax, I’d be blindsided. So the solution was just to never relax.

Today, I finally feel the beginning of safe. I have a long road ahead of me to finally let go, to accept that what happened, happened, and is in the past, to let myself RELAX and know that I AM okay, physically and mentally. But I also have an amazing support system – one that a large part of wasn’t in place three years ago -, tools that I’ve built over months of personal development and self reflection, and the knowledge that it’s time. It’s so far past time.

Thank you for all the love and support over the last three years. Today we close the book on cancer – for real, this time – and open it to A BRAND NEW adventure, and I can’t wait to see where I go from here. 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on November 23, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, lymphoma, saskatchewan
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on November 23, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/11/23/an-update-2/

the importance of moving on

Yesterday I – finally – had the PET scan that was a follow-up from the whole chest pain issue in July.

In the past, I’ve laid on the table and worried. I’ve made bargains with God or just simply begged for everything to be okay. Yesterday did not go that way.

Instead, I laid there almost asleep. I was super relaxed. The only actual thought I had was, ‘if this is negative, I need to find a way to put all of this behind me.’ But that’s the best thought I’ve had about cancer in a long, long time.

It’s simple really: I can’t keep living my life with the shadow of what happened almost three years ago obscuring everything that’s happening in the now.  It doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t serve anyone in my life, really, but it especially doesn’t serve me. Lately I’ve really been focusing on trying to let go of things that aren’t helping me to become a better, happier person – and living my entire life, whether it’s consciously or not, with the over-arching theme of ‘I had cancer’ is no longer serving me.

I talked to my coach at the gym about it this morning, just briefly. We talked about how it’s very easy to use thoughts of ‘what once happened’ as a justification for being negative, in the now. That’s not what I want for myself.  During our conversation, he said, ‘how will you put it behind you?’

I said, ‘I don’t know yet’ – but that’s maybe not quite right. I have a few ideas.

  • I need to stop giving cancer and everything related to it a platform in my life – whether it be on social media or just in my every day conversations or interactions. It happened. It has passed. I also was born – I don’t talk about it every day. It happened and has passed. It’s time to talk – and think – about the now – who I am now, what I love now, what I do now. Cancer changed me, sure, but it’s no longer an active participant in my life and thus I need to stop treating it like it is. This will probably mean doing some unfollowing on social media, and honestly probably less posting on this blog, too – even though it’s been a real labour of love, and it’s helped me feel better countless times, at this moment, I need to step back from it and get to living in the now. (I’m not done with it, and I will be back! Eventually.)
  • Just as my coach said this morning – and he didn’t direct it at me, but the sentiment is something that resonated strongly with me – I need to stop using what happened in the past as an excuse to be negative in the now. I do this in a lot of ways. For example: ‘Well, I’m allowed to be an anxious piece of shit because man, I have been through a lot.‘  Ok, maybe that’s true. But that doesn’t mean I get a free pass from working on overcoming that anxiety. It doesn’t have to be a part of me.  I am actively making a choice to allow it to consume me, much in the way that I actively made a choice to allow cancer to consume every part of my life 2.5 years ago.  (And to a lesser extent, continuing to do so today.)
  • Stop assuming that every little health issue – or non-issue, like being tired (everyone is tired, we’re adults, it’s basically part of the condition) has to do with cancer, or is a delayed side effect from it.  This isn’t even logical. Why would I be getting side effects now? Clearly I’ll continue to look after myself, but I need to stop ‘pulling the cancer card‘ so to speak.
  • Start actually making plans for the future and not finding ways to self-sabotage them and or cancel them at the last minute ‘just in case‘. Just in case what? I don’t not make plans (double negative, I know) in case I get hit by a bus and can’t make them, and that’s just as likely. (ie. not very.)

 

Aaand the last point, which might seem way crazy, but…

  • I’ve been realizing lately that I may be holding on because I have this thought that what I went through wasn’t enough. Like maybe I felt like I deserved more difficulties? I’ve talked about it before – how I only had 4 cycles of chemo, and 10 optional radiation treatments. I didn’t have stem cell transplant, or surgery. I don’t have any lasting scars. Overall the process between diagnosis and remission was six months out of my entire life. So I look at what I went through and think ‘fuck, you have no right to complain.’ So maybe I’m still trying to justify to myself, to come up with things that say ‘you did go through a lot!’ if that makes sense.  For example, ‘well, now I’m dealing with lifelong anxiety!’ So I’m actively working on letting that thought go. Honestly I write it down daily: ‘I release the thought that what I went through was not enough.’

I’m sure there are other ways that I’ve been allowing cancer to control my life, but this is the list that I came up with off the top of my head this morning. There might be more work that needs to be done – in that, I know what I have to do but if I have trouble with it, maybe I need to seek some outside help with it. Whatever it takes, really, because it is past time.

I don’t mean that I’ll never think about cancer again – I know that`s basically impossible.

Obviously I will update when I get the results from the PET, but I just wanted to get these thoughts down.

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on November 16, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on November 16, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/the-importance-of-moving-on/

the changing of the seasons

It’s gotten colder here in the last few days – this morning I could see my breath when I stepped outside.  The days are shorter – it’s dark when I leave for CrossFit and it’s dark when I come out an hour or so later. The sun is fully down before 7:30 – in fact it’s probably fully down by 7; but I haven’t paid that much attention.

All of this to say – winter is coming. I’ve been feeling a little blue, kind of sluggish, and like most of my positivity is forced. Perhaps “melancholic” is the word I’m looking for. (Defined as “feeling or expressing a pensive sadness”.)

Isn’t that poetic – season-induced melancholy? Well – it’s not really about the season, although I’m certain that the reduced daylight isn’t really doing wonders for my current mental state. It’s more that no matter how hard I try to forget about what happened as the weather cooled and the days got shorter turned three years ago, I just can’t.

You already know the story. Toward the end of October 2014, a second lump popped up right beside the first one (initially appearing in August 2014, but was able to be felt by June), and the first one seemed to double in size. It felt like it happened over night, and for the first time since the whole thing started, I really had some sort of urgency about figuring out what exactly the fuck was going on in my body. One lump I could explain away – two and a huge growth spurt overnight, I could not.

Thus began my (rather long) period of formally being diagnosed with the Hodge. First there was the fine needle biopsy. Then there was the false negative, followed by earth shattering positive. Then there was the need for confirmation via a surgical biopsy, which led to that stupid doctor in the ER who said that he didn’t want to give me false hope but ‘if they were requesting a surgical biopsy they must have doubts about the results of the fine needle.’ He was wrong, and the confirmation biopsy did just that – confirmed what we already knew.

Then I met with the good doc, we did the necessary procedures for staging, and we (I say we, clearly I mean “I”) started chemo in January. It seems likely that we would’ve started in December but I rather adamantly said that I’d had a trip planned for months and I needed to take it. He must’ve known that a few more weeks wouldn’t make that much of a difference, so he let me go, and we started chemo the Friday after I got back.

I remember all the dates. I remember most of the conversations. Mostly, though, I remember the feelings. And so when the weather starts to turn, it’s easy to let myself get sucked back into that time.

I’ve come so far since that day – I’m arguably almost an entirely new person. Physically and mentally I’m much stronger. I’ve developed fortitude; I’ve really worked on becoming a more positive person. If you met me today, you would have no idea of what I’ve been through.

But sometimes, especially this time of year, I still feel like the scared, small girl who had no idea how she would get through any of what was to come, who used anger as a way to cope. I worry about what will happen if I relapse a lot at this time of year. I worry if that fortitude is as strong as I think it is. I worry that I haven’t actually changed, at all, and I’m just one “bad thing” away from going back to how I was.

Not a lot of point to this, really – just some thoughts. Do we ever really change? Is permanent personality changing possible? Can you develop into a new person? Do people who met me after cancer see what I (hope) I am, or am I actually still the exact same person and I’m kidding myself?

And why do I have such a great memory for trauma and a shit memory for other things like ‘you put some Cheerios in your gym bag to eat after your work out’?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on October 24, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on October 24, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/the-changing-of-the-seasons/

Post appointment update

I know I owe you all an update from last week’s appointment, so let’s get that out of the way!

So far – no news is good news.

My doctor fully admitted that he hadn’t planned on doing anything about July’s CT scan because it basically showed nothing. However, I decided that this was probably the time to just tell him straight up how I’m really feeling – which is to say, I’m still struggling with massive fatigue, and the chest pains are still on and off. (Likely a muscle, but apparently the possible lymphnodes in the scan were in the middle of my chest, not my axillary (under the armpit) nodes after all, and in my thinking – lumps are unlikely to appear in the middle of my chest.)

So not surprisingly, none of the physical check up turned anything up – no weird lumps, and my blood work has all levelled off to normal.

But because my doctor is the best – to be better safe than sorry, and to put my massively over-active mind to rest, he’s scheduled me for a PET scan.  Additionally, on my next blood panel he’ll take a deeper look at my thyroid functioning and other hormone levels to see if there’s a non-cancer related reason for the persistent fatigue.  He says, and is correct, that it’s somewhat concerning that we can’t find a reason for the symptoms – but we haven’t really looked much, either.

So – scans and blood work are up next. Not anticipating bad news (ie. recurrence; it seems highly unlikely), but hopefully some answers as to why I still have the energy level of an 85 year old woman when I’m 2.5 years out of treatment.

Fingers crossed that we can figure out a reason and I can get back to feeling “normal” – not that I have any idea what that feels like, any more. I’m just pretty sure that I shouldn’t need to be in bed by 8:30 p.m. every night, and require almost an entire day of sleeping every weekend.

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on September 25, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on September 25, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/post-appointment-update/

the countdown begins

I’m about 48 hours (give or take 8) from my bumped-up oncologist appointment – the one to make sure those ‘slightly enlarged axillary lymphnodes’ have gone away.

All of the things you’d expect have been happening – I haven’t slept well, my appetite has plummeted, and I just generally feel a little blue. “In a funk” I’ve described it as.

But still, I’ve been trying to maintain a positive outlook – it’s probably nothing; it won’t be long until all of this is behind me again. I’ve tried to keep up on gratitude journaling and stay in a space of ‘things that make me feel good/at peace’.

So I was a little surprised last night when I was attempting a sleep meditation and a lot of negative emotions came up. It was a guided meditation – all of the ones I do are, I’m not good at just sitting there shutting my mind off – which entailed visualizing a blackboard. You were supposed to imagine writing all the thoughts/worries scurrying around in your mind onto the blackboard, and then wiping it clean – thus letting go of them and, in theory, being able to fall asleep.

My thought patterns started out kind of predictable: I hope I’m still healthy. I wish I could know for certain, all the time, that I am. I’m lonely without Evan. I’m envious of people who get to see/be with their spouse all the time. The dogs have been little devils today; that’s kind of annoying.

Suddenly, though, I started to get absolutely bombarded with all of these highly negative emotions/thoughts – which I suppose I’d been carrying around but trying to suppress because I don’t want to feel that way or have those thoughts.

You’re becoming unreliable – you say you’ll do something then only do half of it; or you procrastinate it until the very last second and hand in something that isn’t your best work.

You don’t even deserve the opportunities you’ve been given.

You’re a hypochondriac – I can’t believe you’re wasting your oncologist’s time over a pulled muscle. How do you not know your body by now? You went to the emergency room over nothing. You are stupid, aren’t you?

You know you’re kind of a shitty wife. Actually not even kind of. You are. Evan works so hard and hates leaving and all you do when he’s home is sleep and be tired and then guilt trip and complain when days off are over.

You do all of this selfish stuff – spending money on dumb shit like new shoes, or a fancy day planner, or fancy coffees, or needing ‘alone time’, or taking naps, or spending forever in the gym – under the guise of ‘self love’ and ‘self care’ – but really, it’s just you putting yourself first all the time. What makes you think you deserve that?

You’ve basically lost touch with someone you spent almost seven years being best friends with and told yourself it’s not your fault, it’s distance and changing interests – but it’s your fault. You’re a shitty friend.

You survived cancer and you’re wasting it. You were given this life for a reason and you can’t even figure out why or how to make your suffering have meaning.

On that note – how much suffering did you really do? You like to talk about how difficult it was but you had it good compared to most. You’re just being dramatic, aren’t you? You love being dramatic – something that you’ve totally judged other people for. So that makes you a hypocrite, as well.

By this point, clearly the visualization aspect of this ‘meditation’ was entirely lost. It was just words – thoughts coming at me angry and fast.

So I didn’t sleep well, clearly. I was up and down half the night, and I didn’t go to CrossFit this morning because I need more than 3 hours of sleep to function as a regular human. And now I’m left pondering what it is that I really need in my life, from myself, to finally put all of the negative emotions surrounding my self-worth to rest. I’ve read so many personal development books and I know that my thoughts are just stories I’m telling myself – they aren’t true one way or another. But I can’t seem to stop them from making me feel like shit.

So that’s where we’re at, 48 hours out. I’m hoping that all of this is just a manifestation of anxiety and I’ll feel better after the appointment, but I don’t know because like I said – I feel like I’m wasting my oncologist’s time.

I guess by writing this I was hoping to release some of those negative thoughts – the way that meditation was intended, but clearly failed when I stopped visualizing wiping the slate clean and just let myself sink into the abyss of shit. Whoops.

 

 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on September 19, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, lymphoma, saskatchewan, self care, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on September 19, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/the-countdown-begins/

I’m not scared of cancer

That’s correct. I’m not at all scared of my cancer returning. And I don’t mean that as in, “I think I’m invincible and it will never happen to me.” I literally mean that the thought of my cancer coming back does not cause me any fear.

“The fuck – are you crazy?”

I’m sure you’re thinking that. And when I first came to this realization, my thought pattern was somewhat similar. After all, cancer is a lot of people’s biggest fear. Or at least they think it is.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize: I am not afraid of cancer. I am, however, deathly afraid of what I’ll have to go through to treat it if it does come back.

My cancer was (somewhat) unique in that it was essentially a-symptomatic. I did not for one minute feel like I had cancer, until I was going through chemo and radiation to treat it. Then I felt … I don’t even have the words, really. There were a few points where I briefly debated quitting, and clearly my life was on the line. That’s how bad it was.

In fact, if you follow this blog at all you’ll know two things: 1) ABVD was described to me as a “mild to moderate” chemo regime, and 2) for me, it was anything but. My body just didn’t like it, I guess, and basically staged a huge revolt every time I had a treatment. You can go back to posts from early 2015 to read all about it, because I don’t really feel like re-hashing it.

I know that second-line treatment would never be described as mild to moderate, and thus, any recurrence-based fear I have comes from knowing that if my cancer comes back I have to endure something worse than what I already have. Infinitely worse. In fact, when I was talking with my radiation oncologist about whether or not to go through with radiation even though I was in remission, she said something entirely ominous about “what happens if it comes back” and “how much worse it would be”. I replied with something about being aware that the next step would be a stem cell transplant and the look she gave me basically said, “what you really mean to say is “hell on earth.”

Well, super.

I would do it, of course, because I value my life. But I would not do it well, that I know. I have so much respect to anyone I know who has gone through that process, and selfishly, I pray I never, ever have to.

So if we could get my next oncologist appointment out of the way so I know that those “possibly enlarged axillary lymphnodes” were in fact nothing, and if I could stop pulling my chest muscle every other day at CrossFit, I’d probably be a lot more relaxed because then I could stop thinking about how I’m probably not mentally or physically strong enough to go through “what comes next”.

I’m 2.5 years out and I still have stem-cell transplant nightmares. Which is fucked given that I’ve never had one. Obviously.  But I suppose that tells you the depths of my fear. Like how some people avoid water all their lives because they’re afraid of drowning, but their minds can still conjure up scenarios where they’re swimming and lo and behold they end up drowning.

I don’t know. At this point, I’m just rambling. But my chest hurts again and I’m beginning to feel kind of fucking crazy.

 

 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on September 6, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, chemotherapy, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on September 6, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/im-not-scared-of-cancer/

what are you doing with your second chance?

Well – what are you doing with it?

That second chance at life you got when you dodged the bullet that is many people’s biggest fear – the big C.

How are you making it count, now that you’ve survived what could’ve killed you?

Does what you’re doing every day really matter? Are you really using that second chance?

 

I ask myself that all the time – probably on a daily basis. Sometimes, it gets me all fired up and makes me feel good about all the things that I have done or am doing or one day would like to do.

But more often, especially lately, it just makes me feel like I’m wasting this chance I was given. I’m not doing enough. I’m certainly not out changing the world, that’s for sure. I just live a pretty standard life these days – wake up, go to the gym, go to work for my eight hours, come home, eat, sleep. Repeat.

“What the fuck – how have you not accomplished anything at all lately?! COME ON – you didn’t survive cancer to be mediocre.”

But you know what, maybe I did.

What’s wrong with living an “average” life? I’m essentially making myself feel like shit for being a normal person.

I have an insane work ethic and I bust my hump at everything that I commit myself to. I rarely take time off from work – this year is the first time I’ve actually taken a vacation since I started this job two years ago, and I needed it – I was burned out and barely getting anything done because I just didn’t have the motivation, but feeling super guilty about it. I came back refreshed, with more energy and the ability to actually power through my to-do list as efficiently as it’s become expected of me. (I told you I have an insane work ethic – that’s the thing that people rely on me for. If they ask me to do something, I’m going to do it – fast and well. Both of those things were suffering.) I’m in the gym five or six times a week and working on the mental aspect of it every single day. I make sure that I spend time with my husband – whether it’s a phone call or Facetime when he’s gone, or committing to a date night when he’s home to keep our relationship strong and happy.

So I have an average life these days. So what if I haven’t written a best-seller or climbed a mountain or had someone tell me I changed their life by sharing my story? Maybe I’ll never do these things. Maybe I’ll just live out my second chance being blissfully average.

I’m still a good person. I work hard. I love hard. I try to smile (but do suffer from resting bitch face) and to give  people random compliments because it just feels good.

Maybe I need to be okay with that being everything I ever will do with my “second chance”. Maybe it isn’t a second chance. Maybe it’s just bad luck (diagnosis) and good luck (treatment options) combining for some sort of average life.

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on August 16, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on August 16, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/what-are-you-doing-with-your-second-chance/

a cough + chest pain: it’s probably cancer

I’m sure that most people, when they develop a lingering cough or pull a muscle in the chest region, do not automatically make this assumption. And truthfully, I don’t IMMEDIATELY jump to that conclusion.

Okay, that’s a lie. Yes I do. But I’m far enough out now that I can – most of the time – think logically about the situation at hand and properly attribute my aches and pains to the actions of the previous days, and appreciate the entirely different lifestyle I’m living than I was when I was diagnosed. (And the fact that, in all honestly, this new lifestyle has probably significantly lowered my risk of relapsing and/or developing a secondary cancer. I can’t prove that but it makes sense that living a healthy, active life would lend itself to lowering one’s risk.)

Still – the fact remains: the only “symptoms” I had of the tumour that started just below my collar bone was what felt like a pulled muscle in my chest. I wasn’t near as physically active as I am now, so looking back, the likelihood of actually pulling that big of a muscle is pretty low. When I was in the gym (not consistently at all) I was mostly doing isolation type exercises, and I sure wasn’t targeting my chest muscles. But at 24 – the age I was when I started experiencing symptoms – you certainly don’t think “I probably have cancer”. You assume you pulled a muscle and go on with your day.

Toward the end of November/beginning of December (shortly before/just after diagnosis) I developed a cough. This was in all likelihood due to the tumour squishing my lung – it was sitting right on top of it. I’m actually surprised I didn’t start coughing a lot earlier. I kept coughing right up until my second chemo, when the tumour had shrunk enough to not put pressure on my lungs anymore. But again – in spite of the fact that I had (or soon would be) been diagnosed, I assumed I had a cough because it was the dead of winter in Saskatchewan. I never dreamt it was tied to my cancer, and I only realized it was when the timing of it finally fucking off aligned with the results of tumour blasting chemo.

So forgive me if I’m a little wary, now – because the last time I assumed it was a pulled muscle/regular old cough, it turned out to be anything but. Maybe if I’d taken action on the “pulled muscle” sooner I could’ve caught my cancer at Stage I. That likely wouldn’t have changed my treatment course much, but I might’ve gotten away with no radiation (and thus the worry of later developing lung or breast cancer).

I just had a scan that came back clear. I tell myself this to calm my thoughts, which mostly get the best of me at night when I can’t sleep. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a notation on my calendar that says ‘chest pain?’ one week from when the symptoms originally popped up. I have a deal with myself – if symptoms persist for longer than a week, I’ll get checked out.

I know it’s nothing, but would appreciate any good vibes you can spare that when the one week mark shows up (on Friday) I’ll realize that the pain has disappeared and I won’t have to go through the shit show that is trying to get in for a scan mere months after I just had one. (We do have free healthcare in this great country, but doctors aren’t really fans of giving scans just because patients say, ‘pretty please with a cherry on top.’ ;))

This is life after cancer – no matter how far out you are, things are never ‘normal’ again. I will always be holding one hand out, waiting for Dr. Hodge to pick up and spin me back into the waltz I never wanted.

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on July 11, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, blood cancer, canada, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on July 11, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/a-cough-chest-pain-its-probably-cancer/

my post cancer identity crisis

Two years out – hurray! (I know – I already mentioned this, but it is a pretty big milestone in the cancer world to reach ‘no more scans’ status!)

For the last couple of years, I’ve felt a little paralyzed by waiting for this milestone. What do I mean? Well – statistically my cancer was most likely to come back within this two-year time frame, hence the regular scans. So I kind of avoided planning or doing anything major, just in case. I talked more about that here.

In some ways, I’m still doing that – afraid to stray too far from home, from my routine, just in case something goes wrong and I’m left trying to figure out how to manage it while in unfamiliar territory. I think recognizing that I’m doing it, though, is the first step to eventually not doing it and just making plans for life without giving cancer a second thought.

Which is where the topic for this post comes from. I’ll always be a cancer survivor, I know that. But lately, like in the last month or two especially – I really don’t want to be, anymore. I just want to go back to being me, however that looks, without always hauling around this baggage. I’ve taken a big step back from the support group I’m on on Facebook, and I kind of cringe a little when my suggested posts on Instagram are cancer-related, because I just am tired of constantly thinking about it. I still love the friends I’ve made who are fellow survivors, but I haven’t felt really connected in the last little while because honestly – I just want a break from this part of my identity and it’s the main thing we have in common. It’s a little bit sad, I won’t lie, but it also feels necessary right now.

I even signed up for a First Descent’s trip in August and am now strongly considering not going – not because I don’t think it would be an amazing experience filled with people who “get it”, just because I need to start finding my way through life without constantly carrying this baggage.  Going on a trip specifically for cancer survivors does not appeal to me right now. I just want to be Chey, a girl who takes care of her health and fitness just because she likes how she feels and looks when she’s eating right and working out, not Chey the girl who eats right and works out because she’s trying to convince her body to not freak out and get cancer again.

I know I likely won’t feel this way forever, but it was an interesting sort of emotion that I wasn’t expecting so I thought I’d write about it in case anyone else is experiencing this bit of strange identity crisis.

I still have so much love for all of my fellow fighters/survivors, and still strongly encourage you to reach out to me via this blog, email, Instagram, Facebook, however!! I’m just trying to find that balance my every day life, knowing that the experience of having had cancer will always be a part of me, but it does not have to be all of me.

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on June 22, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, canada, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on June 22, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/my-post-cancer-identity-crisis/

Two years out

Two years cancer free – how can that be? In many ways it still feels like yesterday that I was diagnosed.

Being  here, now, with no more scans scheduled, has shown me how small of a time frame two years really is. It’s a blip in an 80 or 90 or 100 year life (which I plan to have, obviously.) Treatment itself was only seven months, but it felt eternal. These two years, however, have gone by so quickly!

Why does this matter? Because I have always been a deadline driven person – I’ve felt like if I didn’t accomplish something by x timeframe (usually a certain age), that I wasn’t good enough. I was “behind”. I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t a functional adult. Whatever. I had all these made-up reasons as to why not accomplishing something by this made-up date in my head meant I was a failure.

The second thing is – I still don’t know what my “thing” is. I still don’t necessarily know what my passion is. I love writing, for sure – and this blog is definitely one of my important projects. But it’s not the be-all-end all. I thought I had to have my “thing” figured out by now, because for the love of everything holy, I’ve been an “adult” for almost 10 years now. How could I not know who I am and what I like yet?

What I’m realizing, though, is that being an “adult” or a certain age doesn’t mean you stop growing and changing and evolving. I wrote on the chalkboard wall in my kitchen just the other day: You can reinvent yourself as many times as you want. Deadlines do not exist.

I’m trying very hard to live my life in this way. So right now, I’m pretty dedicated to the gym and to my nutrition. It’s been about nine months of straight gym attendance for me, and I don’t see that stopping any time soon. But even in those nine months, things have shifted. I started out going to a commercial gym focusing on five main lifts (front and back squats, deadlifts, benchpress, push press, if you give a shit.) Now I go to a Crossfit gym five days a week and while those lifts are a part of it, there’s a whole ton more incorporated.

A year before that, my ‘thing’ was not the gym. I don’t even remember what my thing was. Maybe surviving. Probably that. 😉 But the point is – right now Crossfit is my thing. Will it be my thing in a year? I don’t know – I might change my mind, and I’m finally learning that it is okay to do that. It’s okay to grow, and to change, and to become a different person with different likes and dislikes and hobbies and passions. I might not – I might Crossfit til I’m 90, who knows. That’s not the point.

I should qualify though, that there are days I’m not entirely jazzed on getting up and going to work out or eating well or drinking 4 litres of water. Sometimes it’s a grind. But I’ve learned the difference between ‘I’m currently lacking some motivation but I’m still passionate about this’ and ‘This doesn’t make me happy anymore’. There is a difference. A big one.

Two years is not a very long time. Five years isn’t either, really. It’s okay to be (almost) 28 and to still not know what your thing is, or to know that maybe your “thing” is temporary and you’ll eventually outgrow it. You don’t stop growing just because you’ve become an adult. It’s okay to spend a year or two doing something – whether it be a hobby, or a job, or something else entirely – and then realize that you don’t like it anymore and find something new. It’s better to do that than to stay stuck somewhere that doesn’t make you happy.

 

Cheers to two years out, the low-risk of relapse category, and learning that maybe I’ll never really “find myself” because I’m too busy reinventing myself to suit the way my life currently sits.  I want to always be passionate about the things I do, and if I’m not – I want to find something new that lights that fire. So may I live the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years entirely on fire for whatever I’m doing – that’s my ultimate goal.

 

Leave a comment
by cheyennechartrand on June 6, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in blood cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, hodgkin's, hodgkin's disease, hodgkin's lymphoma, hodgkins, lymphoma, saskatchewan, young adult cancer
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by cheyennechartrand on June 6, 2017

https://dancingwithdrhodge.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/two-years-out/

« Older Posts