We drove 2 1/2 hours to Baltimore on Friday morning.
The building hallways were dark, grey and gloomy. They showed us to the doctors room where we waited for another 20 minutes. I then had to tell my entire cancer story. Why I was here What my symptoms were prior to my diagnosis What medicine I'm taking What procedures I've had done What treatments I've had The doctor then began to ramble on and on about the radiation treatment. How it can increase my risk of skin cancer and how it is going to take three weeks (even though we were promised only 2) He then tells me how I am getting a simulation. They will take several scans, tests and make a mask for my future treatments. The nurse leads me down another grey hallway to a room labeled *CAUTION RADIATION* She shows me a dressing room and tells me to undress from the waist up. I then enter the radiation room. It's dark. There is a huge machine the size of two cars. Red beams are coming out of every angle of the machine. To the front of the room there is an additional room protected by glass that a technician is sitting behind waving to me with a smiling face. They tell me to lay down on the cold metal sheet attached to the machine. They then begin to move my body and neck to align to a specific position. I felt like a manikin on an assembly line. I felt like nothing. I felt like no one. They then say they are going to make the mask. They take a melted 4 foot sheet of plastic and stretch it across my head neck and chest. I feel like I'm being captured. I feel like I'm being kid napped. I feel like I'm being suffocated. I feel like an experiment not a human. They begin to buckle the plastic to the table with me inside it. I feel like I'm suffocating. I can't see. I can't breath. They leave the room. Silence. 15 minutes go by. All the tests are done. They take off the mask with gleaming eyes "You did so well!" I smile and act like everything is fine. Inside I feel numb. Inside I feel like a test subject. Inside I feel frozen. I am surrounded by ice and I can't get out. As soon as I see my mom the ice shatters. I break. I began to have my first panic attack in over 6 months.
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Throughout treatment I longed for the "normal" college life. Busy with classes and a social life. I longed for my biggest worry to be if I would do well on an exam rather than my constant worry of being hospitalized due to neutropenia.
I thought ringing the bell would some how take away all my worries, all of the pain and suffering I just went through and help give me a new start. I thought everything would go back to normal and I could be the same person I was before I had cancer. I was wrong. Life after cancer has been one of the hardest parts of having cancer. I went from constant support from friends and family to distance and isolation. I was alone, confused and angry. Where did everyone go? Why do people not understand what I am going through? Why did yet another friend say "we are just growing apart...there's nothing really to talk about"? Why did yet another person say "Yeah I like Lena, but I don't know how to talk about cancer" What is wrong with ME. This time last year I was struggling to walk around campus. I was waking up drenched in sweat from night sweats. I was hopeless. Cancer was taking over my body and no one knew what was wrong with me. I keep replaying these events in my head. I keep re-living these moments and asking why me? I thought life after cancer was going to be full of happiness and have all the answers. Instead it has put me into a depression full of questions with no answers to them. However, I have found some answers through an organization called Camp Kesem. Camp Kesem is a national nonprofit that supports for children impacted by their parents cancer. They provide a free summer camp that immerses the campers with hope, support and a week full of magic. This camp has answers. This camp is hope. This camp is magic. This camp changes lives. Where can you find hope in the darkness of cancer? Where can a child find others that can relate to them? Where can a family be supported through and beyond cancer? Where can a child experience magic? THE #ANSWERISKESEM |