2026/09/15
I guess I should just rip the bandaid off right now.
I have hodgekins lymphoma.
If you don't know, it's a type of cancer that latches onto your lymph nodes and travels across the body through your blood. We managed to catch it early five months ago, after my neck began to swell up on both sides after I tried massing it. The right side went down normally, but the left side mysteriously stagnated.
We've been having medical appointments and hospital visits nonstop all throughout the spring and summer, including several trips to Sudbury. They constantly brought up cancer as a possibility, but I kept trying to brush it all off. After all, how could it be anything else than just a reaction from the swelling? It just made no sense to me.
And then I got the call back from the hospital.
Instantly, I had an emotional breakdown. I was supposed to go grocery shopping that evening, but I was freaking out so much that my dad and R had to get it all done for me. I laid in my bed for the next hour, crying and processing this new current state of my life.
I'm emphasizing how scary all of this is for me, but I feel like I have to stress that hodgekins is one of the most curable and treatable cancers in the world. The survival rate is 90% and the doctors have stressed to me how likely it is for me to survive. It's more than likely that I'll be alright at the end of all this, but....
I just hate it that I ended up being wrong.
I hate that my intuition was reassuring me and making me feel like everything must be fine when it truly wasn't. I hate that my own brain and nervous system lied to me and gave me so much false hope.
It's been a few weeks since the diagnosis, and I'm now set to be put on chemo on Friday. I have a piccline inside of me now, and have been cycling through a hundred appointments and body tests for it.
Obviously, I would much rather be taking chemo than experiment with whatever alternative medicine stuff my mom wants to do to me, and I'm not gonna avoid taking it. But no matter how I look at it, I'm still terrified of it. Not so much of the potential heart or lung damage since I know the risk is low, but because of what it's going to be like. I'm going to have to be sick and filled with nausea twice a month, too ill, tried, and confused to do anything. My parents are going to have to be here a lot to look after me, and I hate that it has to be that way. I don't want my ability to do anything to be kneecapped for six months. I don't want to lose my ability to think, or cook, or work on my projects. I just earned my independence nearly a year ago, and now I have to have it taken away from me. I won't even be able to go into most public spaces during this time! A cold or minor infenction for anyone could be deadly to me, so I'll have to be inside and alone for the majority of it.
I know it's only temporary, but...
It's terrible. I hate it.
I hate it all so much.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope I'll still be able to work on this site despite all that's happening to me. Throughout all of this, I still want to be creative and do what I want. Autumn is just starting over here, and I still want to provide myself with a good Halloween for myself.
But if I become so sick that I'm bedridden constantly and have no energy for literally anything, I have no idea how I'm going to what I'm going to do.