End of an Era

Even though everyone is celebrating, it’s very odd to be done with something as big as chemo.

QUESTION:  I only have one more round of chemo. I’m happy I’m almost done but I also have mixed feelings… did you feel that way at the end of treatment or were you completely happy to finish? – MIXED UP

 

Dear Mixed Up,

It’s a weird thing, being done with chemo. Because on the one hand, obviously, YAY no dying! On the other, this is a huge thing that has taken up a significant portion of your life/energy/time/effort over the last year and having all of that back suddenly is a jolt. It’s the same for any large project really (my closest comparison for non-sick people is musical theatre shows – they eat your life), but cancer is something that’s much much bigger and scarier to deal with.

It’s over, but it won’t feel over for a while. You won’t be able to comprehend the fact that yes, you CAN do that thing that all your friends are doing because you won’t have to go to chemo that day. It will take a while for your hair to grow back, so you may not be able to ditch the wigs immediately, but there will come a day when it just looks like you got a cute buzz cut and you don’t need to worry about it anymore. For a while after the end of chemo, I would take a picture just before bed every night to watch the progression of my hair growing back in.

My big thing was that I wanted to study abroad and the most likely time to do that is Junior year. So when I finished chemo in March of sophomore year, I was proud of the fact that I’d stayed on schedule and would be able to study abroad as planned. It wasn’t so much happiness as satisfaction in a job executed as planned.

Then, once it’s over, you have to start thinking about how this whole huge experience will fit into your life. Will it define you? Will it move you to activism? Will you push it to the back of your mind and forget about it? Will you tell new friends or boyfriends? There are a myriad of questions that may not have occurred before. Which is why I’m here to help 🙂

(I recently read a post by Shannon Cox that addresses this same issue for breast cancer patients. It may also be helpful.)

 

How did you feel when you were finished with chemo? What was the most surprising thing about being done?

 

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Pediatric Wards are Better

QUESTION: I was supposed to start college this fall, but I have to defer a year for treatment. I read your bio and I thought it was really interesting that we both have tumors that are usually in much younger kids. – NOT A KID

 

Dear Not a Kid,

In my opinion, it is WAY BETTER to have a pediatric cancer. This way, you get treated in the pediatric ward (I hope this is true for your hospital) and pediatric wards are way more fun than adult wards. They’re colorful, they have tons of stuff to do for the kids, all the nurses are super nice because they’re used to dealing with 5 year olds.

The waiting room for my pediatric oncologist’s office was awesome. It had tons of movies (animated and live action kids movies), plug coloring things, legos, stuffed animals, sometimes there was a lady doing crafts, etc, etc. It was really way more entertaining than and other doctor’s office I have ever been to, which just has old copies of People magazine from 5 years ago. Even if I didn’t have the inclination or energy to actually play with any of the things, it was a much more welcoming atmosphere. And once you were back tucked away into one of the exam rooms, who knew how long you were going to be there? Or on a day when you had to hang out in the office to get some kind of transfusion, it was so nice to have kids movies going on around you. What do they even DO in the adult offices? Reruns of soap operas and ….. that’s it? Pretty boring if you ask me.

The pediatric ward was also much more entertaining when I had to stay overnight. They had a toy room with playdough. They had a patio with that squishy playground stuff on the floor. They had a specially-devoted-to-teens office at the end of the hall that had movies and things that were more for me than the 5 year olds. Santa came around at Christmas and gave out presents to all of the kids (me included!). Since, at 19, I was way older than any of their other patients, the staff pretty much let me do what I wanted, but were always smiling and trying to make sure I was being taken care of.

I stayed in the normal, adult chemo ward for my first round and it was extremely depressing. Everything was that standard hospital grey-blue. Everyone in the ward was like 85 years old. I couldn’t leave my room because it was less closed off from the rest of the hospital. The staff was perfectly polite, but they really only interacted with me when it was time for my next dose of drugs. I was very happy when I got switched to the pediatric ward for my next round of chemo.

What do you think? Pediatric Cancer Wards vs Standard Adult Cancer Wards, which do you like better and why?

 

Have a question of your own? Ask Chemo between Classes through the Question Submission Form or by emailing chemobetweenclasses@gmail.com . You can get new posts by subscribing via email in the lower right hand corner, Chemo between Classes on Facebook, or following me on Twitter!

Deferring College Due to Cancer

QUESTION: On my last day of high school, I was diagnosed with a tumor. Now I’m going through radiation and I start chemo in October. I was supposed to start college this fall, but I have to defer a year for treatment. – DELAYED START

 

Dear Delayed,

It’s definitely a good idea to defer college. Since it was my sophomore year, I was able to convince the doctors and administration to let me stay in school, but it definitely did not do any good for my education. I took 3 classes, none of which were needed for my major. One of them was Art History, but I honestly have no idea what the other two were. (I could go look it up, I suppose….).

In all honesty, they were throw-away classes. Which was really good, because I did really awful in them. Have you heard of chemo brain? You can’t concentrate for long, can’t really remember things, and everything seems kinda foggy. That’s totally a real thing. And trying to make yourself memorize the dates, titles, artists, and reasons behind all of the major art in Western culture through that fog doesn’t really work so well.

That being said, you need to make sure you find something to DO. Maybe a blog or a video diary or knitting a huge blanket, just something to keep your mind and hands occupied while you’re sitting at home. It’s going to be extremely BORING being stuck in the house a good part of the time and in the hospital the rest. Find some kind of project that you can commit yourself to that should take about a year to complete. Set a schedule when you’re working on it. Seriously. This sounds like a pain in the ass, but you HAVE to keep yourself occupied or you will go crazy with only the cancer to think about. If you have friends that can help you with various bits of it, that would be fantastic and give them a good excuse to come over and hang out all the time.

Did you need to defer college to finish treatment? What did you do to keep yourself occupied?

 

Have a question of your own? Ask Chemo between Classes through the Chemo between Classes Question submission form or by emailing chemobetweenclasses@gmail.com . You can get new posts by subscribing via email in the lower right hand corner, Chemo between Classes on Facebook, or following me on Twitter!

College with Cancer

QUESTION: On my last day of high school, I was diagnosed with a tumor. What was it like going through college with cancer? Anything you have to say will be helpful, I haven’t really talked to anyone who was in a similar situation. Thank you! -WORRIED SICK

 

Dear Worried,

Going through college with cancer is an extremely unique situation. On the one hand, you’re still a kid. You’re probably still on your parents’ health care plan, you probably still want to hug your mom when things go wrong (heck, I still want to do that and I’m way past college), and you’ve never been out on your own before. On the other hand, you’re finished with high school, you’re ready to move on to the next phase, and you want to keep up with all of your friends and life moves forward. What to do?

The answer will depend greatly on WHEN you are diagnosed and start treatment. If you are diagnosed before you start or early freshman year, you may need to defer school. If you are diagnosed later, once you have gotten significantly into college, as I was, you may be able to finish your current classes before deciding to take off a semester.

Either way, you will need to explain to your friends, professors, and school administrators what is going on. This is, obviously, easier with people that you know well, since you know how they’re going to react. However, what I found was that everyone was really accepting about the cancer. They all wanted to be helpful and do everything they could to make sure I was okay. New friends got super worried and ran out to buy me stuffed animals because they didn’t know what else to do. My adviser became immediately responsive and arranged for me to meet with the dean and explained how to get the best outcomes for my classes and things. Since everything was so surreal to me, it was great how everyone, even those I knew not-quite-as-well, wanted to help.

Of note, I’ve found that people don’t tend to gossip about things like cancer, which is both awesome and super annoying. This meant that when I was first diagnosed, I had to tell every single person individually, which was quite difficult. But, it also means that if you don’t tell someone, there is a high likelihood that they don’t know and it won’t affect how they see you.

Are you going through college with cancer? What was most/least surprising for you?

 

Have a question of your own? Ask Chemo between Classes through the Question Submission Form or by emailing chemobetweenclasses@gmail.com . You can get new posts by subscribing via email in the lower right hand corner, Chemo between Classes on Facebook, or following me on Twitter!