A lot of times, when we hear about cancer, it’s the BIG stories. You’re usually hearing about someone beating the odds or going through a really extreme course of treatment, and having the experience change them as a person. But I really think I would have benefited from hearing more of the boring side of cancer. I actually struggled a lot with just how mundane everything turned out to be, and I was never really exposed to many stories like mine, so I hope this goes a little way to give others a better experience.
I was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), in March of 2021, and by the end of summer of the same year, I was finished with my treatment and already recovering. The whole thing was more jarring than I would have expected. It really was just diagnosis - treatment - done, but I had a really hard time letting myself believe that it would just be okay. It’s cancer, after all. How can cancer not be a big deal? And at the same time, if it’s not a big deal, then why am I having such a hard time with the treatment?
Because that’s the other thing. Chemo works, but it SUCKS. And it was all the more difficult for the fact that I didn’t feel like my situation was bad enough to warrant having such a hard time. What other experience is like “you have a fatal condition, but instead of dying, you can just feel absolutely horrendous for six months, then you’ll just be fine, like it never even happened.” Those aren’t the kind of stories that make it into books or movies or news articles. Which makes sense. No one who’s never had cancer is going to be interested in a story like that. But with how common cancer is and how good treatments are getting, I think that a lot of people might relate to this bizarrely ordinary experience. And I think they deserve to hear more stories like this.
Aidan
diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL)
