Cancer Hunties Only

Guess who continues to be cancer free!!! 🤗

❤️💕❤️💕 CONGRATS ON FINISHING SO SOON!!!!! That is SO exciting and I can’t wait for you to enjoy feeling 100% again soon :) thank you for this sweet message!

first of all, I’m so sorry to hear that, my heart is with you

As for chemo: it really depends on two things: the person’s own physiological response, and the chemo regimen itself. For me, it was bad, but not as bad as it could have been -- by which i mean i was very often nauseated but wouldn’t actually throw up more than a few times per treatment. My nausea might have been better if i had taken all the anti-nausea drugs i was prescribed, but i chose not to because i did not like their side effects, namely constipation and feeling braindead. Paradoxically, I also found that eating helped ease my nausea a bit. 

oh my gosh!! gonna check it out rn

Hey! First off, sorry to hear that, I feel for her. Re: eating and drinking and getting out of bed, honestly I don’t think anyone who wasn’t living through the experience with me could say anything very compelling to me to get me to do those things. It’s just hard to convince someone when you’re not their caretaker. My mom or dad were really the only people who could get me to eat or drink or move when I didn’t feel like it, and that’s because they were the ones checking in on me, bringing me food and sitting with me while I labored away at eating it, bringing me water and cheering me on when I finished it, etc. That’s probably not what you want to hear -- I know you’re concerned but I think the most you can do is tell her that her immune system desperately needs nutrition and hydration to help the chemo do its job killing the cancer. And that getting out of bed will actually make her feel better. 

But most of all just being a good listener is what you can do as a close friend! She’s probably not opening up much about it because it’s depressing and tbh nobody can relate and it’s isolating. So just remind her you love her and are down to listen whenever to whatever she wants to talk about, whether it’s cancer related or not. 

Hey babe, I’m sorry to hear that. My hair started to fall out right around my second treatment too. For me the key to staying positive was just recognizing all that was good in my life – like the days that I was healthy enough to be out of bed and doing things, and the people around me who demonstrated so much love and care and really touched me. I hardly ever would perceive myself as a victim of some injustice wrought by the universe. Instead, I knew that it could’ve happened to anyone, and I just happened to accumulate the right combination of mutations in my DNA to get lymphoma, and I ought to make the best of a not-ideal situation. It’s just another challenge life throws your way, and you can either milk it for the learning experience it offers or be a slave to it. You are young and this is a blip in the grand scheme of your life that will pass. The bad days are part of that wealth of learning. Try to pay attention to your blessings. As for being bald, I felt a lot better just embracing it than trying to hide it, but that was just me. if you’d feel more comfortable a lot of insurances cover at least a portion of the cost of the wig.