I finished with my radiation June 3rd 2019. I was diagnosed late in the year in 2018 and did about 6 months of chemotherapy and then about two and a half weeks of radiation. I spent my 25th birthday in the infusion center, getting a chemotherapy treatment. Now, I wait until mid-late August to get another PET scan and then I will officially be deemed in remission or not.
Cancer is Hell but chemotherapy is pure torture. God forbid I ever got cancer again, I honestly do not think I could go through with it again. My mental health has taken a huge blow on top of other issues going on with my life that is negatively affecting my mental health. These past few days, the best thing I can describe it as is survivor’s guilt creeping through my head like a milipede.
My anxiety has hit a very high point. I panic if I go out in public without a close friend or my boyfriend. I recently got prescribed gabapentin, a medication used to help the neuropathy that has been aggravating me and help control the anxiety as a side effect. I nearly get panic attacks at the thought of going to an area I am unfamiliar with.
I am holding it together the best I can. I am indulging in art therapy and music therapy to try to help myself. I’m twenty-five and my life has forever been altered by cancer. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be diagnosed with the big, bad, scary “c word” that most people think of as an “old person” disease.
