On August 23, 2019, 3 days before I was supposed to start college I got the news no one wants to hear. “You have cancer.”
After a summer serving at foster camps for church, I began to experience concerning symptoms. A dry cough and a lump under my armpit sent me to the doctor. After several blood tests and a visit to the cardiologist, I found myself sitting in the emergency room where I received an x-ray and a CT scan.
A half hour later the oncologist pulled up a chair, sat down at the foot of my bed and broke the news to me and my family. For the next few days I would undergo several tests. A full body PET scan, a PICC line placement and a biopsy wide awake. With those results, the doctors were able to diagnose me with primary mediastinal large b-cell non-hodgkins lymphoma.
While the tumor was compressing my heart and taking up almost my whole left lung, it had not spread anywhere else and was considered stage 1.
I would then undergo 6 rounds of the DA-EPOCHR chemotherapy regimen. In December of 2019 I finished treatment and on February 6, 2020 I was officially in remission.
Ringing the bell signified an end to a long journey that changed me in the best way possible.
