Surviving Non-Hodgkins Lymphomma @24

Sometimes I feel that there are little cliques within the cancer community. Groups that don't want to share their struggle with anyone else. There is no united cancer community. We are silos of disease, focusing on our own type of cancer, often negating the fact that others have also gone through chemo, radiation, the loss of a body part, or a loss of freedom, a loss of youth even.

For a young woman, the focus is mostly on breast cancer, or any type of womanly cancer. And here I am with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a decidedly "old man" type of cancer (but growing in the younger population at an alarming rate), and feeling so left out. I can't even imagine what it is like for young men without testicular cancer.

There are no scarves dedicated to my disease, no magazine articles. No products that will benefit the funds that fuel the research that will get me well. Isn't that sad? That for some reason I'm looking for acceptance inside a community that no one wants to be a part of in the first place? The other frightening thing is the belief so many people have, that whatever is already out there addresses the needs of a young survivor, or a young patient.

I find myself constantly saying "I was looking for the information, and I couldn't find it. Show me where it is.” Tell me, where are the websites that tell me how to date again? Or, to help my parents deal with the fact that their daughter who has been living on her own for sometime, now needs them but also needs to retain some level of freedom? Where's the website that tells me how not to look so sallow and pale, or how to find a good headscarf? What about helping me with the weight gain? Something? Anything? I want to be addressed as a whole person, not defined by Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

The funny thing is, that radiation leaves me at risk for a myriad of problems: breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer and heart disease. And is that fair? That once in my life I had to deal with losing a part of myself only to discover that what cured me of one has left me prone to others? That eventually I just might be giving myself up to cancer, piece by piece. Yet in groups, I find myself constantly around the competition of "whose pain is worse."

I would gladly lose because I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to have the suckiest day or the hardest news to take. I would happily hand it all over. But strangley, I wind up fighting for recognition. The recognition of what I went through and what I'll continue going through.

A part of me wants nothing more to forget, to have the scars on my body disappear and the only remnants of the disease live in the “get well” cards stored in my closet. Another part wears the scars like a badge, screaming for attention, "Look what I went through!"
For me there is no forgetting. I can't escape the experience, so I'm trying hard to learn to embrace it. Hopefully someday I'll be able to think that all survivors and patients feel that they are in this thing together, regardless of their specific diagnosis.

This “thing” being the club that I'd happily to not renew my membership to. Nevertheless, It looks like I've got the lifetime membership anyway.