The Early Days

Telling people is honestly the hardest part of finding out you are sick. I'm not exactly a private person, so it's not a matter of wanting people to know, its more that every time you tell someone you have to explain certain things. You sort of have a moment where you have to support each other and feel stuff all over again. Sometimes people really don't know how to react. Sometimes I just don't even know how to say it. The worst part for me is I don't like making other people sad and it's hard to put a positive spin on illness.

I've been told that I'm handling this well, but I think it's mostly that I'm not good at feeling unhappy. I feel like frustration, anger, and sadness all take too much energy, and I've had a lot of practice in life at being able to find peace inside myself. I feel like there is this place inside where no matter what is happening to me I can reach down and find a simple kind of joy, which I suppose has been a real blessing during this challenge because I don't have to think too hard about it.

It hasn't been all easy though, I had a lot of stress about insurance in the beginning, and the fact that I'm in between jobs. I had a really different plan for myself for this summer, and I was not happy about changing it. I was planning to have so much fun and now it's kind of more like I'm just seeing so many doctors.

The other big thing that people don't know, because you can't know really, is that I'm really not sick feeling. My Hodgkin's Lymphoma is painless. There is a little pain at the surgical site, but I've been dealing with the tiredness and mild to moderate itching for months. I hardly noticed it to begin with and just knowing what it is doesn't make it worse. At least now I know why I keep getting sick. It won't really be hard until I start treatment though. So until then I'm going to relax, and have fun. I have a good life and I plan to enjoy it.