From ‘Never’ To Eight Cycles of Chemo

My parents didn't want to tell me at first that I had cancer because I had made this specific statement that I was not going to have chemo. As soon as I woke up and they said, you have cancer. I immediately said, when is the first chemo treatment? So changed my mind on that one. Went through eight cycles of what was called promocytobalm at the time. Hopefully I'm saying that pick a medicine, they threw it at you at that time. And then I did 16 cycles, I think, of chemotherapy to the chest. So that's what I live with now, is the radiation piece of it.

Gotcha. And so what were some of the things you had a very firm statement, I'm never going to do chemo, I'm not going to treat it. And obviously, 20, you didn't expect to get diagnosed roughly two months later. What were some of your interactions with the healthcare system? Because you were young back then. Back then, it wasn't quite as common for younger people to, you know, get cancer. Was it traumatic? Was it the system? Great. Like, tell us about that interactions. I think a lot of people skip over, like, how people with, you know, significant health issues when they interact with the healthcare system, how that by itself can. Can be either a blessing or it can be itself a barrier or trauma or whatnot.

So I was very blessed. I honestly think way back when, when I had cancer, it's so much better than what it is nowadays.