Your time is up.
You hear your name being called.
Your number’s up.
You’re next.
How did you get here?
This is a mistake.
This HAS to be a mistake.
It can’t be real.
Cancer?
Three words you never thought you’d NEVER hear attached to YOUR name.
But here you sit in the oncologist’s office waiting to learn your fate.
What treatment you should take.
The possible side-effects.
Calculating your odds of survival.
How did this happen?
Why?
It is said that cancer doesn’t have a face until it’s yours or someone you love.
You never think it’s going to be you or your loved one until it unfortunately is.
Cancer knows no borders.
It does not care if you have money to pay for treatment.
It does not care if you were just married.
It could care less that you are pregnant or just had a baby.
It does not matter that you are mother or a father.
It does not care that you are only a child.
Cancer is unfair, untimely, and a great uncertainty we all must face.
2 years ago I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma two weeks before Christmas.
I was fortunate to be able to take part in a clinical trial at Northwestern where I had access to one of the latest cancer treatments: immunotherapy.
To my surprise, just 6 months after a stage 3 cancer diagnosis, I was in remission and I STILL AM today thanks largely to the advanced immunotherapy/chemotherapy treatment I received at Northwestern’s Lurie Cancer Center.
I believe in a world without cancer.
Do you?
February 4th, 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of #WorldCancerDay. Let us help raise awareness so that we can help transform cancer from deadly and treatable to entirely preventable.
Human colorectal cancer cells treated with a specialized drug combination under study for a cancer therapy. Cell nuclei are stained blue; the chromosomal protein histone gamma-H2AX marks DNA damage in red and foci of DNA replication in green.
Created by Yves Pommier, Rozenn Josse, 2014
Source: National Cancer Institute @NCI
Click here to learn more about my treatment and the clinical trial I took part in at Northwestern’s Lurie Cancer Center.
Visit the American Cancer Society to learn more about immunotherapy treatment options.
#IAmAndIWill #cancersurvivor #worldcancerday #lymphoma