My granddaughter Hadley was three years old when she suddenly started limping in pain and was unable to bear weight on her right leg. Forty-eight hours and three medical appointments later, her bloodwork showed acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). It was a nightmare that came out of nowhere.
I am a stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma survivor (NHL). The diagnosis came as a complete shock since I was a relatively healthy, active young adult working and enjoying life with family and friends. With a family history of breast cancer, I was advised to start having screening mammograms in my 20s.
My name is Nicole, and I am a 21-year-old cancer survivor! Last year, on February 1st, I started to go for chemotherapy after being misdiagnosed for TWO years! For those two years, I was told that the softball-sized lymph nodes in my neck were all because of allergies… I knew something was wrong when it became the size it did, and being vain was going around it.
In November 2018, I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). It's a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow that progresses very rapidly. When I was initially diagnosed, I believed my life was over.
November 25, 2022 ― the worst day of my life, the day I received my official cancer diagnosis, stage IV Hodgkin lymphoma (HL).
After months of being sick and being in and out of the hospital, doctors placed two adult-size chest tubes in Levi’s chest to clear his lungs of fluid. While placing the tubes, his surgeon found an orange-sized tumor in his lung. Hours later, he was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) at just four years old.
My journey began a few months into 2020. I was making plans to celebrate my birthday by going to some amusement parks I hadn't been to in many years. Unfortunately, that's when the pandemic hit, and going to the parks was no longer an option. A few months later, I started to get sick. Fever, night sweats, little to no appetite, weight loss. We didn't know if it was COVID-19 or not.
I was diagnosed at age 33 as a result of an unrelated blood test, very young, I was told. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) showed low risk. My local oncologist sent me to a regional teaching hospital to get a second opinion, and that opinion was, "If I had to pick a cancer, this would be it." Terrible start!
