August and September are my trigger months. I had both diagnoses confirmed in August – 5 years apart and both chemo treatments went through September onwards. I guess I drew the unlucky card.
I was initially diagnosed back in August 2015. I was 31 years old and we had a gorgeous 15 month old daughter, I was back at work and enjoying life as a young family. We had just signed up for a knock down rebuild and starting to tick over life long dreams. The daycare bugs were taking their toll and I was getting sick, a lot. Unbeknown to us, I had more things brewing deep inside.
It all came about one night when I felt a lump above my clavicle. I turned to my husband and said “I think I’m about to open a can of worms”…. and that we did. A few weeks of gruelling tests, operations and a final diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma. We were so naive in the beginning, it almost came as a relief because everything now made sense about why I was getting sick all the time. We just scrapped in a round of IVF to save some embryos and after that, my body went into a downward spiral and things got rather bad before they got better. I was admitted to hospital before treatment as the pain was uncontrollable at home but once chemo started to kill the “naughty nodies” the intense body pain was replaced with the intense nausea, migraines and exhaustion with a portacath to help me through it all. But we got somewhere, my body reacted well to the protocol and by the end of my 6 months of chemo treatment I had reached remission.
Everything was getting better again. We completed our house rebuild and started fresh, I was getting my energy back and by 2017 my system was back in full swing and along came a beautiful little surprise, another baby was on its way! I never felt so alive and proud of myself. My body had given me a second chance and gifted us another girl, a little sister whom my then 4 year old kept asking for. Life was pretty sweet.
Then.. 2020 came, Covid changed our world and so did Cancer. It was back and with a vengeance. This time, we needed to be more aggressive and I needed a stem cell transplant (SCT). I don’t know what was more frightening, dying from the cancer or dying from trying to kill the cancer. It was a brutal regime and I hit every snag possible. My previous 6 months of chemo in 2016 felt like a walk in the park and I had to quickly stop comparing. This time around it was a vascath then replaced with a PIC line to help me through. After scrapping through the harsh chemo it was followed with an autologous SCT, my very own millions of baby stem cells to save my life and keep the cancer away.
A lot of healing has taken place, my body felt broken and very damaged. Menopause was pretty much instant during treatment, on top of everything else, it was a tricky one to navigate and find the right path that suited me. I chose a holistic approach that is still working today. I take a wide range of herbal medicine and CBD oil to help regulate and help with my body aches and pains that have lingered. It has been three years since my SCT and we have made huuuuge changes…. In those dark days, we got planning to change a few things once I had recovered and we are now traveling Australia. We decided that we needed to live for today and to live for our Now. I am fortunate to be able to do my 3 monthly check ups around Australia where I have met some lovely pathology collectors in some regional towns and haematologists in different hospitals in each state we have travelled, all keeping me in check so we can keep living the dream. We are into our 18th month traveling and it has been the best medicine, mentally, physically and emotionally.
Initially, I was petrified to plan in case we couldn’t follow through with them. But if there is anything I have learnt along the way its that life changes, but it’s up to us to adapt at each twist and turn. Keep making plans, keep dreaming and just make changes to keep following those dreams.
Thank you to Lauren who is so bravely sharing her story with the aim to provide support to those on a similar journey, as well as spread awareness of lymphoma.
At Lymphoma Australia, we offer many free resources and support services to patients and their families. We are grateful that our online support groups were of assistance to Lauren during her darkest times.
If you would like to support our work in helping more patients like Lauren, please consider donating today.
