Interview

When were you diagnosed?
Okay so I was diagnosed my sophomore year when I was 15. I am now a 17-year old senior in high school.

What did it feel like to be told you have cancer? What does it fell like to have leukemia?
Okay so I've always been really healthy. But my sophomore year around september or october, I was having insane mood swings and I would randomly get dizzy. So in November we went to the doctor and he said that it was just stress so he sent me home. The dizziness just kept getting worse and worse. It would happen more often. The mood swings got worse too. I knew something was wrong. I have no idea how I knew, I guess it was just my body trying to tell me something was up. I thought I had depression or something. So in early march, it was a monday. I was in my french class and all of a sudden I got double vision. I hadn't had that before. So my mom made another appointment with the doctor for that friday. That night, I realized i had a huge mass on my stomach (not like popping out, but something was there). My entire left side of my stomach was really hard. It felt like I was flexing my abs (if I had rock hard abs) but just on the left part of my stomach. I could feel the edge of it in the middle of my stomach. Then I had a cold that would not go away that week, got pink eye (I've never gotten pink eye before), and my bruises were inflating it seemed. Ha I was actually in math class and showed my boyfriend, at the time, my bruise and this other kid was like "Addie has cancer! It's a tumor!" Yeah, he felt horrible after he heard, haha. Anyway, when we went to the doctor's, he almost sent me home again saying it was stress. But last minute my mom told him to feel my stomach. He immediately ordered a CAT scan and a blood test. The CAT scan showed that my spleen was enlarged. They said it was possibly caused by mono. At the time I was like "What? Mono? NO! I can't get that". The blood results weren't in yet so they sent me home. Around 11 that night my mom woke me up and told me we were going to the hospital. I was freakeddd out. She didn't tell me why so I had no idea what was going on. I went upstairs and called my boyfriend to telll him what was going on (well what I knew). I was so scared. On the way, my mom said something about my white blood cell count being high, and for some reason I knew that meant cancer. I chose not to believe that though. Then my mom turned around and asked "do you know what an oncologist is?" (I knew, but for some reason I said no) and she explained that it was a cancer doctor. So then I thought I had a tumor in my spleen or something. I don't totally remember what happened in between then and the next morning. So the next morning, I met my oncologist. He walked in and introduced himself. Then pretty abruptly he was like "It looks like you have leukemia." I was SHOCKED. It was almost like a movie. I wasn't aware of ANYTHING around me. I almost retreated into my mind. My first thought was "what? me? cancer? no. i'm a plain jane... this isn't supposed to happen to me." And then my second thought was "I'M GOING TO DIE LIKE THE GIRL IN A WALK TO REMEMBER". I'm pretty sure my oncologist recognized my fear because he turned to me and assured me I was going to get through this. To be honest, I didn't believe him. I thought he was lying to me. He left the room and my mom and I cried for about three hours, but then we were ready to deal with it. We started to call people to let them know what was going on and I started treatments. My leukemia is called Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. It is one of the most treatable cancers and they caught it early. I didn't have to have chemo or radiation. Well, I had to take chemo in a pill form for a month. They also put me on this other medicine called Gleevec. It controls the gene that caused my cancer. I was in the hospital for about a week and a half. To be honest, I didn't mind being in the hospital. I almost always had visitors and the nurses and doctors were SO nice. The only pain I was in was caused by a port they put into my chest for easy blood access. It never really healed while I had it so it basically hurt to move. Sometimes I would get very nauseous from all the meds I was on, and I'd be dizzy from being dehydrated, but that's the only uncomfort I was in. After I got out of the hospital, I had to stay out of public for a month. That's when mentally things began getting rough. I was only allowed to go to the hospital or the house of my tutor (who helped me keep up with school work). I would get very very depressed for no reason. Well I guess I had a reason, but what I was feeling just didn't make sense. One thing that really helped was talking to other cancer patients. There's just this feeling you have that you can't really communicate to someone who doesn't have cancer. Well, from there I began going further and further into remission. I was out of school for about a month. So it wasn't bad at all. I was really worried about people treating me differently. I didn't want people to be like "oh be careful, she has cancer" and stuff. I'm still the same Addie, just a new life experience.

Did your attitude towards life change at all from not knowing to knowing your diagnosis?
My attitude towards life completely changed. That was the first time I was actually scared for my life. I thought that I had been scared for my life before, but it was nothing like this. When you're told you have cancer of course death crosses your mind. I was astounded by the thought of not living into old age. It really forced me to grow up & mature a ton. Now, things that are a HUGE deal to some people really don't matter to me. It's not worth it to worry about the little things. Yes, I still get caught up in that stuff, but I'm able to take a step back and put it into perspective. I guess my perspective shifted from right here, right now, to the big picture. It really strengthened my faith in God. It forced me to ONLY rely on Him.

When you were told you were diagnosed did you tell your friends right away? And how did they react, and were they supportive? if so, how were they supportive?
I called three people right after my mom and I had our crying session. I called my boyfriend at the time, my best friend sarah, and then my friend who's in college. My boyfriend was crushed but he didn't cry on the phone. But I've heard stories that he just like locked himself in his room and then called people. Sarah didn't answer so I'm not sure how she reacted. Heather, as soon as I told her she got silent then she started to sob.. I felt so bad. They were all really supportive though. My main group of friends are my youth group basically so they were constantly praying for me, visiting me, encouraging me, and just being awesome.

Did you still go to school?
Yeah, so expanding on the school part... I was out of school for about a month. During that time my teachers gave schoolwork to a tutor and I went to her. She helped me stay caught up with my classmates. So basically I was caught up by the time I went back to school. I am now going to be graduating with my class on May 31st.

Did your activities change?
Uh my activities didn't drastically change. I used to be a dancer and I was on the dance team. I decided to quit because it was just extremely stressful and I didn't need that.