Teenage Cancer Journey

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Foreword

Dear Reader:

Hi. I want to make something clear from the start--I do not die at the end of this book. People of all ages (including myself, including teenagers) can and do recover from cancer and go on to lead long, productive, and healthy lives. Cancer is not an automatic death sentence--although on some days I'll admit it felt like one.

There were many times when I thought I was going to die. However, as I'm reminded daily, sometimes what I think is going to happen to me and what really happens to me are two different things.

Three months before my 16th birthday, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Cancer. It seemed so unreal. It was as if I stepped outside of my body and, against my will, became trapped in a horror movie. I watched someone else play me, yet knew that I was that someone else and there was no way out.

I left my old life, my "before-cancer" life, and entered this new life, the cancer life. The new life consisted of pain, fear, uncertainty, and sickness. I felt isolated and alone. I felt like the only 15-year-old in the entire universe with cancer. I did not know anyone who had cancer. I wanted to see or touch someone who had cancer and lived to tell about it.

And then one day the phone rang. It was a young woman who had been in remission from Hodgkin's disease for a few years (her mother-in-law worked with my mother). Her phone call spawned so many conflicting emotions. I was overjoyed to hear from someone who beat cancer as a teenager, especially someone who had the same type of cancer I had. And yet, at the same time, I was jealous of her health. During the 15 months that I was in treatment, her phone call was the only "direct" contact I had with someone who had experienced cancer as a teenager.

When I was at the hospital, I was always interested in the other adolescents who were undergoing cancer treatment. I never sought them out directly, but rather asked my doctor and the pediatric social worker about them. I can't really explain why, but I wasn't ready for face-to-face contact.

I made several visits to the library, searching for materials about teenagers and cancer. This seemed like a safer option. I wanted to read stories about other teenagers with cancer--how they coped, survived, and went on with their lives. I couldn't find anything.

It wasn't until January 1, 1998, after seven-and-a-half years in remission, that I had a telephone conversation with another survivor of teenage cancer. Maria is a survivor of leukemia. She was diagnosed when she was 13 and was nearly 20 when we first spoke. I felt like I found a long-lost friend, someone whom I'd never met yet who truly understood and related to what I was saying.

The Teenage Cancer Journey grew out of a need not only to address cancer in the young adult, but also to talk about the issues that adolescents with cancer must face. I know that each person with cancer has a unique experience, but I feel that there is a point where some experiences and situations are common.

A wise person once told me a story: Jack and Roger, two friends, go out to dinner at a restaurant and have a nice time. The next time Jack and Roger go out to that same restaurant, there is no way that their experience can be exactly the same as it was the previous time. The first experience could be not as good as the second in some ways but was better in other ways, and vice versa. Both situations are different in their own ways and still share some common elements. I believe that so, too, are teenage cancer experiences.

I soon found that the "after-cancer" me needed to write this book. For so long I was living in "cruise-control mode." I just went from here to there, never stopping to brake. I used to think that I could make myself forget about having cancer. I was wrong. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Anyway, sooner or later we all need to brake and take control again. This book helped me to do that.

I hope this book helps those in the medical community who treat adolescents with cancer to come to a more complete understanding that teenagers are lingering somewhere out there between pediatric and adult oncology.

Lastly, it is my greatest wish that this book will help other teenage patients with cancer and their families to see that they are not alone and that cancer can be survived.

Katie Gill