As my 10^th year of remission quickly approaches, I continue to look back on my bout with cancer as if it were someone else who went through it all. I was 18 years old and had just graduated from high school when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. At that time, my biggest concerns were my looks, my social life and going to college. How quickly I learned that, whether those things were important to me or not, beating cancer was going to be my first and only priority.

The hardest issues for me to deal with were losing my hair and losing my friends. I suddenly had nothing in common with the people that I used to spend most of my time with. Fortunately, my mom and grandparents were there for me — but how could they relate? How could anyone relate? In the 14 months of treatments and numerous operations the majority of my days were spent as an "adult" patient on the cancer floor of the University of Michigan Hospital (UMH), with others much older than I. I was too old to be a patient at Mott Children’s Hospital, yet too young to feel comfortable at UMH.

My friends tried to understand, but it didn’t make me feel any better. It made me angry to see them going on with the things that I wanted to be doing myself. As I watched my friends leave for college, I spent my time wig shopping, forcing down the last of my ten chemo pills and sitting in the emergency room each month, waiting to be admitted into the hospital for intravenous antibiotic treatment. I would have loved having someone to talk to, my age, who could relate to everything I was going through and how I was feeling. Unfortunately, that didn’t come until after I had finished treatment.

Thanks to a woman who not only listened to my concerns, but actually heard them — my Social Worker, Jane Deering, put together a Young Adults with Cancer support group for patients and survivors between the ages of 18 and 30. Since it’s inception in the early 1990’s, I have been a regular attendee at the monthly Young Adults with Cancer meetings (see our Support Group Calendar). After time passed and I felt able to give to others, I became a Peer Counselor for young adults who were newly diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease and for those with other diagnoses who I could relate to on another level. My peer counseling efforts vary from patient to patient. There are times that communication starts at, and ends with, one conversation. There have also been times that I spoke with the parent of a patient, rather than the patient his or herself. Some I have talked to for hours, or days, months and even year’s during or after treatment.

Through peer counseling, I feel that I am able to give others the support that I wished I had myself when I was going through treatment. My own experience with cancer has helped me to understand when a patient doesn’t feel like talking, just as I understand when they want to talk for hours (even when they are too heavily medicated to remember our conversation the next day). I am able to empathize when they want someone to keep them company, even if it is only to watch them sleep, just as I can appreciate them wanting to be left alone and letting them contact me when they feel up to talking.

I have met so many wonderful people through my peer counseling efforts and attending the monthly Young Adults with Cancer support groups. I have watched others go through much more than I can imagine, making my own ordeal seem like a breeze. I have made life-long relationships and I have, unfortunately, lost many friends along the way.

Now as an almost-ten year cancer survivor, I am back to work, school and having the options that I once missed so much. I look to my peer counseling, support group attendance and special friendships with other cancer survivors, to keep me in focus of what is really important. At 18, it was my hair and my friends. At 29, it is my health, happiness, the love that I give to others and the love that I receive in return.

As I have heard time and time again, and would have to agree — "Although I would never want to go through it again, I wouldn’t trade my battle with cancer for the world."

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