“January 9th, 2015 is the day I was diagnosed with cancer. I was 24. I had noticed a lump on my neck, near my collarbone. I went to an ENT. He did a needle biopsy, which came back negative, so he did a full biopsy and called me January 9th and said you have Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I did 8 treatments of ABVD chemotherapy from January until May. I had a PET scan in April that came back clean, which was great news. They told me I just have to finish up the treatment plan and then I would be done. I finished my treatment in May, and then had a scan on June 10th. It came back with activity in my chest. She thought maybe we should give it another 6 weeks since my body was still trying to recover from what it had been through. So we gave it another 6 weeks, scanned again, and it had grown. Did another biopsy and then had to do a cardiovascular surgery, which was scary as a 25 year old. It was aggressive enough to come back. We did 2 treatments of ice chemo. After that, I had to have a stem cell transplant, which are almost only ever done in patients with extremely aggressive forms of cancer and Hodgkin’s is actually not a cancer that doctors normally worry about. That wasn’t the case with me. I was lucky enough to use my own stem cells, because that increases my chances at life. I did 4 straight days of super intense chemo. It was horrible. They killed everything in my body. The reason for the stem cell transplant was to basically restart my body. I’m feeling pretty good now. In March, I started working full time again at Feed My People. I do check ups every 3 weeks and receive a maintenance chemo drug that they have reason to believe will help me stay cancer free longer. I’ve always found my health to be important but coming out of this, I developed anxiety and stress levels that I had never experienced before. So now for me, it’s less about how fit I am, and more about how I feel when I’m out on a walk. There’s always a fear that it’s never done, but I try to be as proactive as I can with the things that I know I can control. Like practicing yoga and going for walks. All of these things have become a necessity for me. Walking is my go to. Mentally, once I start walking, I just instantly feel better. Its been interesting. My life hasn’t been what I thought. I don’t think any of us really have any idea what lies ahead, but all you can do is control how you react to it.”