Blake, United States

I started having migraines that would last hours to days. This caused me to go to the ER where a CT scan found a brain tumor. This scared me as I was in the middle of preparing for my finals. After that I was transferred to a hospital with a neurosurgery departments where we did a biopsy and found the tumor to be germinoma. This crushed my entire idea of cancer because I had heard of young people getting cancer but mainly identified it as old person disease. This really rocked my world up in the ICU.

The emotional toll of feeling like I lost my identity when my hair started falling out. My primary and secondary schools had dress codes so hair was one of the only ways that I could express myself so when that fell out it felt like I was losing part of me.

What helped me was the outpouring of support from my friends whether physically or just through social media.

I felt like my care team took excellent care of me. It may be because I am a pre health student or just a thing my care team does with adult patients but I feel as though I am more in the driver seat instead my doctors driving and me just riding along.

We get it cancer sucks but remember your not alone. There are many cancer patients before you and hopefully your the last one. Your world may feel completely upended but you should still try to enjoy that parts of your pre cancer life.