What was the hardest part of treatment?

LeukemiaRemission

The chemo was really difficult because of the side effects and I’m not being able to eat along with nausea. And of course, all the sudden my hair was shedding and I have to shave my whole hair and it became completely bald so my physical image has completely changed. I looked pale, not looking great. I lost 20 pounds.

Hodgkin lymphomaRemission

The hardest part was mental, not physical. My diagnosis came at what felt like a pivotal point in my career and life and I was going to have to put a lot of it on hold. It felt unfair, and I felt that resentment for a while.

It shifted somewhere in the middle of treatment. I started seeing it as the one time in my life where I had an excuse to take it easy and just focus on myself. That sounds small but it changed everything. Once I stopped being angry about what I was losing, I got a huge amount of energy back, and I got clear on what I actually wanted for the first time in a while.

So when I finished recovering I wrote out some real goals and just got to work. I don't think I'd have had anywhere near that much motivation without it.