Jade's Race for Life

In August 2018, I began to suffer from abdominal pain that would not go away no matter what pain relief I took. I kept being sick, having bouts of diarrhoea which meant I couldn't keep much food or liquids down. I was itchy all over for no apparent reason. I felt full up all the time and when I did try to eat I could barely eat a children's portion of food. I was depressed and anxious all of the time because I didn't know what was wrong with me. I would spend a day or two in hospital at a time with no idea of why I was sick so much. I kept going to the GP, A&E, the Emergency Floor but kept being sent home with painkillers and the diagnosis of adanitis, a condition where due to an illness the lymph nodes are raised and causing pain. Within the next few days and weeks, hospital was my second home. I scarred my stomach with hot water bottles as by this point I was doing anything I could to help with the excruciating pain. I couldn't understand how a simple illness that should clear up within a week or two was still causing me increasing pain and worsening symptoms. Eventually, I was admitted to hospital for longer periods. I was moved around the hospital to different departments over the following weeks. Only leaving hospital against doctors wishes to attend my university graduation, which probably wasn't the greatest idea as I was very sick by this point and in so much pain. Not that I showed this to anyone other than my family that day. I didn't want to make the day about me and my illness. we were all there to celebrate three hard years at university. I'm just glad I didn't collapse with all the standing around. It took all the strength I had to stay on my feet and keep a smile on my face. When I came home and re admitted myself to hospital, that's when everything took a turn for the worse. I could feel myself becoming ill now. I was just under 10 stone, which made me look Ill. The pain was getting worse and so was the sickness. All the tests kept coming back negative. They didn't know what was wrong. Eventually, they sent me to see the haematology team. Dr Laurie came and spoke to me about some of the tests they were going to do and what he thought it meant. They performed the CD20 (cancer) test on some biopsied lymph nodes. He then came back and said he would give me the results the next day but he advised me that I would need support from family when he did so. Alarm bells started ringing. The next day, after all those weeks of waiting, I got the result I had been desperately searching for. However, its not what I was expecting at all. I had cancer. Burkitts Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma Stage 4 with CNS involvement to be exact. My life changed in that single second. Now was the difficult job of informing the people I loved. Telling my boyfriend was the hardest. He had been by my side and was so worried about me and I didn't know what was to come. Then was the wait. Despite it being a quick spreading cancer, the doctors held off. We were all waiting for the fertility treatment I would sadly not get. I wasn't offered the funding I needed to remove one of my ovaries and freeze it, ready for when I was ready to have a baby. They would then plant it onto my other ovary, reversing the effects of the menopause caused by the chemotherapy. However, I wasn't lucky enough to get this funding and I got too sick to wait any longer. I needed to start chemotherapy. That was how August and September went down. Come October, that's when the hard stuff started. On the 5th, they inserted my PICC line into my right arm for my chemotherapy treatment. They told me that all my treatment would be inpatient stays on the haematology ward, anywhere from one week to three weeks at a time. Then around a week or so later, I started treatment. 3 weeks in hospital, in my own room, receiving a very high dose of chemotherapy and spinal chemotherapy. I went off food. I was sick. I struggled to walk or move. I got the most painful mouth sores you could imagine. I then stopped eating pretty much. By the end of my first round of Chemo, I had already begun to lose my hair. By the start of my third round beginning of December it was basically all gone and so I shaved the last few bits off. As hard as that was, it gave me such relief to shave my hair. Everyday i would have to de-tangle my matted hair. The hair falling out would tangle with the hair not falling out. It would cause me hours of pain trying to sort this everyday, and every day would get worse. After my third round, I got really sick. I was loving being home so much that I ignored the warning signs that I had a serious problem. I had pneumonia and I didn't know it. I had a serious temperature and a serious cough. I went to hospital and found out I had a serious form of pneumonia and was struggling to breath with sound only 80% oxygen in my blood instead of 95-100%. I was admitted to ITU for four days for treatment where i was connected up to so many machines and constant oxygen. I them recovered for a further four days on the haematology ward. After Christmas, I started my fourth and final round of in patent chemotherapy. Followed by about six weeks of outpatient treatment and bloods. In April, I had to travel to my PET scan, like a mix of a CT and MRI. I had to have a radioactive injection and stay still for an hour. I then had a scan lasting approximately 30 minutes. The following week, the results were in. I was in remission. I couldn't believe it! All the sickness and pain and being stuck in hospital had paid off. I was cancer free. I am now almost 3 months in remission and feel like I have my life back again. I am no longer relying on help from other people to get me dressed in the morning or push my wheel chair, or be my personal hospital transport. I have been given a second chance at life and I want to take it with both hands and live my life to the fullest! All my family and friends have been so supportive and I couldn't have thought the hardest fight there is without them! I am now 9 months in remission as of 25/01/20. Cancer is happening right now, which is why I'm taking part in a Race for Life 5k to raise money and save lives. 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Every single pound you donate makes a difference to Cancer Research UK’s groundbreaking work, so please sponsor me now.