Talk Shows & Stories : Featured Stories : Laura

Laura: Hodgkin's at Age 24 (English translation of Spanish language recording)

Recorded January 23, 2002

Listen With 19 minutes, 35 seconds.

Username: lpadilla

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My name is Laura. I am 27 years old. I was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico and I live in Florida with my two children-Andres, who is 5 years old, and Maria who is 7 months old. In the spring of 1999, I was living in Gainesville, Florida. I was attending the University of Florida obtaining my Master's in Computer Science. One day at the university, I had my hand on my neck and I felt that I had a little ball on the left-hand side of it. I felt that it was hard and solid.

The Road to Diagnosis

The truth is that, at that moment, I had a great deal of work, final exams were near. I had to finish my projects and I was also working, assisting a professor. I would correct exams and assignments. So I decided to wait a while to see if it went away on its own.

Two or three weeks passed and I completed everything. The semester finished. I had been more or less paying attention to the little ball and I knew that it had not left, but nor had it gotten bigger or smaller. In other words, it hadn't changed, so I decided to go to the university clinic to see what they would say about it. There they gave me a physical exam and they took some X-rays, but they could not find anything on the X-rays. The little ball didn't show up.

So the doctor referred me to a radiology center so they could do a CAT scan. I asked her what she thought it could be and she told me that it could be anything. It could be something benign like a cyst or it could also be something more serious like a tumor in the lymph nodes. For that reason, they had to do more tests to ensure that it wasn't anything dangerous.

Well, I thought that it probably was not going to be anything serious because I had always been healthy and I always ate a healthy diet. I barely ate red meat, or other meat and I filled up on vegetables, organic foods and on top of that I exercised. So I thought that it could not be anything bad. Furthermore, I didn't have any strange symptoms. Well yes, maybe I did feel a little tired, but for me that was normal because I had been studying for my Master's [degree]. On top of that I had been working part time at the university, assisting a professor and I had my son who was three years old. At that moment, I was still married but I practically took care of all of the household chores. Furthermore, I took care of the child. I practically did it all.

I thought that being tired was normal for the lifestyle that I led. That same afternoon I went to the radiology center and they did a CAT scan on my neck, all of my neck. That was Friday--probably the last Friday that I felt calm for a long time.

Monday morning, while I was getting ready to leave the house to go to the university, I received a call from the doctor who had the results from the CAT scan. The radiologist had told her that the lump on my neck could be lymphoma or cancer in the thyroid. That was obviously not a definite diagnosis but we had to do more tests to make sure and to do a final diagnosis.

In the moment that the word cancer was mentioned, my whole world sank. I hung up the phone and I began to cry and I could not stop crying. I cried like I had never cried before. I was hysterical, I couldn't think or anything. I could not believe it. How could this be? How could it be that I had cancer? I was only 24 years old and I was healthy. I never got sick. For me this was impossible, but apparently this was going to be my reality.

I finished dressing the best that I could. I woke up my baby. We went to the university. I took him to school and the whole time I was holding back the tears so that he wouldn't see me crying, but I couldn't get it out of my head. I went to talk to the doctor and she explained that she had seen other cases of lymphoma here at the university--it was something curable. My life would change for a few weeks, but it would all return to normal.

We had to make sure what it was that I had and we had to do more tests. So she referred me to get more CAT scans done on the rest of my body from my neck down, and to get a biopsy done in order to get a diagnosis. The following weeks were long and depressing. I was scared, I was anxious. I didn't know what to do, but I had hope that it would all turn out okay. Everyone that I talked to--my family and my friends--assured me that it wasn't anything bad. So I had hope that it wouldn't be.

They did a biopsy and two days after the biopsy they called me to tell me their diagnosis. There they told me that I had Hodgkin's. In that moment, when they told me what I had, I didn't feel the same way that I felt the first time--when they told me it could be cancer. I already had time to register the idea and I accepted it. I felt calm and I did not cry. I had prayed a lot and I knew that if this was God's will then I would have to accept it. Furthermore, I had already gotten information and I knew that Hodgkin's was curable.

Choosing Between Treatment Options

In that same moment that they told me what I had, I decided that I was going to get better no matter what. The weeks after the diagnosis were very heavy. They kept doing tests and more tests to figure out for sure what stage the disease was in, and to decide on treatment. I reached a point where I was tired of doctors--tired of them taking my blood. I wanted to start the treatment because what I wanted was to get well.

At last they diagnosed me at stage II A, because while they did other tests they found that I had two more nodes besides the lump that I had on my neck. They gave me two treatments to choose from. The first option was only radiotherapy for six weeks and the second was a combination of chemotherapy with radiotherapy. The percentage of cancer recurring with the first was more or less 40%, with the second there was only a 20 percent chance. For me the decision was obvious. Obviously, I wanted the treatment with the highest probability of living--to get well so that I could see my son grow up. I chose the combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In total there were two cycles of chemotherapy, which lasted two months, and afterwards there were five or six weeks of radiotherapy. The chemotherapy was a combination of four drugs that are called "ABBV" for the initials of each one.

During my treatment I received a great deal of support. My parents helped me so much, my friends, all of my family, my grandparents. My mom came to stay with me, helping me in the house, helping with my baby. Everyone was really worried. Everyone prayed for me and there were so many people praying for me that I couldn't believe it--people who I did not even know, whom I had not even met, and who did not know me. At that time I became closer to God. It was He that gave me the strength to be able to get over the disease and keep going. If it had not been for my faith, I believe that it would have been much more difficult.

Cancer and the Affects on a Marriage

At the same time my marriage was getting worse. I did not receive the support that I had hoped for from my partner. In many moments, instead of supporting me, he took away my hope. He was egotistical. He didn't realize what was happening--how I felt. He got mad at me if I wanted to stay in bed, because I didn't want to go out.

The truth is that it was very difficult to brave this situation because at the moment that I most needed it, he didn't show me real love. At the same time it was a way for me to open my eyes to the reality of the relationship that I had with him, that in reality things hadn't been going well for a while. I thought that with the situation, my illness, things would change, but I realized that they were not changing, and if they didn't change now, they weren't going to change. For that reason, a little while after finishing my treatments, we separated.

The truth is that it is really important to have support from your partner in moments like this because they are difficult moments. For me this was particularly difficult because of my age. Because I was so young, I sat there in the chemotherapy room and all around me I saw elderly people, who had already lived their lives and me, I was only twenty-four years old, and I was in the same room with my serum and my chemotherapy.

Thank God my body accepted the chemotherapy well. All of my hair didn't even fall out. This was incredible because it was one of the things I was most worried about for my baby -- my boy was only three years old and in reality he didn't know what was happening. I thought that if all of my hair fell and he saw me bald, maybe he would get scared or worried, and I didn't want him to worry. That was really amazing.

Yes, I obviously felt weak after every treatment. I had two or three days that all I wanted to do was lay in bed to rest. I never got nausea, but my stomach did turn over a little. I never vomited or anything like that, but of course they always gave me medicine to avoid getting sick. My immune system did lower, especially the white blood cells. They lowered a great deal with every chemotherapy session. They lowered more and they had to give me shots to increase my immune system, so that I could receive the next cycle.

After the second cycle they did more tests, the CAT Scans and the nuclear tests, and in those tests they found that 95 percent of the cancer had disappeared, which was really good news for me. The day they told me this I was super happy because the chemotherapy had worked and I knew or I had faith that it was going to work--and it did.

Life After Treatment: A Miracle Baby

The radiotherapy started maybe four weeks after finishing the chemotherapy and it was much more difficult and more depressing for me. Because I was in the radiotherapy room alone, and it was a cold room and I was surrounded by a machine, a giant intimidating machine, and it was really sad to be there. Then they radiated all of the area from my jaw to my waist, more or less all of the lymph nodes in this area including my spleen, and the esophagus burned inside. I couldn't swallow anything solid. For six weeks I drank milkshakes and even swallowing the milkshakes was painful. I had to keep going daily they kept giving me the serum, until I finished the radiotherapy.

I tried to maintain a positive attitude all of the time. Since the beginning, I accepted my illness. I accepted the treatments like something good, not something bad, because it was the treatments that were going to cure me and I wanted to get better so they were something good for me. I prayed a great deal and this helped me--it was the thing that helped me the most. Although my body was weak, my soul, my spirit, was strong. I also meditated a lot and I practiced yoga to relax me. This helped me a lot, also to feel more relaxed. It is not easy to go through the treatments, but it is possible. You can if you want, if you want to get better--and well here I am.

Today it has been a little more than 2 years since I finished the treatments and I fought my cancer. While receiving my treatments I finished my Master's--with honors. I received a job offer and now I have a good job. Seven months ago I gave birth to a precious, healthy baby, which for me is a miracle that she lived because they said that the chances of being sterile are high after treatment. But here is the proof that anything can happen.

Now I live day to day. I appreciate my life much more than before, and I can say that cancer made me a stronger person because now I am willing to fight against whatever may present itself and I know that I can succeed.

To the people who are going through cancer right now, my advice is that you have faith, faith in your doctors, in your treatments, in God, and in yourselves. Keep a positive attitude and never let anyone take away hope, nor let them give you negative ideas. This is really important. You will see that you have strength and you can overcome it.

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