By now we have told a small hand full of close friends and have asked them to keep it quiet as it is not 100% Lymphoma.
Tom and Catherine very kindly have invited me to join them in a small trip to Vancouver to the BC Cancer Agency Lymphoid Cancer Education Forum. Thanks T&C this was a great day for me and I learned lots!
There were some challenges though first one was they were giving everybody coloured dots to put on their name tags, these dots were based on the type of cancer you had. I don't know what I have yet I am waiting to hear, so I explain what my symptoms are to one of the doctors and they say here take a red dot it is as likely as the others, Tom & Catherine get yellow for Myeloma. We settle in for a coffee and some snacks prior to the forum beginning and can't help but notice there are a few unusual people here, and the most unusual seem to have RED dots. Tom jokes that they have definitely given me the correct colour dot.
We begin the learning portion of the day "the Lymphoid cancer basics" this was a fantastic overview for me and a real eye-opener, this doesn't have to be an ending to my story just a crappy summer perhaps. Next speaker is about "the new developments in treatment" this was interesting but a bit over my head with science. I got we have made great leaps in the treatment of these cancers and continue to make more all the time or there is hope!
The final speaker of the morning was a very energetic doctor who is a Lymphoma survivor himself and he went over the "why me and why now" portion of the day, very uplifting and made the day for me.
Next was a break followed by our colour coded breakout sessions. My colour as it turns out was the correct colour, not for the unusual person part as Tom suggested but for the fact that it was for the indolent non-Hodgkin Lymphoma group. It was a good session for me as I looked around the room and saw how many healthy people have survived this and how they all talked about how much quality they have in their lives; although they have not been "cured" they all talk about it like it is in their past and that it is not much different than any other chronic illness such as Diabetes or Chronic Asthma. You live, you monitor and when needed you medicate.
Lunch time
OK so we have a break which is good as I have taken in a bunch of information and I need time for it to soak in. I am looking for T & C and trying to avoid some of the "red" people, while I'm in the buffet line. Food is actually pretty good very good flavour actually not what I had expected at all. I find Catherine and Tom at one of the "yellow" tables and they have saved me a spot, thank goodness. We are sitting there enjoying our lunch and chatting about various things but mostly experiences with cancer, when the lady next to me notices that I have a red dot... I was thinking "is she going to ask me to sit with my own kind"? or what as she was quite taken aback by this. Then it was clear, she had assumed I was with Tom & Catherine and in a supporting role not here because I had cancer. She yelped, what? You are too young to have this how old are you? 28? THANK YOU I said no I am a bit older than that, but thanks. Well that made my day we can go home now!
The afternoon session was less formal but very good, it was a feature from a cancer survivor/former doctor/author and was very light hearted informative and fun. The big lesson here for me was you must write one thing down each day that made you laugh or smile; because, you will need to remember them some days when you don't think there is anything to smile about. That bit is in my pocket and everyday I make note of one smile>
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