The Hardest Part

I was fortunate enough to celebrate living with lung cancer for ten years this past April. Even though I am so far removed from my initial diagnosis and I am doing well today, lung cancer is still very much a part of my day to day. One thing that I have noticed over the years is the changing and evolving of the hardest part of lung cancer.

The emotional toll of treatments

In the beginning, I said "the hardest part" was not knowing if I had a future. Time seemed to have been stolen from me with a mere utter of the words, "You have cancer." As time went on and I went through each new treatment, I realized that the goal was to find the golden treatment and ride it out for as long as possible.

While in treatment, I traveled to Boston for a clinical trial I found that the hardest part was the frequent appointments, the heavy mental toll of coordinating these appointments and medications, and working with the insurance company to make sure things were paid for. Making sure that I still had insurance was a battle, one that my employer at the time and I worked closely to manage. Time moved on and things seemed to be getting better, but while traveling for the clinical trial, my mental health was at an all time low.

When that trial failed, I moved on to even more treatments. I was lucky enough to start a second clinical trial that did not require as much extensive travel. I was deemed to have no evidence of disease (NED). I made some changes to my pill schedule and I felt well enough to explore better work arrangements. Everything seemed to be moving in the right direction!

Working through it

I started a new job and couldn't have been happier. I felt needed and that I was doing a good job at learning all of the new things. Again time went on, the hardest part was now balancing work and living with lung cancer. I have never liked playing the cancer card I want to be treated just like everyone else but sometimes I would need a little extra help. When the pandemic came about I started working remote because no one knew how it was going to affect those of use with lung cancer. There were a lot of scary things floating around, and I did not want to find out how bad it was.

How lung cancer reshaped my career and future

I have now worked full time for 5 years and the hardest part is realizing just how badly lung cancer has affected my career. While I have worked for the most part, I did move down to part-time right after being diagnosed, which negatively affected my career. At my age, I should have been learning things and developing as an employee, the hardest part was just trying to survive it. The hardest part was being diagnosed with this awful disease as a young adult before I was able to decide if I wanted a family, what I wanted my career to look like and a bunch of other major life decisions.

I am thankful to be where I am at today, living life along with my husband and pups.