Blogger Georgie Swallows, 27, says that finding fun ways to think about her changing looks during cancer helped her overcome some of the self-image difficulties she had after her cancer diagnosis.
When Swallows was first diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma she underwent six months of chemotherapy treatment. After going into remission, her disease came back this June.
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Swallows has written throughout her cancer journey on topics like the dilemmas and decisions she has had to face as a patient, the difficulty of having a cancer relapse, the friends she’s made within the cancer communities, and relationships during cancer.
Georgie’s journey with Hodkin’s Lymphoma
In the introduction to Georgie’s blog, she talks a lot about what it means to be brave, which she says is a word she’s met with constantly. “Brave… This is a word I hear often these days. Not because I am challenging myself to climb Everest or perhaps even learning the trade of a lion tamer. No, I’m brave because I am endeavouring to live.”
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She says that trying to get healthy is her form of bravery, “That’s it essentially. I am brave because I am continuing to seek medical treatment for a disease trying to kill me.”
And also asks herself some philosophical questions, “Are we braver now, because of cancer, or perhaps have we just realized our time is limited?”
When Georgie was first diagnosed, she was totally caught off guard by the disease. “My diagnosis was such a shock, I had been to the doctors three or four times before in the year as I had the most unscratchable itch, I cut certain foods as I thought it might have been an allergy and I was told it was eczema by doctors,” said.
And she thought some of her symptoms were related to her lifestyle, “I lost two stone in four weeks but at the time I was drinking meal replacement shakes so I thought they were amazing, I recommended it to all of my friends.”
Only to realize they were symptoms of cancer, “Unbeknownst to me, it was another symptom of Hodgkin's lymphoma, I only started to worry and research my symptoms when I suffered a month long bout of flu and woke up with a huge plum-sized lump in my throat.”
She said she’d thought for a moment she might have cancer, but didn’t take the possibility seriously, “I self-diagnosed myself with cancer but talked myself out of it as there’s the joke of ‘don’t Google your symptoms as it will say you have cancer,’ but this time I actually did.”
After the initial diagnosis, things started moving quickly. "It all happened so fast, I had a CT scan, biopsy and more tests then the following day I started chemotherapy in September 2018.
And that was a good thing, because she had to keep moving forward, “The speed was a blessing, I didn’t have time to think, the day I was told I got my hair chopped off and I brought loads of comfy clothes.
And she kept finding ways to make herself feel better throughout it all, "I just thought of fun ways to make sure cancer doesn’t bring me down, such as bringing a picnic to chemo.”
Information about Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
Unlike leukemia, which is a disease that results from too many white blood cells, lymphomas are white blood cell cancers that form tumors in the lymphatic system. "Quiet literally, lymph is lymphatic system -phoma means tumors, so lymphoma is white blood cell cancer that forms tumors in the lymphatic system," Dr. Peter Martin at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian, told SurvivorNet. "This is opposed to leukemia, which is too many white blood cells, typically in the bone marrow or blood stream. Lymphomas, specifically, are white blood cell cancers that form tumors in the lymphatic system." Dr. Martin was not referring specifically to Wilson's case.
Within lymphoma, there are Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's cases. "Hodgkins lymphoma is simply a white blood cell cancer that has a very specific sub-type of white blood cells seen in those tumors called Reed-Sternburg cells or Hodgkin's lymphoma cells," says Dr. Martin.
In 2019, there will be about 8,110 new cases of Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosed, and about 1,000 deaths due to the disease. Young people and adults can get Hodkin's Lymphoma, but it's most common in young adults before the age of 20. The risk rises again after age 55.
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