Radio Silence

For the past month, things have been a little haywire. I haven't been able to write because of that, but I'm hoping that things are now calm enough to get back at least to 'relative' normal.

On May 7th, I had a tumor removed from my bladder, and it turned out to be a transitional cell carcinoma. At 24, with no history of smoking, drinking, or any other form of body abuse (aside from an excess of chocolate), I had cancer.

The good news is that of all the cancers out there, this is probably the easiest one to deal with. As long as you catch it early (which we did), you can just cut it out. The most difficult part of it is that I have to have cystoscopies regularly now, every three months for the first one or two years and then every six months after that, because this cancer has a recurrence rate of around 70%.

It's been eye opening. At first I was so upset, (I found out accidentally when my gynecologist shared a letter my urologist had sent to her regarding the tumor), but after I had time to calm down and actually talk to my doctor, I understood the diagnosis a lot better. It's apparently extremely rare in young, non-smoking women, but it happens. And the good news is, that as long as we're diligent and keep checking for recurrence, it shouldn't have any effect on my lifespan.

Thinking about anything having an effect on my lifespan at my age is a little sad. I'm turning 25 in less than 2 weeks, and I've already had two surgeries and forced menopause to treat my endometriosis, and now I've also had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my bladder. I think I deserve nothing but colds for a little while.

I debated a long time about posting anything regarding this, because I didn't want to elicit the sympathy, angsty thing. However, I think it's important that anyone who reads this (I know there are a few of you) knows that it's always important to listen to your body and follow your doctor's advice.

If I had ignored the UTIs that kept cropping up and passing them off as nothing more than new evidence of a weak immune system, the cancer could have gotten much worse. I'm so glad I took action to find out what was wrong with me - and I always encourage anybody else to do the same. There's never a time that's too inconvenient or too difficult to protect your health and your body.

PS - We named the tumor Buford. May he rest in peace and stay beneath his fucking gravestone. No zombie tumors rising from the dead to plague me again, please.