BAM! It hits you: A Twenty Year Old College Student Reflects on a Cancer Diagnosis

by Dana Glenn

for Advanced Composition, ETSU, Spring 2011

Twenty years old is strange stage in the lives of most of the people that I know. It’s that awkward phase where you’re not a teenager anymore, but you’re still not old enough to drink and be completely legal. Some of us are immersed in a full time job, others are working our way to a college degree in order to attain our dream job. Some of us are raising a family and others are still living at home. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that at twenty years old I would be spending my afternoon sitting in the waiting room of the oncology floor of the local doctor’s office.

In my life, bad news has a way of coming on the last day of the month. New Years Eve, for example, was the day when the love of my life and best friend in the world decided to let his new girlfriend answer my phone call. So perhaps I should not have been surprised when I got a phone call from my doctor at 7 p.m. on the last day of February. Dr. Stanski and I had been playing phone tag all day, but waiting for her to return my call had completely slipped my mind. I was sitting in the East Tennessee State University library griping about Econ while studying with my sorority little sister, Ashley Ann, when the phone rang. I answered it, again not thinking much about it.

A little over a week before the phone call came, I had undergone a procedure to have a mole taken off of my arm. I didn’t think much about it, as I have had three other moles taken off with no problem and we have no family history of skin cancer. Unlike the other moles that had been removed earlier on, though, I soon found out that this one was malignant. I had cancer, melanoma for sure, but possibly in my lymph nodes too.

When you receive news like that, there’s never a correct response. I wadded up a piece of paper and threw it, which didn’t even phase Ashley. I texted my parents, as I didn’t know how to approach the subject. As much as I enjoy using the shock factor on my parents, I didn’t feel like a “Hey Mom! Guess what? I have cancer… Surprise!” phone call was appropriate in this situation. My mom immediately called back asking questions and my dad soon followed. I explained things the best that I could, and how I did so without crying is beyond me. When the explosion of phone calls was over, I laid my head down and cried in the middle of a study room. I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity for a whole two minutes before explaining the situation to Ashley. The good thing about best friends is that they understand you. Ashley sat there silently, knowing that eventually I would explain things. “I have cancer,” I said, “Melanoma, but it might be in my lymph nodes too.” “Oh, God,” Ashley said, her mouth hanging open. “Are you okay? I don’t even know what to say.” So we left it at that.

Ashley and I made the decision to go do something fun. We wanted to play on the playground, but it was dark and rainy. We wanted to go bowling, but I had just had my arm cut open and so that seemed like a bad idea. We wanted to craft, but Michael’s was closed. So we ended up eating three orders of onion rings at CookOut and then went to the sorority floor of Lucille Clement. Apparently everyone had just gotten out of a Relay for Life Committee meeting, as cancer and Relay for Life were the main topics on the hall. (Relay for Life is an event held around the country that benefits the American Cancer Society.) Go figure. In sororities, we have a tendency to fight our battles (as well as do most other activities) in packs. However, after listening to the Relay for Life Spirit Chair talk about the “GOOOOOOO CANCER SURVIVORS!!! YAYYYY!” cheer that she had created, complete with spirit fingers, I decided that this was a battle I was going to fight alone. I had better things to do than be paraded around like a show horse at Relay for Life so that my sorority could do some kind of chant and make some big deal about it. Ashley agreed it was our “Big and Little” secret, I promised her that I would continue to be “rowdy as hell” and it was left at that.

I went to pre-op on Friday of that week, which should have been some prelude to what kind of experience my surgery was going to be. After meeting with an extremely nice receptionist who assured me everything would be just fine, that her sister had been through the same thing and was doing better than ever, I returned to the waiting room. I would wait there for a good hour, bitching to my momma about how dumb all of this was, until eventually she changed the subject to politics (something she absolutely hates, but I love), in order to stop my complaining. Eventually I would make it into another room, where I would wait two more hours for an anesthesiologist to come talk with me.

“Oh no,” my momma says. I look up to see the worst anesthesiologist I have ever dealt with entering the room. “It’s you again… Are you working Monday?” she asks, referring to the date of my surgery. “Nope,” he responds. “Oh thank God,” we say in unison. “Every time we’re here we have to wait on you,” my mom complains. “Well, it’s not my fault that I am more busier than the other anesthesiologists.” Usually, I am not a hateful person. However, something about this man brings out the worst in me. Perhaps it’s his smartass attitude, or it could be the way he yanked a breathing tube out of my nose and then shoved it back in last summer. “What’s your name?” he asks me, looking at my paper work. “Dana,” I respond flatly. “Dana what?” For a second, I thought about telling him that was it. Just Dana, like Madonna or Prince. “Dana. Nicole. Glenn.” He continues to ask me a series of questions, tell me I could die under the anesthesia, blah blah blah. There is no emotion in his voice, he is just smug and annoying. “Any questions?” he asks and I can assure you my mom probably cringed at this point. “Sure do,” I said. “Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you realize that ‘more busier’ is not correct grammar?”

Surgery was the following Monday, which was not a pleasant experience for myself or for the Holston Valley Hospital staff that had the privilege of dealing with me. I was fine during my lymphoma test thanks to a nice nurse that held my hand while I was having dye injected into my body. However, when it came time to get my IV, it was all over. The nurse couldn’t find a good vein in my hand, so a doctor slammed my head down on the bed to find a vein in my neck. After a mild temper tantrum, I ended up with an IV in my hand. When I came to, the first thing my mom told me was that my scar wasn’t bad at all and that they had taken out a few of my lymph nodes. Of course I had to see for myself, and that is when I began sobbing uncontrollably.

One thing I have learned from having a chronic illness (ulcerative colitis) is that you can lie to yourself for a long time about being sick. You can tell yourself that you’re fine and that you’re getting better, even if you aren’t, and you will believe that for a while. But then there is a physical sign that just won’t let you forget no matter how hard you try. With my first run-in with ulcerative colitis, I had to take chemotherapy pills which caused my hair to fall out. While I could ignore all of the other things about my UC, the chunks of hair that piled up in the shower or on the bathroom floor or that clung to the back of my NorthFace jacket couldn’t lie. With cancer, my scar was this proof. But unlike my hair that grew back better than ever, I didn’t have that kind of luck with my scar. It looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to my arm, hollowing out a nice spot in my bicep.

I am a vain person, and that is not something I care to admit. I do not really care about the looks of other people, but I do like to look my best. Now, I not only had a two inch, uneven scar running down my arm, as well as a bulge on my underarm from built up lymphatic fluid, but because of all of these incisions I could not move my right arm. This made it impossible to do any kind of self grooming, which meant my mom was responsible for the tasks of brushing my hair, pulling it back out of my face, and dressing me. I refuse to wear any kind of shirt that shows my arm, because looking at my scar is a reminder of everything I have dealt with. According to my mom I’ll appreciate that some day, but until then it is staying covered up.

The oncologist visit was another one of those moments where BAM! It hits you. You are sick. Something is wrong. I didn’t sleep at all the night before, and of course the day of my visit would also have to be the day from hell. After enough bullshit, I left Johnson City and headed to the doctor an hour early. Apparently on my drive to Kingsport, I also turned into the equivalent of a five year old child. I stopped at a cupcakery for a snack, and when I arrived at the doctor’s office I literally drug my feet as I walked in. I became sassy with the receptionist that asked to see a photo i.d. (Seriously, who would pretend to be a cancer patient? Come on now.) And I cried in the waiting room. And I cried again when I found out that I had to have more tests run. And then I bawled my eyes out when I found out that I was going to have to go to Vanderbilt hospital. When the time came for blood work, I threw another tantrum. I begged my Momma to take me back home to Surgoinsville, to let me withdraw from all of my classes since there is no happy balance between being a pre-law college student and a cancer patient, and then she cried too.

But just like cancer doesn’t stop for anyone, neither do my college classes or my dream of becoming a corporate lawyer. So I hopped in my shiny red Mustang and went back to Johnson City, to ETSU, to my hellhole of an apartment, and to a world where the biggest decision most of my twenty year old friends are worried about making is whether to drink beer or liquor and what to wear on a Thursday night. Each morning I make the decision of whether or not I’m ready to go out and face the world. Some days I am, other days I am not. Regardless, I try to face the world with a sense of humor about all of this. My hopes are that BAM! One day it will just hit me why all of this happened to me and it will make perfect sense. But until then, I will face the day (in a long-sleeved shirt, of course) with a lack of energy and a sense of humor.