Luisa, Guatemala
Where to begin? Well, like every good cancer patient let me introduce you to my diagnosis.
I am 31 years old and I am a brain cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called Glioblastoma Multiform grade IV (GBM) back in 2023. GBM is the most common and the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Treatment consists of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemo (pills).
The day I was told I was having brain surgery was on my 30th birthday and it was the beginning of a battle I never expected to endure. It was a 6-hour surgery that turned into a 9-hour surgery for me. Thankfully, I recovered a lot quicker than they expected and only spent one night in the ICU. My tumor was located in a very accessible area and my surgeon, bless his heart, was the best one for the job managing to extract four masses using an ultrasound machine on my brain. I was lucky I woke up pretty much unscattered from the surgery. I only had a slight weakness on my left side that I recovered eventually.
After that, they sent the masses to biopsy and I was referred to an oncologist. I remember the day I received the dreaded call, the doctor saying she needed to see me that afternoon to discuss the results. It is an out-of-body experience to hear you have an aggressive terminal disease that has a prognosis of 18 months to live - if you are lucky. It was without a doubt the worst day of my life. However, something very curious happened to me that day, after crying my eyes out, I had a moment of clarity where I was 100% sure I wanted to fight. I didn't want to think if it was going to work or not but I was not going down without a fight.
To anyone out there receiving their diagnosis I will say, take it one step at time. I knew from the beginning I was going to share it with my family and friends (a support system is key to endure the battle). One important thing to remember is, you are allowed to feel whatever feelings come to you. Yes you can be angry, you can be sad, you can feel hopeless, you can cry and break things and feel your feelings. Thinking back a lot of people said I had to be strong, and brave and unwavering. - As if I had an option to be anything but strong... Allow yourself time to process the news, be strong on your conviction before sharing with the world. The people that loves you will support your decision. Remember they will try to say things they think will help even though they will not understand what you are going through but it is from a place of love.
Long story short, I quickly was admitted to the hospital and assigned to go through 30 rounds of radiotherapy along with chemo at the same time. My type of cancer required chemo in pills not an IV like you see on TV. For all the brain cancer patients out there, radiation is rough. Since you cannot move one inch, they put on a plastic mask to keep you still during the session, and they secure it to the radiation table. It does not hurt, but it is claustrophobic.
During this time, I had the chance of reaching out to a non-profit community of psico-oncologysts that helped me learn coping mechanisms, like meditating, during this sessions to make it bearable. One lesson I learned is that I needed to help my mind and my body understand this treatment is what my body needed to heal. I think the hardest struggle of a cancer patient is to help our inner self understand this. Even though the treatment hurts, and makes us feel ill and our body rejects it, we need to mentally accept it for it to have the desired effect in our body. I encourage all patients out there to seek psicological assitance during this time. Trying to make sense of it alone is not easy and we are allowed to ask for help.
I finished my rounds and then had an additional 6-months of complimentary chemo one week a month. On Dec 2023, my final MRI came out clean, I was finally in remission.
Now with GBM what you have to understand is... you are never really out of the woods. GBM has a 90% probability of recurring in the same spot. I had to have thorough follow up MRIs every 3 months after to make sure I was clean. That changed to every 6-months, and little by little I reached the 18-month mark of my prognosis... clean of any sign of tumor in my brain. I was beating all the odds, all of the percentages and studies and medical theories... This was a landmark for me, I felt unstoppable and I understood, it does not matter how bad the prognosis looks, no one can dictate how long you will live...
We as humans do not know what is going to happen tomorrow and the only thing we can do is to live at the fullest one day at a time.
Today that we celebrate Cancer Day, I am still here officially in remission 2 years after it all started. I stand here today to tell you, do NOT give up. I live a happy life, for the most part I focus my attention to enjoying little things, there are days the shadow of the knowledge my tumor can reappear casts on my day to day, but it gets easier when thinking I better invest my time in enjoying and not worrying.
To those that are supporting a family member or a friend through this battle, remember we are more than our diagnosis. We just want to try and have a life as normal as possible. We do not want people to feel sorry about us, we just want empathy. Sometimes we get moody, and angry and sad... sometimes it is heavier than others. Be patient, we will eventually be back to be a new version of ourselves. Do not give up on us. We need you.
To those that lost someone on this battle, there are no such thing as losers in fighting cancer, every warrior that is no longer with us lived the best they could while they were around and today we must remember them by continuing to find a cure and encouraging others to go to the doctor, do not brush any symptom off. Take the time to take those tests.
Thanks for giving me a chance to share my story, I do not know if I will be in remission another year, another 5 years or 50 years, but while I can I will live my life at its fullest, with no regrets. If I can give a voice to those that are currently getting their diagnosis to know they are not alone I will every day that I can.