1Survivor4life's Journey with Primary Mediastinal B-Cell Lymphoma

The day I was diagnoised I had won the Superbowl pool at work and was exicted about having some good luck for a change. I got high fives in the morning at work and by 5:00 PM was being told I had cancer. There are a few days I will never forget and this one is in the top 5. The date was Jan 28 1999.

There is nothing easy about chemotherapy. My family made it tollerable and my faith made me strong. 9 months, 3 different types of therapy and then the big trial.

I thought chemotherapy was hard on my body and mind, but a stem cell transplant did things I have bad dreams about. It was a journey and I hope this doesn't scare anyone, but I won't sugar coat it. It sucked big time and I thought I was going to die a few times. My faith gave me strength to walk through it one day at a time. I felt the cancer dying and my body fightin back each day. Small steps, baby steps, sometimes a crawl. You ever watch a movie where some guy is in a fight against evil and he is on the ground and evil is kicking the crap out of him and you find yourself saying get up? That was me for 40 days at Stanford Medical Center. I was that guy who had to get up everyday. The good thing about being in a special hospital like Standford, you get alot of attention by the most amazing people. I left Stanford a better person spirtually, mentally, and physically. I left Stanford CANCER FREE!

I have short term memory issues at times and do puzzles and play video games to exercise my mind. If your spouse starts to tell you never listen to me, you got it. Talk to your doctor and see what you need to know.

I went through depression and anxiety after the stem cell transplant. I was taking some drugs for it for a year or two, but learn to control the anxiety and got off the pills. Remember stress is a known cause of illness. Don't let yourself get stressed.

The scariest thing happened one morning when I got up out of bed. I fainted and hit my head on our bathroom wall. The doctor said my heart muscles were damaged from the chemo and when I am resting my heart was not contracting enough when I was resting. I now take two medications for the rest of my life to keep my heart working hard enough when I sleep that I don't have more damage to it. I love the alternative :) Life

I now have two birthdays. My natural birth from my mom and then my stem cell transplant date. I was told by my nurse I can start counting over so I did. I am now 12 years old. Rebirthday is 20 Jan 2000.