Leukemia

One of the most important parts of going  through cancer is the recovery. A patient experiences both emotional and physical pain after treatment, and has a hard time with recovery.

 

After cancer and treatment many patients have to deal with emotional problems such as depression or anxiety. Some tend to have problems with depression and anxiety during their treatment. I have created a poem to express the emotional rollercoaster a cancer patient has to experience during cancer and after. 

 

Hope Counts

By: Bridget M.

 

Those three words are heartbreaking.

Hearing someone say “You have cancer”,

makes your heart sink into your stomach.

You don’t know how, or why, this happened to you.

 

I’m going to get through this,

I would tell myself.

The grief. The stress. The pain.

Anything I had to do to get better.

 

But cancer made me weak,

and I felt as if I had no hope.

I lost weight. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep.

I was losing interest in everything.

And that’s when I knew cancer was bringing me down.

 

Not only do I have cancer,

but now this disease was causing depression.

Further into treatment, I just kept losing hope.

Part of me was saying just let me die, I don’t want to live.

I don’t want to live with this poison inside of my body.

 

Each day, I was just dragging on.

Getting closer and closer to being done with treatment.

But each day I also feared for the worst.

Feelings of apprehension exploded in my mind.

What if I don’t get better.

 

The last day of chemo was my best and worst day.

What ifs filled my mind, but I had gained hope.

Having to go through cancer,

made me realize how short life can be.

So on that very last day of treatment, I smiled.

 

Life is short, and I’m not going to let something

continue to control me, even when it’s gone.

I’m going to get past depression and anxiety,

and every emotional problem, because there is hope.

 

Cancer has affected my life so much.

It changes everything about you.

It challenges your mind, your body, and your soul.

Even when you feel like giving up,

all you have to do is keep fighting.

 

 

Not only do cancer patients struggle with the emotional recovery, they also have a tough time dealing with the physical recovery because it creates even more pain. I have created a persuasive essay that encourages cancer patients to  take part in rehabilitation or at least adjust their lives to stay healthy after cancer. 

 

 

You Can’t Do It Alone

By: Bridget M.

 

          After any type of cancer and treatment, many patients refuse to have even more help. The patients are tired of being dependent on doctors, or friends and family, and they just want to recover by themselves. They think that it’s easy to adjust to their new life, and some patients refer to it as the “new norm” or “new normal”. Recovery is one of the hardest parts of cancer, and a patient can not recover on their own. While recovering from cancer, rehabilitation and adjusting your life can help with a full recovery faster than time healing it, and can help you beat the “new norm.”

 

          There doesn’t have to be a new normal. Rehabilitation is one of the many things a cancer patient can do to get back their regular selves. Yes, it’s impossible to completely erase cancer from a patient, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t beat it. Rehab helps a person become more independent because they have been used to always having people around helping them, such as doctors or family members and friends. When first starting rehab, a patient is guided with a caregiver. The patient is still dependent on the caregiver, but they are taught how become more independent and how to take care of themselves. Rehab helps the patient deal with the fatiguing, weight loss, concentration problems, and helps you have better control of your nervous system. Rehab helps you bounce back faster from cancer, and many people who plan to go back to school or work use rehab to help strengthen themselves. Rehabilitation is a more resourceful way to strengthen your body instead of letting time heal the cancer.  

 

          Therapy is another beneficial treatment after cancer because it can help heal your body and your mind. There are many different types of therapy that a cancer patient can take part in. One type of therapy that is common for cancer patients to take part in is holistic therapy. Holistic therapy addresses the emotional part of a patient and their mentality. Many cancer patients have trouble with anxiety and depression during and after cancer, and holistic therapy helps them overcome emotional problems. Another type of therapy that benefits a patient is reflexology, which is a type of massage therapy. Since patients have a hard time dealing with pain after cancer treatment, they decide to do reflexology. Reflexologists apply pressure to certain parts of the body that can correspond with internal organs. For example, if a patient has some sort of pain on their left side, a reflexologist could apply pressure to a certain spot on your left foot to ease the pain. A cancer patient could benefit from reflexology because it eases the pain and calms the patient down. There are many more physical and emotional types of therapy can help cancer patients get back to their lives before cancer and not have to create a new normal for themselves.   

 

          Another important factor that can benefit a cancer patient or survivor is being able to physically adjust your life after treatment. As mentioned before, rehab or therapy is an amazing process to get your life back on track. Some patients begin rehab or therapy during their treatment so they can have an easier time after treatment is over. But others prefer to not start rehab during treatment because they are too weak, and they could eventually forget about rehab or therapy. If a cancer patient or survivor refuses to be in some kind of therapy or rehab, the best thing they can do is exercise or small activities. Life after cancer is very different than life before all of it happened. When a patient does not want to be in therapy, then doctors recommend starting off with exercises, because time cannot completely heal cancer. Starting small physical activities is a simple task, and easy tasks will motivate a person to do so. Some beneficial activities include walking for fitness or even doing small exercises to their favorite song. Also doctors recommend doing small chores around the house as a physical activity. Doing small physical activities after cancer can help reduce the risk of blood clotting, improve one's balance, and also lower the risks of anxiety and depression. Not only does adjusting your life benefit yourself physically, but also benefits mentally.

 

          Recovery is a huge part of cancer.Without the proper care or treatment after cancer, a patient can only weaken themselves even more and increase the chance of a relapse of cancer. Rehabilitation and adjustment of life can help a patient strengthen their body and get back to their normal lives. Recovery not only helps a patient beat cancer but also helps one beat the “new normal”. There doesn’t have to be a “new normal” if one follows the right path of recovery. Both ways of recovery help a patient recover even faster, because time cannot not heal cancer. It just drags it on, and adjusting your life or going into rehab can help you be free of cancer. For good.