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Patients Against Lymphoma

 

Support > Patient-to-Patient > Patient Experiences & Guidance

Ken:  having this type of cancer isn't "THE END"

To those of you who have just joined this group [nhl-follic], don't give up the ship just yet. This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote just after finding this site. I've come to realize over the last few months, that having this type of cancer isn't "THE END", it's just a nasty bump in the road of life.

"I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes in a panic. I get to the point where I'm half awake/half asleep and the wheels just start spinning. By the time I'm fully alert, I'm also fully out of control. By that point I'm already dead, buried and long forgotten, and completely in the rats. My wife is usually awakened by my thrashing around and finishes waking me. Then she sets about trying to calm me down. It's been getting much less frequent, and not nearly so severe. 

Now I'm usually just kind of bummed out for awhile. Initially it was very bad, especially during the first 2 weeks. In honesty it terrifies me to think that someday I won't be there to see any of the real milestones in my daughters life. I cried, sometimes for hours, because of all the things I wouldn't get to see or do with my daughter. And sometimes it still hurts, A LOT."

That was six months ago. The reply I got was full of understanding from someone who has already gone down this part of the road. I have received letters from several people on this site that prove, you are
not alone, there are other people out there who understand, because they are also going through this themselves. So take heart, it's always a good day when you're looking at the top side of the sods, instead of the bottom. And the research is still going on to hopefully sometime find a real cure.

 
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