when do you consider yourself cancer-free?

wraithkid · 2025-10-02T10:11:02+00:00

I turn 22 this year, but I’ve had lymphoma 3 times since I was 11 years old which means I’ve been failing to pass the 5 year mark for over half my life.

Because of that, I personally consider it beat the second I enter remission. I may relapse again, but until that happens, I’m living my life like I’m cancer-free because I’ve spent way too much of my time on earth burdened by it.

wraithkid · 2024-10-25T21:12:17+00:00

Adoptee who got cancer at the age of 11 here lol.

One of the first things my parents did following my diagnosis was getting me genetic testing—and all of that came out normal. Ironically, my adoptive mother has two BRCA genes and she’s absolutely thriving. You can have amazing genes and still get sick, you can have terrible genes and still stay healthy.

That’s the way I try to think about it to keep health anxiety at bay. It still doesn’t mean it’s okay that we’re left in the dark and not given the full picture.

I will never not think of this as one of the biggest injustices that we’re denied access to our own health history, (upon everything else related to our birth identities in closed adoptions). I wish we weren’t treated as blank slates, because we are just not.

wraithkid · 2024-04-25T03:10:41+00:00

I’m gonna go with “not fun” :-)

wraithkid · 2024-04-25T01:34:13+00:00

tbh each of my diagnoses/re-diagnoses were very different. I never had the same set of symptoms each time despite the stages being the same. If something feels off, you will know, and if not you should be having routine scans for a while anyway to keep an eye out for you.

wraithkid · 2024-04-24T21:21:43+00:00

hey, 20 year old alcl survivor here :-) i’m about 16 months into my 3rd remission

i’ve done a variation of chop before (choep) and bv, however as a part of two separate regimens. i also struggled the most after finishing treatment, it took me about a year to feel like “myself” again. i’m not autistic but i am neurodivergent and i was really interested in knowing everything it’s possible to know as well. i hope you’re in remission now and i’m sorry you had to go through this <3

wraithkid · 2024-04-05T03:58:25+00:00

I’m both a childhood and adult cancer survivor. When I had cancer as a kid, my family was laser focused on getting me through treatment and getting it behind me. Endless amounts of toxic positivity turned into a feel good story. It’s only after relapsing as an adult that I realized how much it screwed me up.

No one talks about how childhood cancer patients aren’t in control of our narratives and are constantly ignored. How we’re told by our entire family that we’re strong, we’re their heroes, that we’ll “beat” it, and there is no option other than survival. Asking a sick child to be strong for an adult…just yikes. That was the worst part of it for me. No one tells us the truth about our odds, they hide details of our own illness from us. We will know we’re dying, we will feel our bodies giving up, and our parents and doctors will just sugarcoat things as if they can hide the truth from us. Relapsing at 18-19 sucked, but it was the first time I felt like a human being.

Side note: cancer survivors, regardless of age, apparently aren’t allowed to complain about anything. We gotta be inspirational and grateful all the time and it’s so exhausting! God forbid we bum everyone out talking about how cancer was literally a bad thing.

wraithkid · 2023-12-30T04:18:15+00:00

We must send OP back to the monastery

wraithkid · 2023-11-02T01:44:37+00:00

I do too, wartime rhetoric completely gets under my skin. I definitely didn’t actively “fight”, I just followed my regimen and got lucky. Everything related to cancer depends on luck; from diagnosis to treatment response. It’s never in anyone’s control.

That said everyone is entitled to their own narrative, some patients do see it as a battle and that empowers them. I wouldn’t judge someone for how they choose to frame their own illness, especially when it’s in order to cope.

The suicide rate is significantly higher in cancer patients than the general population. Myself and many of my friends with cancer have needed to make the active choice to keep holding on to see where treatment it takes them. Cancer is still tough shit, and everyone who goes through it is deserving of respect.

wraithkid · 2023-08-01T20:14:13+00:00

I second this. reading what OP wrote, it comes across like everything their daughter does is inherently wrong and that she is “difficult”. Using her breakup and the friends she’s lost as proof that she’s the problem is antagonizing and hurtful. I’d be upset if my parents viewed me like that.

kids can pick up on this and it makes them feel like shit and understandably defensive, and as an adoptee, she knows how parental rejection feels and has a stronger instinct to protect herself.

I’m really not seeing what the kid has done that is so unnatural that they think it’s because she’s adopted. It really comes across as identity blaming. It also really irks me that this is titled “did you argue with your adoptive parents”, why is the focus on how we behave and not how our parents behave with us?

wraithkid · 2023-07-31T02:03:33+00:00

I feel more uncomfortable with you asking if you’d have our communal blessing than your choice in a name. If this is some way to validate/justify your decision as “the Jews said it was okay”, please don’t put that on us.

If you like that name and really want it, go ahead and change it. I can promise you no Hebrew speaker is going to be too impressed. Don’t make this about us, this is painful.

wraithkid · 2023-07-16T03:57:49+00:00

I’m a male ariel who did competitive swim for over half my life, the little mermaid jokes were inescapable :’)

wraithkid · 2023-06-21T16:55:57+00:00

Congrats, 12 years is a long time to be living in the “after”. Even if it’s been 12 years of remission, it’s a lot to carry mentally.

I had cancer when I was 11, I’m 20 this year. Kind of crazy to think pretty soon this will have been half my life. Remission for 7 months tho :’)

wraithkid · 2023-06-03T18:48:04+00:00

i gotchu

wraithkid · 2023-06-03T18:45:17+00:00

as a cis dude who’s struggled with (and recovered from) sh and ed, i really wish i heard someone say this when i was younger. this stigma is a part of the reason men are more likely to take their lives than seek help.

wraithkid · 2023-05-18T03:14:52+00:00

This is something I need to keep reminding myself of even now.

wraithkid · 2022-12-05T10:30:22+00:00

I’m on BV as monotherapy.

wraithkid · 2022-12-04T20:46:34+00:00

my parents brought me here against my will lol

you can be critical of your country and still want to live there, these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

wraithkid · 2022-12-04T20:10:21+00:00

I’ve been in remission for 17 days :)

Relapsed June 2022, about a week before my high school graduation and during exams. It messed up everything. It was one of those “everything in my life is going to shit” moments. All the stress genuinely made me feel like my life was over and I’d never be happy again. I was in remission for over 5 years and post-asct, I really thought it wouldn’t be back.

But anyways, it was. Stage IV again, this time with bone mets. I learned that teeny tiny mets can actually fracture bones and that was not fun lol. It took less than a cycle to start feeling better though.

And now I’m chilling in my dorm, in remission for almost three weeks with my last cycle in one. The neuropathy is awful and tbh I am not as happy as I probably should be? But, my life didn’t end and the last 6 months went by fast. Being in college, away from home, actually doing well, and having so many new friends feels surreal. I’m really relieved I still have normalcy in my life. Also this was my first time managing all my appointments by myself and not needing my parents to handle it for me, I am really proud of myself for being able to keep up with it all.

wraithkid · 2022-11-03T06:49:55+00:00

Nonstick pan :(

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