Facing Cancer as a Young Adult
- Young adults with cancer often find it difficult to find the resources they yearn for after a diagnosis
- Connecting with others who have been through their own cancer journeys was incredibly helpful for lymphoma survivor Mag Bujalski
- Having someone to talk to makes a real difference when new questions or new symptoms pop up, Mag says
“When I first got sick, I did what most people do and I turned to Instagram, YouTube, Google – famous doctor Google,” Mag says. “And I noticed that there was a lot of stuff about pediatric cancer, a lot about cancers in older people, but there wasn’t a lot about cancers in young adults and people my age.”
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“Anytime I would have any concerns or any questions or I wasn’t sure what to expect or how to tackle a different symptom, I could always have somebody to reach out to,” she says. “I could always have somebody to talk to.”
“If you have not reached out to another cancer survivor, even if it’s not the same cancer, I highly recommend that you do,” Mag advises other survivors.
Young Adults & Cancer
Unsurprisingly, the lack of focus on young adult survivors has led others to action as well. Matthew Zachary, the founder of Stupid Cancer, spoke to SurvivorNet in the past about why he created an organization specifically to help people cope with the complexities of facing cancer at a young adult.
“It isn’t better than kids of better than old people, it’s different,” he said. “And if you want to save our lives, it requires a completely different framework.”
Fear of Relapse
Mag says that one of the hardest things she had to deal with – after actually finishing up cancer treatment – was the fear that her cancer would return.
“I know that for me the biggest worry at first was, how am I ever going to get those thoughts out of my head of relapse? How am I ever going to live normally everyday without thinking, wow, that cough that I had, what if that’s my cancer?”
She wanted to assure other survivors that, while those worries may not go away, they get less intense, and easier to cope with.
“I very rarely think of cancer nowadays,” she says. “I very rarely worry about it. It doesn’t keep me up at night anymore and that it such a freeing feeling.”
“I trust that I’m in good hands, and that I am still being monitored,” she says. “I don’t let it consume me. I do try to live my life to the fullest.”
Moving On
If there is one thing that cancer teaches you, Mag says, it’s the importance of being present in the current moment.
“I think [it’s] very important to be present because that is definitely one of the biggest lessons that cancer has taught me,” she says. “So, if you’re in that stage where everyday you’re fearing relapse, I understand you and I completely get where you’re coming from … but trust me, it will get better.”
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