I'm pleased to welcome guest blogger, Lauren (Lo) Najar, to share her battle with cancer and how she used laughter to win that battle--twice.
"The best thing you can do is master the chaos within you.
You are not thrown into the fire, YOU ARE THE FIRE" – Mama Indigo
I am a cancer survivor (still sounds odd to me). I am coming up on the five year mark (woo no more “pre-existing condition") and I couldn’t be more anxious or excited. These anniversaries are celebrated the same, if not more, than my real birthdays. Life began again for me on January 14th, 2013.In May 2011, when I was 23, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I received this news on my way to work in my car alone. Within an hour, I was meeting with my mom’s previous oncologist, going to the clinic she once used to go through more tests. My brother and sister met me there, who were both very upset (understandably). My parents at this point were both deceased previously and their deaths were recent. We couldn’t find the light at the end of the tunnel at this point. Nothing seemed to be going right. The only thing I wanted to do was become a hermit, answer phone calls from doctors when I had to, and the least of all was to face anyone else than my closest friends. I couldn’t even call my family to let them know what was going on--my siblings and boyfriend did this for me. I was the oldest in my family, and ever since my parents left, I felt the need to be in charge or to hold the house together. My sister and I are close in age, however I still had the feeling that I needed to do this because I am the oldest. I totally leaned on people this first weekend. I felt so alone; no one could understand what I was going through.Eight months of chemo and radiation went by and I was soon in remission. Chemo was difficult as the certain drugs gave me bad side effects, however I was able to complete it in the time table allotted. I told my friends and family that I was free of any treatment and didn’t need anything else and we had small celebrations. I was starting up my routine checkups and my oncologist spotted something in my lungs on one of my scans. I was soon back going through a new round of tests as my cancer had come back. I was sent to a new hospital, and had a new oncologist. I was going through the same old regimen, and none of these tests were foreign to me anymore unfortunately. My next set of treatment was going to be three rounds of chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant (sounds scary right?!) I had absolutely no idea what I was going to be going through or how these different drugs would have an effect on me.
My bone marrow transplant was the hardest part for me. I spent three weeks in the hospital (this is a normal time frame for someone), however I was in a hospital that was not exactly local in my town. I spent a lot of days alone as I didn’t have parents that were able to stay with me and my siblings all had jobs/school that they had to keep up as well. Some days I wasn’t feeling well and the loneliness of it all was what I needed. I had a lot of time to reflect and to think of what I wanted my life to be like after all is said and done. I had an enormous support group, which some days I shut out as no one was there to answer questions for me such as “When are you coming home?,” “How are you feeling?”. A girl can only answer those questions so many times and at times it was difficult to always keep someone in the loop.
I signed up for running races in the hospital, and planned a cancer remission party for the summer time when I was going to be healthy again. I needed to focus on living life again. I was so done with life being miserable, that you HAVE to make the best of it. There isn’t an option. Life is meant to be lived and sitting around focusing on all of the bad things in your life is the absolute worst thing you can do mentally. I am incredibly lucky that I had such a great support group coming out of this second battle that life has been especially amazing becoming closer with friends and family. It’s not easy making fun of your bald head, your treatments, and everything else by yourself! (Try dancing to “I whip my hair back and forth” when you completely don’t have any…that is a good laugh J)
Everyone knows that chemo and radiation have long term effects. On paper, I am a healthy and active 30 (!!) year old now. I do not have any pain issues or any other issues from chemo or radiation. However, I probably see enough doctors still to make sure that nothing is going to relapse and that all of my body parts and organs are still going to be working. One thing that I was diagnosed with back in 2015 was Hypothyroidism. This is the slowing of your thyroid function and likely caused by the radiation I received in 2011. I have always been a consistent weight my entire life, even through chemotherapy. As I was in remission, I gained ten pounds and it wasn’t because my lifestyle changed drastically or my eating habits. I tried to up my workout regimen and started focusing more on my eating and I just wasn’t losing any weight. This was caused by my thyroid no longer working as well as it did and it was more than 3 times the amount it should be at. My heaviest was at 30+ pounds of my normal weight as well as my blood pressure increasing and my cholesterol was high. With focusing more on what I eat and working out consistently as well as getting my thyroid medicine regulated, I am losing weight, but slowly. I was never a person to worry about weight or body image, however because of this I am very self-conscious now because of the new weight gain.
The best advice that I can give from this is you need to learn to live with it. I will not be as thin as I was before, and that is okay. Am I healthy now? Essentially yes. Can I eat whatever I want like before? No, but that is a good thing. I need to eat better and I need to find foods that work better for my body. I know my body now more than ever and I love how much I have learned about it. I am thankful for this experience and now for this chronic side effect because it makes me truly watch what I eat. I am getting older as well, and for everything that my body has endured thus far, I really need to focus on prolonging life and making sure I am trying to be as healthy as I can be (I do love chicken wings though).
There is something to be said about when life gets tough; you need to laugh. You need to find the humor in how SILLY it is that these bad things happen. How are these things happening to me? You can’t dwell on it and try to make jokes either about yourself or the situation. I did both and there was just nothing that I could have done. All you can do is laugh and live through life!
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I am Lauren (Lo) Najar and I live in Chicago, IL. I am an active person--I enjoy running races, yoga and any kind of healthy activity. I am the founder of Laugh Always. Laugh Always was created to inspire others on their personal journeys and to bring a community together to share their inspiration from all walks of life.
Social media links -
laughalways.net
Instagram.com/laughalwayswithlo
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