Lymphoma: young but not indestructable

"Do you know who I am?" I ask the girl over the phone. My hands are shaking, my voice is trembling, and tears stream down my face as I try to keep my voice calm when I ask the question.

"Umm... No." replies the voice of the young girl. This is the first time I have spoken to Sam*, my best friend, since she woke up from her coma. I know things will never, ever be the same again.

Three years ago, Sam was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus. The only thing she'd ever wanted was to have a family, to have a beautiful little girl who she'd call Veronica, that she could play with and teach to see the world as a beautiful place. Sam had been a victim of one of the most atrocious, sickening, heart-wrenching child abuse stories I'd ever heard of, and even though she was only 18 when she was diagnosed, she still had a clear pain at the thought of losing her ability to have a child one day, to make sure her family never went through what she did. But that diagnosis was only the beginning.

Sam left work to go into chemotherapy, and for three years since then she's looked like a junkie, except the track marks go along her spine and her stomach as well as her arms. After a cou0ple of months, the doctor told her the news, straight out. Yes, they had removed the uterine cancer successfully, but a by-product of chemotherapy in some patients is the developments of another cancer, lymphoma.

Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system. It attacks the white blood cells. It's the fifth most common cancer in Australia, and over 350 cases surface each year. It is thought to be brought on by anything that stresses the immune system, so something  as seemingly simple as a viral infection, or chemotherapy used to treat other cancers can lead to lymphoma. It has very nonspecific symptoms, ranging from a rash, to swollen lymph glands, to rapid weight loss, and 20 in 200 cases needed a second biopsy to confirm the cancer.

Sam was given just 5 weeks to live. "Bugger that," she said, and 3 years later she was still undergoing chemo, and sadly, still working 40 hour weeks to pay for her own medical bills. I couldn't believe she was still so optimistic.

"How do you do it? Smile everyday?" I asked.

"Well, Leah, sometimes things happen in life, and they're not always good. But it's the way that we handle life that defines us as who we are."

About a month later, Sam lapsed into a coma. After another operation to try and remove the cancer, she'd bled so heavily that her brain had become starved of oxygen, and just shut down. There had been so much damage, the doctor had said at several points in time that she would die soon.

However on the 8th day, Sam woke up. As a 6 year old. Such was the brain damage she now has severe traumatic amnesia, and when she woke she believed she was still in preschool. She could remember in the most vivid details her life at preschool, and the neurologist said that she was approximately 5 years and 7 months old, and would possibly remain that way for a very long time.

So much agony, pain, trauma for so long for such a beautiful, young girl. To this day, I believe she developed cancer because of the abuse she'd had as a child. It's a proven fact that people living in stress are  more likely to develop cancer, and Sam is no exception.

Everyday, though, she makes us see the world in a new way. Now, the Sam we knew and became friends with is gone forever, and although I do still have moments where I'm sad, I still love her with all my heart, and slowly but surely she's developing her own sense of self and the world. My favourite moment so far was when she was telling me about the psychiatrist: "He keeps asking me how I feel, but I feel like a Sam. How else could I feel? I am Sam."

She's taught me to see the world through completely different eyes again, and in a whole new mindset. She inspires me every day. I hope she can inspire you, too.



*Names have been changed