Once upon a time...

I don't even know where to start.

I could start by telling you that everything's going to be fine, because that seems like all I say to people these days.
I could start by telling you about the lumps in my neck that "were nothing."
I could start by telling you how it's easier for me to say "I have been diagnosed with lymphoma" than it is for me to say "I have cancer" and I don't know why.
I could start by telling you that I legitimately might hit the next person who tells me "It's just hair, it will grow back."
I could start by telling you how unbelievably hard it is to look into the faces of your 7th and 8th graders and explain why they will have a lot of substitutes for a while.
I could start by telling you that I'm 23 years old and way too young to be dealing with cancer.
I could start by telling you I really didn't want to write a blog, but here I am.

I guess I'll just start at the beginning.

About 7 months ago, I found a lump in my neck and felt sick. I went to the doctor, they found out I had recently had a severe case of mono - I had no idea - and they told me the lump was just a remaining symptom. It would go away.

Except it didn't go away. Not only did it not get better, it invited friends to the party. Fast forward to December and I probably had 10 not so tiny swollen lumps in my neck. I went to an ear, nose, throat specialist at the beginning of January. He was wonderful, but he let me know early on that this could easily be something serious. (Spoiler alert #1: he was right.) He gave me medicine to take, and when that didn't work, I went in for a CT scan. In a CT scan, they inject you with this dye (which doesn't even make your blood cool colors if you get stabbed; I asked the nurse) and you go through a machine that takes photos of your insides. Gross. Apparently my insides weren't looking too hot, so they ended up doing 3 CT scans instead of just the one they had planned on. They found that the adenopathy - a stupid fancy doctor word for swollen lymphnodes - had spread into my chest, my lungs, and is around my heart.

In the movies, whenever someone finds out they have cancer, it's this touching, life changing moment with their whole family around and a cozy doctor's office where all of their deepest questions are answered. Spoiler alert #2: That's not real life. At all. In real life, you are on your 30 minute lunch break at a middle school and you get a phone call. You walk outside, sit on the freezing bench, and listen to the doctor say, "It's lymphoma." That's it. Then you hear the bell ring, so you hurriedly schedule a surgical biopsy for Thursday, hang up, and walk inside to teach two more classes. There's a reason they don't put that junk in the movies.

I had an excisional biopsy - another fancy doctor term for taking-a-stupid-lump-out-of-my-neck - on Thursday. I'm going to have a beautiful scar. I hear battle wounds are cool these days. Friday I went to work (got to save up my sick days) and again, during my lunch break, got a call. "We have the results, and it's nodular sclerosis classical Hodgkin's lymphoma." This time I got to ask a few questions and found out that the plan was to do chemo and radiation. The stupid bell rang and I went inside. Guardian angels exist - sometimes in the form of my English department head. She took over my crazy class so that I could go sit in the office for a few minutes to process. Yeah right, like that's news I can process in a few minutes, but I got control and went to class. Being around my students is the best thing. I love their little crazy middle school selves.

Yesterday I met with my oncologist. I have an oncologist - things are real. He is pretty fantastic and we agreed that if he didn't expect me to know anything about anatomy, I wouldn't expect him to know anything about grammar, and we got along great after that. I will be having a PET scan, echocardiogram, lung functionality test, and bone marrow biopsy over this next week. Then the real fun starts with my first chemo treatment next Friday.

The chemo I will be doing has a 100% chance of hair loss. Spoiler alert #3: I'm going to be bald. It might mean I have a serious pride problem, but saying I will be bald is almost harder than saying I have cancer. I love my hair. So tonight I'm online shopping for my first chemo hat. I'm going to need lots of hats, and I have a fat head, so this will be an adventure! Here's hoping that my hair grows back curly. And brown.

I really didn't want to write a blog, but over the past week I feel like I've spent all of my time explaining and reassuring other people. "It's fine," "Everything's going to work out," and "I'll be totally okay" have become pretty common in my every day conversations. I've spent so much time talking this through with other people that I haven't had a chance, until now, to really process it myself. Don't think I'm being a brat - I love and appreciate every single text and call and message I've gotten - it's just been overwhelming. Because of that, I decided to write a blog so that everyone can know how I'm doing and I won't be sending out a million updates every day. Also, apparently, keeping a journal about my experiences helps with healing. True fact? I don't know. I tell my students all the time that writing helps, so here's to giving this a try. Spoiler alert #4: I'm a brutally honest person, so don't expect every entry to be sunshine and rainbows coming out of a unicorn's bum.

This is going to be tough. I'm just going to be tougher.