What a year it’s been. I suspect that you’re getting about a million of these types of posts, but I think this one might be a little different.
3 Months into chemo, 29 years old with cancer, and with my 1 year old
A year ago I locked the Katie Donnelly Photography studio down for what we though would be a 14 day pause. 365 days later, a lot has happened. Europe’s borders are still closed to anyone but EU residents and citizens, and well, my life is also drastically different.
On April 1st, 2020 after a series of emergency health exams, I went into the hospital for a biopsy that would diagnose stage 4 blood cancer: Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, to be exact. I use the word “lucky” lightly here: I was “lucky” to have gotten a cancer that even though it had spread to my bones, throughout my lungs, and just about every lymph node, because they can use the word “cure”. Starting in April, I went through the process of freezing my eggs (I have about a 50% chance of being sterile now), and then into the most difficult 6 months of my life. Chemo. It saved my life while bringing me to the brink of my mental and physical capacities. I can tell you, this was not how I expected my 29th year of life to go. In any case, again, I did get lucky – the chemo worked. It was the best possible scenario and after 6 rounds of chemo, I can say I’m in full remission.
At any age facing your own mortality is a difficult thing. It’s unfortunately something that many of us have had to do throughout this pandemic. Through watching loved ones suffer, and/or suffering ourselves. They say going through something like this can be a learning experience. I use the word “can” because it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE. It’s okay if you don’t take anything from trauma. I did learn a few things because that’s how I cope and heal. I’m a born problem solver and these feel like the answers. I have struggled through this year, struggled with depression, struggled with my identity, struggled to physically walk, and struggled sometimes to even make it through the pain of the next 30 seconds, before taking on the following 30. Here are some things I have learned through this struggle.
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Find a good psychologist. I’ve had two. One that I saw every time I was in the hospital (which was a lot). And now a different one who I’ve seen since I stopped chemo. I’ve made so much progress but there’s still a lot more to work to do. I cannot live with the weight of the trauma of this last year. It’s just so freaking heavy. It felt like thick caked mud had dried on me. I’m finally learning how to let the rain of healing slowly melt the mud away. Everyone needs a psychologist. It’s not something to be ashamed of. It doesn’t make you “crazy”. I see my psych as someone who helps me put order to my brain. For the first few sessions post chemo and post my dad passing away (yes, unfortunately my dad passed away from stage 4 colon cancer around the time I finished my chemo) I just sat there and cried for a lot of it. She saw me and accepted my grief, she never tried to change my emotions. She helped me sit with my emotions and validate them all. She helps me put order to my emotions so I can fully see them and understand them.
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It’s okay to fully embrace not being okay. Part of working through my emotions was simply not suppressing them. There were days, many days, where I was just not okay at all. It doesn’t mean that there weren’t bright moments of laughter during them, but the overall feelings I had were full of sadness and pain. I was accepting these feelings and confronting them. So many people tried to tell me to look on the bright side and I was also doing that too! I was also able to see my blessings and all the silver linings. But it’s OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY. I think this scares people. I know it scared my family. But I knew that one day, once I felt everything, I would be able to accept and move on. Until you accept your emotions fully, you just cannot move on from them. Seeing a psychologist really helped me organize these emotions and FINALLY feel good again. I had a switch one day where I was happy again. Sometimes that also takes medication to help with depression. That’s another tool you can use in the mental health toolbox. Kind of like a vitamin to help you focus on happiness.
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It’s okay to not be the person you were before. Pre-cancer diagnosis/pre-pandemic my life was so different. Today, I am still me, but I like to think I’m Katie 2.0. Now I’m way more in tuned with what I need to stay healthy (mind, body, and soul). I mourned pre-cancer me because I didn’t know who I would be now. I was searching for her. My psychologist told me this period of rediscovery is sort of like beta testing. I’m testing out new routines and new boundaries to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been sending so much love to “Pre-cancer Katie” for doing her best then. Now as post-cancer Katie, I’m doing my best too. Every day I’m getting better and healthier. Today I can do more than yesterday. My best today is different than my best just a few weeks ago. All of that is okay. I think this applies to the pandemic too. Do your best for who you are today.
The last year has been a year of change, for US ALL. And I wanted to write this letter to you as a reflection of what’s changed for me. Because of my health, my business is shifting too. I’ll get into that in another email. But for now, I wanted to send this to you because I know we’ve all felt a shift in the last 365 days.
If you are feeling like your emotions and thoughts are unorganized I urge you to seek out a therapist. Truly. If you have any questions about how I found mine please respond to this email and I’ll tell you everything I can that may be helpful to you. If you have any questions about cancer, please ask. If you’d like to read more about my experience of finding cancer, freezing my eggs, and going through chemo, I’ve written and shared extensively on it on instagram. This was my first post.
I’ll be in touch soon but until then, as always,
much love from Paris,
Katie
