Category Archives: Health

Health

That Time of the Month: Dealing with Your Period

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It’s a plague brought unto us at the most awkward of times and lasts throughout most of our adult lives (or at least the arguably attractive portion). For many women, they just started bleeding one day and have continued to do so every month since. So, let’s clear up some confusion about what is happening, why, and how to best deal with it.

Most of us learned about our baby-making machines in adolescent schooling, but here’s just a quick refresher: Every 28 days or so (every woman is different) your uterus will shed the lining (called “endometrium“) that was meant to create a hospitable environment for a fertilized egg. Since the guest of honor didn’t show, it doesn’t need all those party decorations. Your body will go back to homeostasis, and in doing so your hormones will get all out of whack, leading to the oh-so-pleasant changes in water retention (bloating) and mood (PMS). The cramping that you might feel is your uterus contracting in order to expel the endometrium. This whole process can last anywhere from 2 to 7 days, although for most women it’s about 3 to 5.

To prepare yourself beforehand, the most important thing you can to increase your comfort is hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Before and during. A healthy amount of water in your blood works to promote viscous blood flow and hydrates your muscles helping to cut down on breakouts, painful cramps, fatigue, headaches, bloating, and loose bowel movements. Easier and cheaper than any over-the-counter medicine, right?

And, if you’re the type to get mood swings, exercise and a change of scenery will do wonders for your mood. Sadly, milk chocolate won’t help, but dark chocolate might! It contains small amounts of anandamides, which will give you a natural mood enhancement.

In actually dealing with the bloody mess, we have some options:

Pads

The easiest option. They’re easy to insert: just peel and attach. By simply having it down there, you know it’s doing its job. You don’t need to question when it’s time to change, your eyes will tell you all you need to know. There’s also that peace of mind that comes with knowing that there’s nothing foreign in your lady-crevices.

But they definitely come with their share of problems. While you can feel pretty secure with one on, it may lead to itchiness or, if left on too long, a certain smell that might alert others to the state of your vagina. Their comfort factor is reliant on bathroom accessibility, which kind of sucks. And, unless you’re catatonic, these pillows of cotton tend to shift, which can lead to a bit of a mess if you’re not careful. In addition to all that, they’re may not be the best at secrecy: not only does it feel like you’re wearing a diaper, you may look like it too.

If throwing away three pads a day is economically alarming, there’s an eco-friendly option to pads as well! You can either purchase or make your own re-usable cloth pads. I haven’t personally tried this, but I think it sounds like a fantastic option. It’s basically the same idea as reusable diapers, but with menstrual blood instead of feces. That’s about a hundred times less gross! Or about two times less gross—my gross tolerance may be a bit higher than most.

Tampons

My old go-to. They have many benefits over pads: they’re discreet, don’t show through your pants, and when inserted correctly, you can’t feel them. Plus, you can go swimming without fear of leaving a red trail and you can enjoy an active lifestyle without getting a rash! When dealing with your period, they’re the first road to freedom.

We have two options for tampon usage, those with applicators and those without. They’re both very simple, and easy to get the hang of. Insert the fatter end of the applicator into your vagina, grip the neck with your thumb and middle finger, and then press down on the skinny end with your index finger to push the tampon in and then remove the applicator.  Without a pre-packaged applicator, your fingers will act as the applicator. Same idea, except you grip the body of the tampon, and push directly on the string side of it. A little messier, but it has the benefit of more control over how it sits in your body. If you are able to feel the tampon inside of you, then it needs to be pushed deeper. Once you feel comfortable with the position, lightly tug on the string to ensure that it stays in place. If it doesn’t move, congrats: you’re good to go!

However, there are a few downsides: Tampons definitely have a time limit. Depending on your body, or the day of your cycle, this can range from one to eight hours. If you leave it in for too long, you can run the risk of overflow, unpleasant odor, and the most serious of all risks—Toxic Shock Syndrome (cue ominous music). Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) can result in death if it’s not caught early enough, and I think we’d all choose shedding uterine lining over death any day, amiright?

I once read a story about a women who forgot that she had a tampon in, then later had sex. The tampon didn’t come out for a few days. That might be something to keep in mind. Sorry for the nightmares.

Menstrual cups

I am in love with menstrual cups. These silicone vesicles of perfection have changed my life. Not only are the health benefits enormous, but they’re good for the environment too! They cost about $40 and one will last you up to ten years, so you’re no longer spending 10 dollars every month to protect your underthings and your dignity. They have the benefits of freedom that tampons provide, but with a menstrual cup you don’t have the risk of TSS. That’s because you’re not inserting cotton, which can harbor bacteria. The best thing about cups is that you’ll never leak with them and you can safely sleep all night in them! You probably shouldn’t keep them in longer than 16 hours on heavy days before you empty them, though, because that’s a pretty heavy load of blood to be keeping inside your vagina.

However, there’s a learning curve to them. First, make sure it’s right side up. The whole point is that it’s a cup to “catch” your blood. There are two ways to insert it depending on which is more comfortable for you. You can either pinch one side in so that the opening now forms a “C,” or you can punch down one side into the cup itself. Once inside your vagina, let go of the bowl of the cup to let it unfold, and then twist the base of the cup in a full rotation to form a seal of suction. If you hear a kind of popping noise as you twist, you know you’ve done it right. I usually like to pull down on it slightly and check if there’s any resistance. After this, wash your hands and you’re good to go! If you’re like me though, the first few times you use it, you might check yourself every ten minutes out of paranoia.

As for removing it, place your fingers around the bottom of the cup, and gently squeeze while twisting to loosen the suction. If you don’t loosen the suction, it’ll feel weird and you’ll know to stop, I promise. Hold it upright and then dump the contents into the toilet (or if you’re taking a shower, you can dump it down the drain). Rinse the menstrual cup (or wipe it down with toilet paper) before reinserting it to ensure a clean suction. It’s not actually that messy unless you purposefully fling it around or if you’re a complete klutz.

When you’re done with your week of menstruation, wash the cup and then soak it in boiling water for a few minutes. That will sterilize it, and you can then store it until your next period. Warning—you probably should not use if you have an IUD. Upon removal, the suction might pull your IUD strings out and—yikes—that would hurt.

So if you’ve been curious, or your period has been making your life hell, I hope I’ve helped shed some light on some solutions. Happy flowing!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Health, Money

Disputing a Medical Bill

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Usually, when navigating the confusing world of health insurance, after every procedure, check-up, etc., you get a lovely little statement from your insurance company. I liked these—mostly because they said “Amount You Owe: $0.” Until last year, when a tiny billing discrepancy with my dentist crumbled into a massive back-office mess. My dentist was really good, and I truly used to like her, but in 2012—almost 3 years after I started seeing her—I got a big bill.  As in a several thousand dollar bill. There had to be a mix up! I just assumed they must have billed me for the wrong procedure and all would be straightened out soon enough.

So, I called in. Turns out, the dental office had only received checks for one or two of my seven appointments. Then, I called my insurance company, who told me that the practice had to call them to figure it out. I called the dentist back, and her office told me to hang tight. Three months later, we had the same conversation. And again at the six month mark.

Finally, when we rolled into 2013, I got another bill, and I was fed up. No one from my insurance company or my dentist’s office was listening to me.

And then I discovered how to dispute a claim. And now, I can tell you.

To clarify, this dispute didn’t involve lawyers—if you want to read about that, you can hit up Google. I contested this myself.

First, find out how to file a grievance with your health insurance provider. A grievance is a basically a formal complaint. You can actually call in a grievance, but I chose to file one online because it was quick and I had a written record afterwards.

Grievance forms ask standard questions such as when the incident occurred, who the persons involved were, and what exactly happened. Awesomely, grievance forms also ask you if you tried to handle the issue on your own, what the outcome of your discussion with the providers was, and (perhaps most importantly) what you want the outcome to be.

My dispute ended there. Problem solved: I ended up only owing a mere $9.

But, let’s say your insurance company doesn’t do a great job at responding in a timely manner. You have rights. These are usually spelled out by your insurance company at the bottom of the grievance form. In my case, the insurance company had 30 days to give me a written decision. If I was in that process longer than 30 days, I could file a grievance with my state. This is often done through a branch of the health department, usually called the Department of Managed Health Care or something similar.

No insurance company wants to get the state involved, so hopefully you won’t ever get this far. If things still haven’t cleared up, you have other options before even hiring a lawyer, such as contacting your State Insurance Commissioner. This government line of defense can help you in more areas than just insurance issues. When a friend of mine was going back and forth with AT&T for months on replacing a faulty landline, she called the Public Utilities Commission and someone high ranking from AT&T called her back within hours.

And then, when it’s all over, be sure to tell your state’s Better Business Bureau. Other consumers can use your experience to make informed decisions about their insurance companies. At this point, you have had a rough experience and you should let other potential customers know.

Pro Tip: When filing a customer service complaint in any area—from health insurance to fast food service—the words Better Business Bureau can often help turn things your way.

In some serious cases, you will need a lawyer’s help; but, know that if you look around there are already many avenues carved out for you to get your problems solved.

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Health

Gymming at Home

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You’ve just left work for the day. It’s rounding 8 pm You’re wiped out and starving, because all you ate for lunch today was a yogurt at your desk at 2 pm. You know your DVR is recording Parks and Rec, but you’d do anything to get home ASAP and just watch it. And… you haven’t worked out since the weekend. You’re feeling sluggish and angry with yourself because of that. Whatever shall you do?

Gymming Square

Photo by Elizabeth Kerin

SCENARIO A: You are a member at a gym. You would drive right over there if not for the über-starvation and the fact that you left your gym clothes and sneakers at home. It was a scattered morning! Your alarm didn’t go off! The dog peed on the floor! You didn’t have time for that nonsense. But at this moment, you feel pressured to justify that $500/year membership. I mean, you should at least go sometimes. And hey, maybe they’ll have Parks and Rec playing on one of those little TVs by the treadmills! Maybe. Though at this rate, you probably won’t get there till 10 pm.

SCENARIO B: Last year, you paid $300 for a fabulous little stationary bike that sits in the corner of your living room. One-time charge, no hidden fees. And there he sits: a reliable steed, ready to serve all your exercise-related needs. You get home, you grab a little sustenance, then you strap on your sneakers and hop on the bike. You spin for exactly one half hour as you watch Parks and Rec. And you’re done by 9 pm, ready to do everything else the evening requires of you.

Last year, I opted for Scenario B. If you’re the self-motivating type (or the type who likes to sing “Titanium” at the top of your lungs while you sweat and would prefer not to be judged), you might want to save the yearly gym membership fee and buy a machine of your very own. I’d been toying with the idea of purchasing a Soul Cycle membership, but upon seeing the hefty price tag ($3,500 for a 50 Class Series! What?!), I quickly decided I’d emulate the Soulsperience in my own home.

I turn off all the overhead lights. I get a few candles burning. I bump my carefully crafted Spotify playlist, the one that rhythmically mimics the life cycle of a proper spinning session: intense jams for those high-resistance climbs and zippy, excitable life-is-awesome tracks for the fast sprints. Sometimes I’ll do themed playlists. Yes, I have done a Disney spinning night. And a 90s Alt-Rock night. (Sans the flannel shirt. Not a fun garment for perspiring.)

Point being: All of these choices can be under your control if you do your gymming at home! It’s liberating. You will never arrive at your spinning or yoga class to find that it’s Britney-themed night, when all you wanted to do was chill to some Radiohead and Bjork and sweat away your existential rage.

Here are some fantastic options for at-home exercise machines, all under $500. Some of them require assembly (mine did). But it was no worse than putting together an Ikea dresser. Well worth it!

Another tip: check out Craigslist. Plenty of people are moving and probably want to sell their old exercise equipment! Only drawback is that you might purchase something sans warranty. But if that’s the case, you might be able to haggle on the price.

Happy Home-Gymming!

Health, Sex

Understanding STIs

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My first introduction to STIs was when I was 14.

No, guys, not like that! My mother, a cardiologist, always believed in firmly and openly talking about health issues. While I can respect her openness and transparency, I’ll never forget her methods.

I came downstairs ­to wait for dinner while my mom was rustling about upstairs in her room. She then came running down the stairs like a little girl, holding ripped-out pages of an American Medical Association journal, all showcasing a wide range of STIs with detailed photographs of the most extreme outbreaks and symptoms.

“These will be the dangers you face in life if you don’t protect yourself,” she said morosely, before breaking into a laugh, and setting the table.

In case you weren’t lucky enough to consume images of genital warts with your meatloaf, I’ve taken the liberty to break down the various types of common STIs in the U.S. Also, since I host a sexual health web series, I decided that I should share my research with you, instead of just maintaining a questionable Internet search history on my computer. Unlike my mother, I don’t recommend reading this over dinner.

Chlamydia 

What it is & Symptoms:

Chlamydia is the popular kid at the party, as it is the most frequently reported STI in the United States.  It is a curable STI, spread through unprotected anal, oral or vaginal intercourse and exchange of body fluids. Known as the “silent infection,” many times, it remains symptomless. In fact, 50% of men and 75% of women with the infection actually show no signs.

However, if you do show symptoms, they can show up weeks after exposure, and may include burning during urination or abnormal vaginal or penile discharge.

Diagnosis & Treatment:

Generally, doctors will test urine samples or take sample secretions from a man’s urethra or a women’s cervix.  If you test positive, the doctor will prescribe antibiotics that will rid you of the disease within 1–2 weeks. However, you should be sure to take the medication for the entire duration prescribed. Repeat infections are very common, so refrain from any sexual activity ‘til your follow up test comes back negative.

If left untreated, chlamydia can result in urethritis for men or potential reproductive issues for women.

Dinner Trivia Fact:

Chlamydia has been around for a thousand years, but only in the 1960s was it finally classified as an STI. Talk about a drastic makeover.

Gonorrhea

What it is & Symptoms:

Gonorrhea is also a curable STI transmitted through unprotected oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse and body fluid exchange with someone infected. Symptoms can appear 2–5 days after infections, but in men, symptoms make take months to show up. In fact, some don’t even have symptoms.

Some male symptoms may include burning and increased frequency when urinating, discharge from the penis, and swollen testicles. In women, symptoms are generally very mild and vague, often mistaken for a bladder or a vaginal infection.

Diagnosis and Treatment:

Like chlamydia, gonorrhea is diagnosed through a urine sample and also treated with antibiotics. Generally, if you are positive for gonorrhea, you should also get tested for sister diseases, such as chlamydia and syphilis.

If left untreated, gonorrhea can spread to the blood and joints. For men, it can cause a painful condition in the tubes attached to the testicles, which can potentially lead to infertility. For women, it can spread to the uterus.

Dinner Trivia Fact:

Gonorrhea is also known as “the clap.” Many people believe the name came from the French brothels, known as the les clapiers, because the men who frequented them eventually ended up with the infection. So basically, blame the French. 

Syphilis

What it is & Symptoms:

Syphilis is a bacteria-based STI that is also curable. It can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact with someone who is infected with syphilis sores. Symptoms can appear from 10–90 days after infection.  There are actually four stages of syphilis, with the first two being highly infectious.

    1. Primary: One or more sores show up where syphilis has entered the body, generally near the genitals. The sore is firm, round and painless, and can easily go unnoticed. It lasts 3–6 weeks and goes away on its own, regardless of treatment. However, it can then progress to the second stage.
    2. Secondary Stage:  Flu-like illness, a non-itchy rash covering the whole body or in patches, patchy hair loss, and white patches on the tongue or in the mouth are all symptoms.
    3. Latent stage: If secondary stage syphilis is untreated, it can turn into latent. Here, the primary and secondary stage symptoms all clear up, even though the syphilis remains in the body. This latent stage can last for years before progressing.
    4. Tertiary Stage: 15–30% of people infected with syphilis who don’t get treatment will go onto tertiary or late stage, where the disease can damage your brain, eyes, heart, blood vessels and bones. These problems can occur many years after the original infection.

Diagnosis & Treatment:

Syphilis is diagnosed through a blood test and may be cured with about two weeks of antibiotics depending on the stage that it was discovered in.  If left undiagnosed, syphilis can spread to the brain over a long period of time, hence its reputation for driving a person “insane.”

Dinner Trivia Fact:

Rumor has it that Christopher Columbus may have spread syphilis in Europe/Old World after catching it on his fateful trip to America in 1492. Suddenly, a t-shirt doesn’t look like such a bad travel souvenir.

Genital Warts

What it is & Symptoms:

Genital warts are generally caused by a strain of HPV, which spreads through skin-to-skin contact during unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse. Many times, warts will take six weeks to six months, or sometimes years, after infection to show up. It’s important to note that the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer are not the same types that cause warts.

Genital warts can be so tiny that you don’t see them, and can resemble flesh-colored bumps or cluster together, looking like cauliflower. They are found on the tip of the penis, scrotum, vagina, or in or around the anus.

Diagnosis & Treatment:

Doctors can diagnose genital warts by examining them under a lens. There is no cure for HPV, but there are methods to treat visible warts that should only be done by a doctor. Doctors may give you a prescription cream, medication, or remove warts through surgery; however, since the virus itself cannot be cured, warts may return within 3 months of treatment.

Dinner Trivia Fact:

There are over 120 strains of HPV, but the body can clear most strains. Only certain types advance to cancer or warts. Basically, your body is a soldier! How’s that for a positive body image?

Genital Herpes

What it is & Symptoms:

Herpes is highly contagious and spreads through sexual fluids or saliva exchange with an infected person.

Herpes actually comes in two forms, the HSV1 and the HSV2 strains, which affect both men and women in the mouth or on the genitals. HSV1 strains are commonly known as cold sores that are found around the mouth; these are not the same as genital herpes, which are caused by HSV2 strains. Many times, herpes shows no symptoms, so those that are affected will not know. If you do have symptoms of genital herpes, some of them may include clear or white pearl-like blisters in the genital area and itchy, burning rashes. You’ll generally have an outbreak about 2-30 days after being infected.

Diagnosis & Treatment:

A doctor can diagnose herpes through a blood test or by taking a sample from your sore. Once you have herpes, it will never go away. You can only manage how frequently you have an outbreak.

For treatment, your doctor will give you antiviral medications, so you can stay symptom-free longer. After the outbreak goes away (usually 2–4 weeks), the virus lies dormant in the cells, and can reoccur when you have any reduced immunity.

Dinner Trivia Fact:

It’s estimated that 1 out of 5 Americans have genital herpes. This should make you look at your classmates at your high school reunion in a different light.

Important Note: if you test positive for any of these STIs, you should tell your partner and any previous partners that you may have potentially infected. For future sexual experiences, prevention is really the key. Take the necessary precautions by getting tested and discussing the results and options with your partner before engaging in sexual activity.

Shoot, if you need any help communicating, I can send some of my mother’s magazine images your way.

By Michelle White

By Michelle White

Health

Self Defense 101

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Should you find yourself in a situation requiring you to hit another human being in order to defend yourself, others, or your property, the following might help you to know how to handle yourself.

1. DON’T HIT THEM.

In all my encounters outside the boxing ring, I ended them with grappling techniques.  Grappling basically just means wrestling: Judo, wrestling, Jujitsu – all these are ‘grappling’ styles.  Since you don’t have to punch people and cut up your knuckles, it’s easier on the hands.  And, since you can pin someone, put them into a pain compliance grip, or render them unconscious with a carotid choke that they can recover from in a matter of seconds, it’s easier on the conscience. You can keep both defender and attacker safe from serious harm until police arrive.

DO NOT HIT THEM WHILE THEY ARE ON THE GROUND UNLESS THEY PRESENT A THREAT TO YOUR LIFE. That could be considered by a court to be aggravated battery. Going to jail would suck, and then you’d probably have to do a whole bunch more fighting.

2. DON’T BOX THEM

Unless you’re a boxer, you have no business boxing anyone. You can hurt your knuckles and fracture bones in your hand.  That is, if you somehow manage to not get your silly have-no-business-boxing-in-the-first-place ass kicked.

Which brings me to my next point…

3. DON’T KICK.

Once you enter puberty, your legs are legally considered deadly weapons in the state of California, and likely so in many other states.  Don’t kick unless you (1) know how and where to kick, and (2) have a reasonable fear that your life is in danger.

4. STRIKES TO USE

  • Palm.  Strikes with the palm should be delivered with the heel of your hand (just above your wrist). Even a light palm strike to the nose can cause bleeding; a powerful one can cause a profuse amount of bleeding and a blinding, shocking amount of pain.  If you’ve ever been hit by any fast-moving object directly on the nose, you’d know it really fucking hurts. Palm strikes can also be used on the side of the jaw to induce a concussion.
  • Hammerfist. Ever seen a karate demonstration where some screamin’ feller obliterates 10 flaming bricks that were just sitting there, politely minding their own brick-ly business?  Odds are that person used a hammerfist.  It looks exactly how it sounds: your clenched fist comes down as if swinging a hammer, striking with the bottom of the fist.  You can bring it directly down on your opponent’s nose, breaking it.
  • Elbows. For some reason, it’s illegal to kick someone unless your life is in danger, but using elbows isn’t distinguished in any legally substantive way. Because you have few nerve endings in your elbow, and the bone there is very hard, the elbow is a prime striking weapon.

Direct elbow strikes work just like shallow punches, except messing up the skin on your elbow doesn’t hurt as much as messing up your hand. You can add force to direct elbow strikes by grabbing the back of your attacker’s head and pulling them in towards you as you smash your elbow into their temple, nose, or jaw. A properly executed direct hit to either of those areas should drop your attacker or cause an incapacitating amount of pain so that you can flee.

Elbow strikes should go in a horizontal chopping motion THROUGH your attacker’s head. There are backwards elbow strikes that use the stabbing motion of the elbow; usually these are used against an attacker coming at you from behind or from the side. Drive your elbow into their solar plexus, groin, or neck/jaw, depending on what you can reach.

5.  INVEST TIME AND MONEY INTO LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT UNDER STRESS CONDITIONS

You will not learn how to defend yourself from this article.  Sorry, but if you read this article a million times you won’t be any more able to defend yourself than you were before you read it for the first time. There is no substitute for proper instruction.

Go to a gym, preferably one that teaches something full contact (jujitsu and MMA are popular), put down some money, and commit at least one year of your life, twice a week, to honing a skill that can save your life.

Editor’s Note: As the author of this article rightly notes, no article will ever be able to teach you everything you need to know for self defense. This article offers some useful techniques but full body contact may not be a viable option for some people. There are many classes, like the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) System, that show you simple techniques to defend yourself that do not require full body contact. The views in this article are just one of many perspectives on self-defense and you should find the one best for your skill level, fitness level, and body type.

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Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment purposes only, so don’t sue me. You can read the UNDERenlightened’s full disclaimer in our User Agreement. 

Health

Three little words: “You have cancer.”

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I’ve never really been bothered by going to the doctor. I know a lot of people hate the waiting rooms, the medical tests, and the wasted time, but I’ve always been rather ambivalent to the whole experience.

Then cancer happened.

Like life, cancer doesn’t have a how-to book. There is no magic formula, no quick and easy cure. There is no one that can tell you exactly how you will need to face the disease emotionally, physically, and mentally. But you can learn through others’ stories and experiences, strengthened by the hope and knowledge that there is another side to it all.

I hope my story is that to someone else.

When I was little, my pediatrician told my mom that I would never be a well child. It turned out that he was borderline prophetic, because over the more than fifteen years he treated me, I amassed a chart that could rival the thickest of the Harry Potter novels.When I was twelve I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition and put immediately on low doses of thyroid hormones. By the time I entered high school I already had several polyps on my thyroid gland that had to be closely monitored. My doctor was alarmed by the rate at which the polyps were growing. Surgery was imminent, cancer suspected. Then, suddenly, they shrank as quickly as they had grown.

The polyps came back to haunt me again this year. Just weeks before my 24th birthday, I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma, or thyroid cancer.

Papillary thyroid cancer is currently the fastest growing cancer in the U.S., accounting for around 80% of all thyroid cancers and when caught early, which is most of the time, chances of becoming cancer free are nearly 100%. But statistics don’t tell you everything.

From the beginning this knowledge gave me hope. When you’re young and diagnosed with something like this, you want to think beyond short term, beyond what is medically defined at one year, five years, or even ten. I have decades to go. I want to write, travel the world, and go to nerdy conferences. But my particular cancer doesn’t always agree with those plans. What I didn’t realize at the time was that even when my tests showed no sign of cancer I would still have to face the long term repercussions of my treatment.

Another thing statistics don’t tell you is how many difficult decisions cancer forces on you. It’s amazing the number of decisions that you must make when you are least prepared to make any. They all had to be immediate: whether to get a second opinion, how to handle my extended time off of work, whom to tell. I checked everything off diligently and mechanically, focused only on the next thing I had to tackle, refusing to let my mind linger.

Aside from the medical reality of my cancer, it became immediately clear that I had to adjust to a new “lifestyle.” I couldn’t afford to take too much time off from work so I had to find a way to balance professional responsibilities with the demands of my health. I had two or three medical appointments a week for doctors’ visits, blood work, and scans. I walked the route from the hospital to my job more often in the first month of my diagnosis alone than I had the entire two years I had been employed. Time and energy were no longer to be taken for granted. I was lucky that my job allowed me a flexible schedule so that I could work from home when necessary to save the precious energy usually expended during my commute. The same standard applied to my social life. My friends came to me more than I went to them and I relied on the Internet more than ever. It was a new normal, at least for the time being.

I also had to tell about my diagnosis, little by little. I eventually found myself dreading the conversation because I  often had to calm others more than I had to calm myself. By the time I had told close to a dozen family and friends I had my “speech” memorized: No it wasn’t deadly. Yes, I would need surgery. No, chemo wasn’t necessary. Yes, I was doing okay.

Thankfully, my mom was with me every step of the way. No matter what her schedule, or how last minute the appointment, she was there. She helped me tell my family, advised me on handling my insurance, and kept me calm. She took care of me during my recovery, even if she was not feeling well. It helped that she is also a cancer survivor and knows this road all too well and without her I would’ve had a much more difficult experience.

Finally came the treatment. This cancer frequently results in removing the thyroid because all thyroid cells must be destroyed in order to prevent a recurrence and to make sure the cancer doesn’t spread to other organs (metastases). In my case there were local metastases to the lymph nodes in my neck, which are not uncommon and did not lessen my chance of a cure by much, if at all. But it did mean a more radical surgery, leaving a scar on my neck that looks like a botched attempt to slit my throat from behind. The surgery gave way to weeks of neck pain and a nearly immobile shoulder that only just recently regained all of its strength.

I was also treated with radioactive iodine, a high-dose radiation pill that targets the thyroid cells specifically, killing whatever is left. Much more forgiving than chemotherapy or beam radiation, the treatment lasted just a week and had very few side-effects. Though it involved almost total isolation (thank goodness for the Internet) and a period of dealing with my body’s poor reaction, I was grateful that it was over quickly and relatively painlessly.

Lastly, the pills I started as a child are now invaluable, taking the place of my thyroid entirely. The dose skyrocketed and is still adjusted every few months as my doctor attempts to find exactly the right number, waiting to see if I react adversely to each increase. The goal is to keep the cancer at bay and my hormones functioning. I will never be able to stop taking the tiny pill, and it has become as much a part of my routine as eating and drinking.

Getting through these treatments, especially surgery, was hard. But it was the people I had with me through the entire journey, from those a short drive away to the ones across the country, that made the experience not only bearable, but livable. They texted me with random jokes and check-ins, took me out to lunch, and asked thoughtful questions about my surgery and treatment. They acknowledged my limitations in what I could do with them by helping me find alternatives so that I wouldn’t feel isolated because of illness. They sent me cards or small gifts just because. They were there for me when I needed them, and more importantly, when I didn’t.

When I reflect over the past year I still have trouble processing it. I was told over and over again how strong I was, but there were many times that I felt anything but. I was often a few moments away from crumbling inside, retreating into a shell until I found the cure for the pain I was facing. I had trouble explaining the struggle to others-–I didn’t know how to put it into words without sounding like a frightened, paranoid child. After all, my cancer had never been deadly. My doctors assured me from the moment of my diagnosis that I would not lose my life.

And yet, despite that comfort, nearly everything changed in a way I could not have foreseen. I unwittingly took on an illness that would never be entirely cured. I lost an organ. I became the constant recipient of concerned or curious stares. And most of all, I took on a new form of isolation, one that can only be bestowed by illness. Despite this internal struggle, I still felt guilt for feeling the way I did, for allowing myself to become so upset when I knew that I would soon be cured, while others would not. It took a long time to reconcile those feelings.

It’s been nearly eight months since my diagnosis and I am tentatively cancer free. I have to return regularly for tests, but for the first time in months, I am not worried. Everyday I feel a bit better, and some days I almost feel like I never had cancer at all. I am back to being me, to writing and travelling where I can. But I can’t deny that I’ve been definitively changed by three little words.

Cancer

Photo by Meaghan Morrison