Cancer & Young Adults

Cancer & Young Adults
Category: Blogging

Why is it when ever someone hears the word "CANCER" the first thing that comes to their mind is - DEATH!! It's like you're walking down the street to your doctor's office on a beautiful summer day and you're getting checked out for something that has been bugging you for a while. You FEEL GREAT other than a nagging cough, or sore something or other or whatever - but the fact is, you feel great. You get in to see your doctor and after some small talk and tests, you're given a hint that it may, or may not, be cancer - they need to do some more tests to make sure - but probably it's not cancer - the doctor tries to reassure you. Of course it is INDEED cancer and your life comes to a crashing halt!! The first thing you think about is - "Am I going to do die?" or "How much time do I have left?" How many of us can relate to that? No young adult ever thinks that they're going to be diagnosed with cancer - that's something that happens to little kids (unfortunately) or old people. I have some hard stats from I'm Too You Young For This- The Cancer Under 40 Movement;

STATS & FACTS

(1) Cancer incidence in young adults has doubled over the past 20 years to nearly 70,000 diagnosis each year ¹.
(2) Cancer survival rates in young adults have not improved over the past 30 years ². (The 1 reason being delayed diagnosis.)
(3) Roughly 10,000 young adults die each year due to cancer ¹.
(4) Psychosocial research (quality-of-life) is tantamount to biological research ³ and the notion of survivorship vs 'cure'.
(5) The 1 social issue faced by young adults is isolation.
(6) The medical community at large is grossly uneducated as to how to effectively communicate, treat and follow-up with young adults.

These are American stats so the 's are even a lot higher. The point is that there are a LOT of people from the ages of 18-40 that are being diagnosed with cancer and NOTHING has been done in the past - well - 30 years to bring awareness to this!! It's not enough that we have to stop our lives - for a lot they are just starting - and face this disease. Some of us are married, engaged or in a serious relationship and quite a few - face it alone!! ALONE, know there's a word that we can all relate to. How many times did you feel like you're the ONLY person (around your age) on this earth that's going through the type of cancer you have? Every once and a while you would see some younger adult waiting for chemo or, if you were an inpatient, on your ward in the hospital. I had the luxury of spending 5 months in the hospital and I could have counted on my hand the of younger patients there were. Why is it that there's no correspondence from doctors in regards to groups or other great resources we could turn to while we're going through this shit?? You get visits from social workers or ministers/priests will come by, and that's great, but COME ON, we're not dead, we want to find other like people - other survivors who know what we're going through - not some educated social professional who is schooled in matters of the mind and emotion. We want this(cancer) shit over with and we spend so much of our time with doctors, nurses etc., the last person we want to talk to is a SHRINK!!! No offence to all of you physchosocial professionals - you do a great job - but a lot of times you aren't the people we really want to talk to and you know the emotional side of things , but you really can't grasp the actual cancer experience as well as someone who is/has gone through it. I've been frustrated a lot, even more so know and I'm over 2 1/2 years post treatment from acute lymphocytic leukemia. Why is it that we, the under 40 movement, STILL have to do things on our own. Yah there's support groups out there, mainly breast and prostate cancer with an average age of about 60+, so they really can't relate to what we're going through. Sure they have gone through the whole diagnosis to treatment to post treatment - just like us - but for the most part, they're pretty much retired from their jobs(or close to it), had their kids and now grandkids, and are either debt/mortgage free or close to it. They can't relate to the issues involving fertilty, putting school on hold, dating, friendships etc. I firmly believe that by being a voice for other young cancer survivors, eventually people are going to start to take notice. There are a lot of great young cancer survivor groups out there - you just have to go out and find them. Matthew Zachary has done a FANTASTIC job with I'm Too Young For This as has Heidi Adams with Planet Cancer and oh yeah, that guy who used to ride his bike alot - just kidding - of course Lance Armstrong and the whole Livestrong Nation - to name a few and there are other great groups as well. I encourage other young survivors to check out some of these sites and don't be ashamed or afraid to get active with them. We have to be our own voice and the more we band together as a large group of survivors - the quicker we can accomplish the things that need to be accomplished for ourselves and other young adult survivors.

I've become very passionate about being vocal on behalf of other young adults who won't/don't want to talk about their own cancer(s). I was 34 years old when I was diagnosed with acute leukemia and I endured 2 straight years of treatment. I was an inpatient in the hospital for the better part of 5 months, I had over 600 chemo treatments, 2 weeks of brain radiation, I all inclusive trip to ICU and over 11 blood transfusions. I was officially diagnosed on August 4, 2003 and my last treatment was on July 27, 2005. Today, I'm over 2 1/2 years post treatment and LOVING my NEW LIFE!!

In closing, cancer IS NOT a death sentence and we need to stop putting so much emphasis on cures and remissions and put more ENERGY into LIVING!!

Darren Neuberger
Cancer Survivor