AflacHobo1

I view a lot of historical photos, and I can honestly say this is one of the most powerful photos I've ever seen. I've seen it before, as it's pretty famous, but every time I see it I get chills.

We need a Shitty_Watercolour and stevensballoons inception. A painting of a balloon figure of a painting of a balloon figure.

At 14 I grabbed a physicians assistant by the shirt collar and told him "this is serious pain. Get a real doctor", real MD felt my hip (where, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, I had a Ewing's tumor) and goes "something is very wrong."

Hey OP!

I figured the thread was deep enough you wouldn't see any new comments popping up so I didn't say anything, but:

1. Keep kicking ass, I'm 8 (!!!) years out in December. I had Ewing's Sarcoma which isn't as nasty in the relapsing department as leukemias are, but I shared the transplant floor with the leukemia kids because of how low my counts got during some of my later chemo round (14 total, every two weeks).

2. When you finish treatment (hopefully for the last time) please make sure your doctor's stay on top of the long term effects of your treatment protocol. They're going to write some of it off as near term, but if it's bothering you past 6 months post chemo you should start advocating for yourself hard. It took me until last year to really start getting survivorship care, which takes many forms. Forgetfulness? Chemo brain. A lot of the trouble I had in school post chemo? Yeah I basically had late onset ADHD from treatment. Depression and anxiety, flashbacks? Probably PTSD rather than just the adolescent blues. I'm still trying to get pain management for the neuropathy I'm still getting.

3. Remember that you have rights as a patient, and a disabled person. You have a right to not be in pain (as much as possible), you have a right to go to school or work or public events with reasonable accommodations. You're not "taking advantage" of these rights (which is the language people will use, even subconsciously and not passive aggressively), you're asserting them.

I don't mean to scare you whatsoever (although like me I'm sure you don't get scared medically anymore), just hoping you can avoid some of my problems. Keep up the good fight and please feel free to PM me whenever if you have questions or need to talk.

I'm a childhood cancer survivor and I just wanted to say thank you for doing what you do!