Graduation

Yesterday was a very special day. I had my routine three month check up at the Oncologist and like always, it was business as usual.

Check up Day Events:

• Blood work
• Drink Barium Contrast (Which is the consistency of glue by the way.)
• Get injected with Iodine Contrast (Which makes you feel warm from head to toe and you feel as though you peed your pants.)
• CT scan
• Doctor's examination

So as you can tell, it was a busy busy day. Sometimes when I take that contrast it makes me feel a little off and I don't like it, but it's okay. It helps them see exactly what they are looking for in my body so it's a double edged sword.

The greatest part of the day was during the doctor's exam. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have advanced from my regular Oncologist Dr. Wallentine to a Nurse Practitioner. The NP for the day looked over my scans and gave me some incredible news. Not only I not have any remaining tumors, the kidney stones I had from previous scans are no longer in my kidney!

He also said that I do not have to come back for six months instead of the three months that I have been doing. I have officially graduated! Can I get some Vitamin C up in here?! It is a really good feeling knowing that I am well and continuing to recover slowly but surely. It is wonderful to know I don't have to worry as much about appointments and feeling like cancer will never end. The doctor even said that I am cancer free/in remission. What a relief! I already knew that, but it is still nice to hear from the professionals.

I always feel pretty anxious about my appointments just because it's a scary thought that my cancer could come back the same or in a different form. But knowing that I am well enough to only be every six months is such a relief.

I am going forward with faith and trying my best to be healthy. I am on the road to full recovery. One day, cancer will be just a vague memory. I am feeling very blessed and grateful at this moment.

P.S.

Yo Peeps, guess what?! 

I have hair!!

(Sing it from the rooftops.)

Or did you guys just think I was still a baldie? Well I am not sorry to tell you that you are mistaken. As much as I did enjoy being bald and feeling the wind run across my skin, I decided that I needed to take a more fashionable route and grow it back. (Call me vain, but I'm okay with the results of my decision.) I promise that is not a wig, it is growing out of the head of yours truly. 

Come take a tug on it sometime and I'll prove it to you.

My hair came in way darker than it was before and a little more coarse. There are some rogue waves that
sometimes I don't know exactly how to control, but it is starting to get looong and luscious!

Oh what's that? Remember when I was as bald as that apple? Well no more I tell you! Bald be gone!

Two Years

Hear ye, hear ye! Four score and two years ago, I Rachel Ann Fischer completed my very last treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Since then, I have returned to school and have continued to recover. I am so grateful to all those men and women who do research to fight against cancer. I owe them my life. I am grateful to my family and friends who have stuck by my side. Two years down and and looking forward to many many more to come. It's a wonderful life and journey.

"Celebrate good times come on!" (I dare you not to get that stuck in your head.)

Remember this? When I thought I had so much hair that it wasn't noticeable that I was a sicky?
Yeeaah... Not noticeable at all. Those little sprouts have served me well.

The wonderful radiation team.

Blurry photo, but this is exactly two years ago when I finished. I'm holding my mask,
certificate of completion and a bottle of Sparkling Cider.

Sum up of Summer

Painfully and regretfully I have had to come to the forced realization that summer is over. This saddens my heart dearly as I love the warm summer months. (Which begs the question, "Why am I attending an Arctic-Siberian-Icelandic-University?") So in honor of sweet summer, I wanted to tell you all what I did for my time off of school. So be prepared to be enlightened!

I was able to work this whole summer at the lovely CFC Fences and Decks. I started the very next monday that I returned from school, and worked all the way up until the day before I had to leave to come to school. This was my third summer there so I had a bit under my belt and I was able to have more responsibilities and to help out in more areas than the previous summers. I am now officially a fence, deck and outdoor structure nerd. I was able to answer questions that I didn't even know I had the answers to and was able to help out my coworkers in different areas. So if you have a fence you have questions about, bring it on! I can tell you all about it and direct you to the people who can build it! (Built in advertising? I think yes. CFC is the best! Go there, now! For all your installation and material needs! Mention my name and you get a discount. Okay, maybe not a discount but something else cool. Like a brand new fence!)

I came downstairs to the break room one day to find this!
I don't think it is official, but I'm totally counting it.

I finally got my own CFC shirt! Oooh yeah, I'm in the big leagues now.

Since work was such a big part of my life this summer, it sometimes felt as though I didn't get to do a whole lot, but looking back I realized that I was able to do a lot of fun things.

For example, I was able to go to Art City days with Rachelle. I was so excited! Mainly because they have corn dogs and I cannot express to you how much I love corn dogs. We walked around all the booths and even went on a ride. Rachelle was a little scared because frankly, the rides are a little old so she was nervous we would fall out. But it was still fun.

Art City Days!

I absolutely love love love Corn Dogs. We were very excited to eat them.

"Excited" to flip upside down and all around on the extremely safe and fun ride. 

Another fun thing I was able to do this summer was to play soccer with my little brother. Micah graduated from the family ward to the singles ward! So we started out playing for the ward team and then we made some friends from our ward and made an indoor team. We didn't win one game in indoor, but it was still fun to do that with Micah. It was frustrating at times as I can be ultra-super-sonic-competitive, but as my dad always says, "It wouldn't be fun if you never lost." That used to annoy me (still does sometimes) but it fun to get out and play again. 

First snow cones of summer after our first soccer game! I always end up getting the same one - Cherry Cola. Micah is a lot more adventurous and gets anything from cake batter to lemon.

I bruise like a peach so I was covered with bruises all summer. The guys at work were a little worried, but no fear! They are just from playing with boys in soccer. This isn't even the worst of the bruises!

Here are some other pictures to show some summer fun...

Micah and I comparing our arms. Sad thing is that he isn't even as dark as he got toward he got at the end of the summer! This picture doesn't give his skin the justice it deserves.

 My friend Casey and I caught the bouquet and garter at our friend Jake and Monica's wedding. 

 Another thing I did this summer was volunteer to help out the Relay for Life. I was able to receive a scholarship again and one of the requirements is to volunteer through the American Cancer Society. One cool thing was that they honor survivors and their caregivers. I asked my mom to come be my caregiver and as the even began all the survivors got to take a ceremonial first lap. It was very touching and was a neat experience to see all the other survivors around me.

One of the greatest things I got to do this summer was to go visit my sister Jenna in New York. It was so fun. But that is a post for another day. I'm very glad that I was able to get out and do some exciting things this summer and to rev up right before the start of school.

Haunted

Numbness. Confusion. Despair and anger. These are the feelings I received upon being told I had cancer a little over two and a half years ago. In just a few short days, my life, my being and very identity were stripped away from me in just two simple words. Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I didn't realize at that time what an enormous deal this was. Here I was, 20 years old being told I had cancer. I honestly did not understand the magnitude, or what would be in store for me.

I handled all the treatments well and even had a positive attitude through the entire experience. There were dark times though. Times I couldn't even begin to share with my family or close friends. How could anyone understand? I felt so alone. Those are the times that haunt me the most. Laying curled up in my bed in pain and sickness. Staring at a bald figure in the mirror not even recognizing a sliver of who I had once been. I can still see the gauntness of my eyes, crying out for help and with fear, but also seeing a desperation to push through to the end.

As time went on, each treatment became a little more difficult and I became a little more numb. Sometimes the numbness seemed to take over my body. With each frustration that arose, I strived my best to bury it down inside me or to shirk it away. I was able to lock the sadness away so that I would not have to deal with it.

Now, almost two and a half years later, that sadness and anger is trying desperately to get out of the deep places I so carefully tucked it away in. Sometimes it bursts free and bubbles to the surface causing frustration and annoyance. I feel like now is the time I need to deal with those tucked away emotions and memories which is why I decided to write this post. I feel as though it is a way for me to finally deal with what happened to me.

Yes, my body is healed of the tumors that were inside of me. But the mental wounds have not been healed yet. There are those lasting side effects of the treatments that plague me. I try my best to deal with them and to take measures to work toward complete recovery. But it can be so hard sometimes. I feel exhausted all the time, both physically and emotionally. My body does not function the way it used to or at the level a typical 23 year old body should. I get so frustrated at these times. I just want to be normal and to have my body be the way it should.

Even though I am being haunted by the memories of those dark days, I know for a fact that Heavenly Father loves me. And that his son Jesus Christ died for me. He died so that I may live again in perfect form. He suffered for my sins, weaknesses, pains, sicknesses, sadness and trials. I know that He was with me during my times of feeling alone, and that He is always with me. I know that I may not be perfect or have my body perform the way I want it to at all times, but I know that God loves me enough to help through my trials as well as the times of happiness.

With each frustration that comes, I know that God is there to help me understand His eternal plan of salvation and love. All I can do now, is to do my best to love the body I have and take the best care of it as possible and to have patience. Sometimes it feels as though my cancer is still around even though the tumors are gone. But I know that as my body continues to heal that Heavenly Father will be by my side and that one day I am going to wake up feeling brand new and not tired anymore. Even though I am terrified that I am going to get sick again, I know that He is there and will guide and comfort me.

I know He loves all of his children and the He is always there. We just have to do our part and allow Him to guide us along through the good times and the bad. God is our friend. He want the best for us. Even if we may not know exactly why our trials come upon us, we can know that He is in control and has a divine purpose for us to fulfill.

Blessings

Lately I have been thinking about of being cancer free. Sometimes it feels so surreal and unbelievable that I, Rachel Ann Fischer, actually had cancer. It doesn't even hit me how big of a deal and how huge of an accomplishment that is sometimes. It takes me back to show how truly blessed I am in so many aspects of my life. Of course medically and to be alive, but also I have been blessed to have so many great and wonderful people in my life.

To my family and friends, I thank you for standing by my side through the thick and the thin. I know in my heart that I would not have been able to get through all my treatments or through these two years without you. Thank you for your patience, support and kindness through everything and encouraging me to be the best I can be.

I am most grateful to my loving Heavenly Father who has always and will always be by my side. I am thankful for all the experiences that He has given to me to become the person I am today.  I am grateful that I was able to tolerate my treatments and to be alive. I know he loves me, and he loves all his children. I am grateful to him to have the blessing to know that I am his daughter and to know His true gospel.

I have been blessed with so many great and amazing things. They are just too numerous to count. I look forward to giving back as much as I have been given. Thank you to everyone who has supported me either through this blog or in person. Thank you for your encouragement and friendship. You are all lovely.

Long Absences Equal Long Blog Posts

So here we are with a delayed blog post from one of the many times I have vowed to write more. I apologize yet again for anyone who ever reads this because I haven’t really kept up with it. Like I said in my previous posts, I have been going to school and been trying to become normal after being sick. So here is a little update on the life of Rachel Ann Fischer.

I completed another semester of college at BYU Idaho and I did pretty darn good! I have never really been that great of a student, so it feels great to finally be getting good grades and to like my classes. I feel so blessed to be able to go to school again.

This coming semester, I am going to be going to be taking mostly classes for my major and working towards getting the last couple classes for my associates done. Woot woot! Virtual high five inserted here. I am going to be taking Public Speaking, Interpersonal Communications and Theory, Digital Media (*Correction, I dropped this for Advanced Writing), New Testament and American Epidemic. Do you realize how awesome this schedule is? Because it’s pretty darn great in my opinion, so you should too. I am going back to the apartments that I lived in when I learned I was sick. I am also going to be living with one of the sweetest girls ever Miss Josie cute face. You can blog stalk her here if you would like. You won’t be sorry. If you remember correctly, she is the one who sent me flowers and brightened my day when I was sick. I think it is safe to say that she is more than awesome.

Another cool thing about this next semester is that my little brother is going to be up there with me! This blows my mind more than anything else. My little brother is going to college. Last time I checked, they didn’t allow seven-year-olds into college, but they made an exception for him I guess. That genius. It’s going to be way fun to have him up in Idaho with me before he leaves on his mission next year! Watch out ladies, he’s a looker. Needless to say I am feeling slightly over protective of him, so I am going to have to show self-restraint when it comes to allowing him to hang out with girls. I am going to have to approve of them like a father with a shotgun on their daughter’s first date. 

I have been working at a company called CFC Fences and Decks for the last three summers, and I have really enjoyed it. I first started working there when I was sick actually! It was a major blessing then to have an actual job and to be able to take my mind off of being sick even if it was just for a little bit. I work with mainly guys, but it isn’t bad at all. It has challenged me in many different ways each year and I feel like I have come out of my shell and grown quite a bit. I sometimes can be very shy and reserved but I have been able to grow out of that a bit and be the spunky person I really am. Well, at least some of the time. I feel really blessed to be able to work there. 

My boss is so great. He is a kind, hard working, honest man who shows that he cares not only about his business, but his employees and customers as well. He has been in my Stake/Ward since I was little so I have been able to watch him over the years and he has always been a good man and great example. I feel so lucky to have a great boss. My official title at work is “Administrative Assistant.” Sounds fancy huh? Well that’s because it is. Basically I help out in many different areas, but mainly in the scheduling department.

Any way, enough about work, onto what you have all been waiting for…

How am I feeling you may ask? Well I shall tell you. I am feeling pretty darn good for where I am. I have had multiple scans and tests that say my cancer is gone and I have even graduated from seeing my Oncologist every time to seeing a Nurse Practitioner. At first this scared me because I have loved having Dr. Wallentine as my main doctor, but I guess it is a good thing that I don’t need to see him as much. He is a good man. I mean, come on, he cured me for goodness sake! Not a lot of people can say that. The last check up I had, the Nurse Practitioner was actually one of the nurses who had been in the chemo room when I would get treatments! She went back to school and got her degree to become an NP, so it was a pretty cool experience to see her again. Remember how I would say that my port was really hard to find and to access? Well she was one of two people who could actually get it on the first time. It was so nice to see a familiar face and talk to someone who had seen first hand what my experience was.

So overall I am feeling better. I am still tired and sometimes get a little woozy, but it’s less and less each day. I still do not feel like I am 100% yet and that I can’t say that I feel fully rested ever. But from talking to other people who have had similar treatments, they felt the same way. I guess this is normal for the first couple years after treatment. Mainly because after treatments, your body is starting over from zero. One man I spoke with said that he felt the same way as me in that he felt off all the time, wasn’t himself and felt exhausted all the time. Then one day, he woke up and all that had gone away! This was like three years after treatments, so I have a little while left to go until I reach that point. But oh how lovely will that moment will be when it finally does.

I still struggle with some foods or smells, but I have been trying to push past the initial yucky feeling and ignore it. This works most times but sometimes I do have to put my head down for a second. It beats being sick every other week though. I do have some effects from treatments, but those hopefully will go away. One of those effects is kidney stones.  I passed one up at school…This was not a pleasant experience I tell you. Not at all. I do not recommend it.

Other than some little issues I am doing well. I am a very blessed girl.

So that’s the Readers Digest version on how Rachel’s life has been since the last blog post.

A Special Favor

I would like to ask a special favor to anyone who reads my blog.

 I have a dear friend who I have known since I was little. She grew up across the street from me and has always been a shining light of smiles and joy. Well that same girl is very sick. She has been for a long time now. The doctors can't figure out what is wrong with her, and her body is continually fighting.

Each day she is in pain with no way of knowing why. No one fully knows or can fully understand what she is truly going through or feeling. No one but the Savior. She has been relying on him every day for about five years now for this same problem.

My request to all of you is simple. That you keep this young woman in your hearts and prayers. There may not be anything physical gift anyone can give to her, but if many people are united in faith for her cause, I know Heavenly Father will strengthen her.

When I was sick I could feel the love and faith from others as they prayed for me. I want nothing more than for Whitney to feel that same love. She is such a sweet girl. Sometimes it is hard to be sick day after day, and not knowing why must be even harder.

So please, when you kneel down to pray tonight, keep Whitney in your hearts and pray for her to have comfort and to find out what is wrong with her. Pray for her family to be sustained and uplifted. I know that they will feel that power and love from our Heavenly Father.

Thank you so very much. I appreciate it, and I  know she will too.

Read more about Whitney here: Whitney's Blog.

I Love School

So here I am back at school at the most populated place on the face of the earth. Rexburg, Idaho. This will by my... about my seventh semester? It's hard to say because technically I should be a senior, but I have taken it very slow and you know. Got "delayed" for a bit. So lets just say I have about two years left.

Photo Credit: BYU-Idaho Ambassadors (aka... Google)

I have finally decided on a major and even a minor! I am going to go into Communications with a minor in Clothing Construction. I have finally found a drive for school and am so excited to be a student learning. Where that was all along, I don't know. But as long as I have it I am going to push on through. Who knows, maybe I'll go back to school after I get my bachelors or even continue on and get a masters. 

Last two semesters I have enjoyed and done really well in my classes. (Minus my math class which was the bane of my existence. I'm just glad I passed. Now I never have to take it again!) I got some really good feedback from my professors and some recommendations for internships. That was an amazing feeling just to know that I was doing good in something and that I could have a real talent for a communications career. 

This semester my classes are looking really good too. I think it helps to finally have your mind made up with what you want to do instead of sitting in general classes and worrying about what to do with all of them. I am taking Mass Media and Society, Visual Media, Family Foundations, Fitness for Life, and Textiles. I was also taking Fashion Design and Merchandising, but it would have been a bit too much as Visual Media is going to take up a lot of my time and I want to do well in my classes. So I'll just take it a different semester. 

I was looking at my degree audit this morning and I discovered that I am only a few credits away from being completely done with all of my foundation courses which is basically equivalent to an associates. I am so excited! Those classes are very tedious at times, and frankly kind of boring. Plus they don't transfer to other universities as easily so that will be nice to get them out of the way if I decide to transfer.

 My goal is to get at least a 3.5 this semester. Hopefully it will happen. I am very excited for this semester and look forward to doing homework and to continuing my education.

Thumbs up to BYU-Idaho and the chilly months ahead.

A Year Off

I'm trying to think of where to start... After taking basically a year off of blogging it is hard to think of where to catch up. I guess I'll start with the reasons for why I took a break.

One of the biggest reasons is that the recovery process is very long and complicated. It takes about two years to feel almost normal again, and even then you still aren't normal. Cancer changes you in so many ways than just being bald. It changes you physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. I didn't really know who I was anymore when I reentered society. I had become socially awkward and more reserved. This was very different than from the person I was before I got sick. I had been a crazy, vivacious girl who loved being in social settings. Now I felt awkward, self conscious and shy. It was very difficult to handle at times.

Chemotherapy had also taken a toll on my body in ways that are very hard to explain. The steroids had caused me to gain an enormous amount of weight and caused my body to become weak. I lost all muscle strength and was not able to be as active as I had always been. This was very frustrating as I have always loved playing soccer and doing other activities. Now those things I loved were not as easy as they had been. I was essentially starting at zero.

Sadly another reason for my absence was the fear of what others thought of me. I had some experiences when I went back to school that shook me greatly. Essentially some of the things I was told was that talking about my experience with cancer was annoying and a bad thing. These people made it seem as though it was my fault that I got sick and that I was trying to elevate myself because of it. This and other things that they said made it very hard to handle in trying to find myself again. Being the person that I am I always try to make people feel good and try not to offend them. So I stopped talking about it. Sometimes the words of people hurt so much that eats inside of you until you feel so insecure that you don't know what to do.

I shouldn't have let what others thought about me dictate what I did. Just because those people were cruel and selfish didn't mean anything about me. Everyone is different and those who choose to not be kind are doing themselves a great disservice. I think they said those mean things because they didn't fully know how to handle helping someone who had just beaten cancer. It's not a common thing in a younger age group to have people your age go through cancer. Now I know it was because they were only feeling threatened because of their own insecurities. That's okay though. I am finally coming to a point where I can forgive them for making me feel so bad about myself. They didn't know any better. All I can do is do as the Savior did and forgive. I don't have to forget, but I can learn from this experience and have it help me from now on.

I also had to deal with comparing myself to others. Everyone else my age was off doing things that I had always wanted to do. Getting married, discovering the world, having babies and graduating from college. I felt as though I was a step behind and as though I was missing something. Now I realize that everyone is different. I shouldn't compare myself to others situations as everyones is very different.

Because of these reasons I withdrew from the world basically. I have been on a journey of trying to find and recreate myself. I don't know if I went about it in the right way, but I think that now I am able to talk about it. I still am a little afraid of what people think, but I think that it will help me to understand everything more. Life after cancer is difficult and in a time of my life where I am figuring out what to do with my future, I feel as though I need to talk about it, and blogging is one way I can do that. I think it will help me and maybe help others as well.

It isn't necessary for me to hide anymore. It wasn't then either, but it still is a struggle to talk about. I have come to the realization that life is about living and not being afraid of the world or what others think. I don't need to pretend that having cancer never happened. Cancer was a great struggle and trial, but it also made me a better person and has been a small blessing in some cases. I am grateful for the challenge that Heavenly Father gave me because it allowed me to come closer to Him and Christ. My goal is to use all of the knowledge that I learned to help others and to become the best person that I can be.

Growing up my family has had only a few rules that we often had to recite when we broke them.

We Talk

We Share

We don't Fight

We Respect Ourselves and Others

We Do the Things that Make Us Stronger Physically, Mentally and Spiritually

Now that I am older I can see how they were not just something to recite in the heat of the moment, but something that would help us grow and develop into becoming good people. Now I more fully understand how I can use these as tools to become the best me as possible.

So here's to a new year full of new opportunities, learning experiences and continuing a journey of more self discovery. I hope that I can become the best that I can be and continue learning about living after cancer.