Alyssa is a tenacious woman. She has experienced a difficult hand in life, not including the experience she will detail in this piece. She is the middle child out of five children, and she grew up in a small town outside of Denver, CO. Over the last ten years, she has passionately served as a teacher, mentor, and caretaker for children. She also has a passion for staying active and spends much of her time playing and watching sports (with a special fondness towards the Rockies!). She loves living in beautiful Colorado and hikes as often as she can. Alyssa experienced childhood cancer, she is a survivor and has been in remission for almost 20 years!
Her story began in 1997 when Alyssa was just four years old. Prior to being diagnosed she was in quite a bit of pain and subsequently, moving her body was a difficult task. Alyssa recalls, “I would curl up on the couch in a fetal position in a desperate effort to feel some relief. My body ached everywhere, and I had a cough that wouldn’t go away.” After visiting with her doctor, they were sent home with antibiotics and the doctor claimed it was strep throat. However, leaving the doctor’s office, Alyssa couldn’t even walk to the car and she continued to feel worse throughout the rest of that day. Her parents knew there was more to the situation and took her to the hospital later that evening. Looking back, Alyssa says, “I remember being poked and prodded and looked at by a team of perplexed physicians. At the time, I thought they were stabbing me with needles because of how excruciating it was when they touched me… After a battery of tests and bloodwork, the findings were grim. It was discovered that my bladder and kidneys were infected, I had pneumonia and strep throat, and my blood cells and platelets were nearly non-existent.” The results indicated that Alyssa had cancer, but before they could address the bigger issue, Alyssa needed to recover from all of her infections. She spent the night in the hospital for observation and in the morning, it seemed her body was doing better. Alyssa shares, “It was a miracle that my very infected little body didn’t suffer from sepsis, or that my organs didn’t shut down. After the course of antibiotics was finished, another miracle happened. My body had experienced what is called spontaneous remission. For some unknown reason, the cancer had cleared up along with the infections.” They were relieved she was feeling better, but they knew they would have to watch for the same symptoms to come back.
Unfortunately, the cancer recurred a month later. After a bone marrow biopsy she was officially diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia). Alyssa remembers her very tender feelings, “Being a young child, I didn’t understand what cancer was or how sick I was. I was terrified of being in the hospital and wanted nothing to do with what the doctors needed from me. I was very uncooperative and that’s when my mother pulled me aside and sat me down. I will never forget that conversation. She said, ‘It’s your choice. We can go home right now but you will get sicker and you will die. What would you like to do?’ I paused for a moment to process what my mother had said to me and finally nodded in agreement and said ‘Ok.’ From that moment on I never fussed about treatment again and surrendered to the process completely.” And her determination to get through her challenge continued to grow. She was required to have a chemotherapy port in her chest so her bloodstream was easily accessible and needed blood transfusions multiple times a day. She recalls, “My least favorite procedure that I had to endure are called spinal taps or lumbar punctures. For this, I would lay on my side with my knees bent and my head in my mother’s lap as a big needle was plunged into my spinal cord. It was a very uncomfortable feeling and afterwards I would almost always be nauseous.” Through it all, she remembers that it was very important to her to do whatever it took to become healthy again. Though she was scared, she felt a desire to be brave for those around her and with all the strength a five year old could muster, she just kept going. Her mom remembers that many other kids needed to be held down to have their procedures done, so the doctors truly appreciated her ability to bear down and get through it.
After she entered kindergarten that year, and became a bald-headed girl, other children had a difficult time understanding what she was going through. Alyssa relates, “I was bullied a lot by the kids in my class. I had little self-esteem, even less confidence, and felt like an alien. Just completely out of place and less than. I wanted so bad to be normal... Like all the other little girls who came to school with pigtails or pretty bows in their hair.” Of course her mom wanted to help ease the difficulties Alyssa was experiencing. “One morning, I went to school feeling super snazzy because my mom had put some glitter on my bald head. That resulted in relentless teasing and the nickname glitter head for the rest of the day.” She was also mistaken for a boy, especially in the girl’s restroom where young girls would scream that a boy had entered. As a five-year-old, these situations would be incredibly difficult to navigate and helps me to understand her feelings of inadequacy she experienced later in life.
The love Alyssa felt from her family was the biggest contributor to her comfort during her hardest days. Her parents had four other children, including a newborn, and yet they fought for Alyssa, “[they] empowered and encouraged me, but most importantly made my childhood feel as normal as possible.” Her oldest sibling was only ten when Alyssa was diagnosed, so her siblings could not fully understand what she was going through and many of them had to sacrifice sports games, play dates, and other important events. One of her brothers even missed his own birthday party as well because Alyssa needed the added support. It wasn't easy to appreciate why they had to go without, but I know they would easily do it all again. Alyssa’s family has a desire to come through for each other. Alyssa had the support of community members as well. Her dad was a police officer and the department chipped in for a giant teddy bear to raise her spirits. The
staff at the hospital added to Alyssa's strength and developed a loving relationship with her. They nominated her for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and she and her family had the wonderful opportunity of visiting Disney World, an opportunity her family would not have otherwise been able to take. Disney World was a fun time for everyone in her family (except her youngest sister who was too young to come along). Alyssa looks back, “It was a really neat experience. It was just a break from everything... It was magical, you know?”
Finally, in 2001, Alyssa went into remission. She remembers feeling happy but realized that remission didn’t mean there would be no recurrence of her cancer. It wasn’t until 2006 that she was officially “cured” of cancer and 2011 when she carried the same probability to get cancer as a healthy person. Her family threw her a big party when she went into remission and so many were happy to celebrate her young life that carried so much potential. The first thing that Alyssa was excited about was not having to brush her teeth! She had to take many medications that required her to brush her teeth because they were bad for her tooth enamel. Naturally, when her chemo was over, she thought that she wouldn't have to ever brush her teeth again! She quickly discovered that she'd still have to brush and it took her quite a while before it wasn't a struggle for her.
Although the cancer has cleared up, Alyssa has other physical problems that have followed, “…being that young and having chemotherapy flow through your veins does some damage to your developing organs. I have joint pain, bladder pain, brain fog, and my teeth have no enamel left to them. I may have reproductive issues down the road.” And physical issues are just the tip of the iceberg. Severe health anxiety is the largest problem to follow her. She bravely shares, “When I was officially cured, I still didn’t feel free. Every day is worrying and waiting for it to come back again. Every ache, every pain, every little thing that doesn’t feel quite right makes me wonder if I am dying. I used to pray to God every day to let me live until at least 18. Every trip to the doctor consists of mentally preparing myself to get the worst news possible." Her anxious feelings encompassed many aspects of her life, "I was so stressed out and so worried and so anxious that I didn’t participate in a lot of things, I would just keep to myself, I was really irritable and difficult to get along with…I had so much anxiety that I couldn’t even park in the high school parking lot. It would stress me out so much that I would park across the street at the library…In elementary and middle school…I was so self conscious at school that I would keep my lunch hidden at lunchtime. I would eat it very carefully out of the bag every day so that nobody could see what I was eating. I felt like I had to hide.”
Because Alyssa has dealt with so much both physically and mentally, she has gained qualities that help her relate to others that struggle, “Having childhood cancer has given me the ability to have empathy for others who are suffering. I fiercely protect the people I love and try to be an advocate for those who feel powerless. It has also given me a deep appreciation for my health and the health of loved ones.” Alyssa also advocates for mental health, “In general, I feel that mental illness has been dismissed, downplayed, and even shamed. I would encourage everyone struggling with mental illness to seek counseling. Therapy has been an incredible tool in my life and there is nothing wrong with taking that step. Your problems are real, and they matter.” I can say with certainty that because she has had to be open with people about her trials, she is sensitive to the needs of those around her. Her own personal struggles have helped her become the perfect advocate for children who may have some of the same feelings she experienced.
As I said in the beginning, Alyssa has faced a difficult hand in her life, and having cancer is not the hardest challenge she has been through. However, overcoming cancer has taught her that she can persevere in hard times. She comments, “I know that going through it made me stronger and more capable of getting through the worst times of my life…The scar from the chemo-port is a reminder of how blessed I am to be alive today and to make the most of it…to be thankful for the good things in life and to tough out the bad.” She has confidence in her ability to overcome adversity. “It has given me hope because if I could get through it, then I can get through other hard things in my life…And that is one of my mantras, ‘I can do hard things.’” I asked her to share what she might say to someone else who is struggling and she commented, “All the hardships you face in this life are shaping you into who you are meant to be. Learn and grow from them because you are capable of so much more than you think! It’s important to know that it is ok to be sad, it’s ok to struggle, and there is no shame in asking for help.”
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