The Weremecki Family

Well at 29 years old, I went to the emergency room for a weird rash all over my body and an uncomfortable feeling in my chest when I slept on my shoulder at night, the last thing I expected the doctor to come into my room and tell me was he believed I had cancer. Anytime anybody gets that news for themselves or regarding a loved one it is earth-shattering. Immediately the worst case scenario death comes to mind. I just could not understand how I went from being unemployable, homeless, addicted to drugs, incarcerated and pregnant with my son 5 years ago, to being sober, participating in the Ada County drug Court program, graduating in 3 years, and putting myself through beauty School and in the middle of a pandemic. I am sober for the first time in my life, with a child, working and busting my butt every single day, earning my freedom. Graduating with a cosmetology license, and working my way up to assistant manager at a salon allowed me to get a place for me and my son to live. Then finding out I had stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma, it felt like my entire world and everything I worked for had been ripped away in a single moment.

I did not make enough to maintain my bills and have a decent affordable health insurance to cover my medical costs so I had to significantly reduce my hours in order to get state funded insurance so I could do treatment which eventually turned into not working at all due to the side effects like being hospitalized for blood clots  chemotherapy had on my body nausea diarrhea menopause hot flashes blisters and sores being bald losing weight rapidly hormonal unbalance. Those things people expect to happen or anticipate but I never would have anticipated the toilet takes on someone mentally constantly trying to remain positive for yourself and others while having to look at potential negative outcomes but not get stuck in the negativity to the point you're making it harder on yourself but also not being so positive that bad news is devastating.

Shockingly being okay rocking a bald head but forcing myself to wear a wig because the way people treat you and look at you when you're bald like they're never going to see you again when they say goodbye versus when you wear a wig they tell you how good you look in give you positive reinforcement if they even remember you have cancer at all. Feeling like you've completely lost who you are because everything that you are used to doing throughout your day the things you wrapped your identity in are no longer there and all you have is time on your hands contemplating how much time you really have. I never would have thought that I'd find myself trying to be comfortable with the idea of me dying and teetering back and forth between do I even want to carry on. Trying to make sense of it in your brain that this particular situation as you get better and the cancer goes away the worse your body feels from the chemo when normally when you heal you don't feel worse you feel better. Loving and appreciating all the help you get but hating yourself for needing it in the first place and feeling bad like you're a burden when you're not. Getting excited to see your friends or meet new people and if they can't tell you I have cancer by the baldness of your head and start talking about who they knew or who they are related to that died from chemo or cancer and you see that it hurts them when they talk about it and you don't want to be rude but why would you tell me that. But there's always been one thing and one thing only in this world that has pushed me to carry on and that is my son .

By the grace of God I have made it this far and have only a couple rounds to go and have made incredible progress not only with the shrinkage of the cancer but finding the light and positivity and silver lining and small blessings in the darkest hardest trying testing times. We are holding on tightly and excited to ring the bell but unfortunately even though it feels like in this journey you are Frozen in Time you are in fact not in life carries on and Bill's collect and debts get bigger and the further you fall behind the harder is to pull out and while I do as much as I can to make money and provide with arts and crafts and doing favors and cutting people's hair and whatever it is I can do I still have a lot of ketchup to play on car payments on credit card payments on student loans on rent and then God forbid anything out of the ordinary happens such as the brakes on my car going out on me or random emergencies. All in all this has been the weirdest journey of My Life as bitter and resentful and as angry as I was in the beginning that this could happen to me and the timing of it all as I near the end of this journey my heart is full of love and gratitude and my eyes have been open two things I don't think I could have ever seen had I not gone through this. And for that I am truly grateful!