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Patient Story |
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julie michelle baker frisco, TX United States female Living with Lymphoma T-Cell for 22 years, 2 months Age: 37 I can still remember putting my fingers on my neck and saying "my tumor is growing, my tumor is growing". We were just being funny. Never did I expect that I would be diagnosed with t-cell lymphoma only three months later. I was 15 years old at the time and we had just come back from a family vacation in Illinois. I had virtually quit eating. My family thought I was becoming anorexic or was just being a brat. Then I started to pass out every time I stood up. My throat began to swell and it hurt to swallow. My parents took me to a doctor, who diagnosed me with tonsillitis and prescribed these really huge horse pills (antibiotics). By the end of the week, I had deteriorated even more. We went to another doctor. I don't even remember how he came to the conclusion, but I was told that I needed to go to the hospital "now". I remember that I asked if I could go home and say goodbye to my cat, Funnyface. He told me !0no!1. We went home first anyway. I was in the hospital for close to two weeks before I was finally diagnosed with t-cell lymphoma. My lymph node traveled all over the U.S. because no one could make heads or tails of what was wrong with me. So then came the diagnosis, then the chemotherapy, then cancer camp, a bone marrow harvest, high school graduation and life. Now I am 31 years old, was recently married this past February, and am seriously contemplating my future. I did not expect to live this long. Now I am on this great quest to learn more about the long-term effects of what I went through 15 years ago. What a life it has been. |
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