Cancer, Covid, and Children

Jessica Licata was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma during the pandemic in 2020.

Cancer, Covid, and children are three C’s you never hope to experience at the same time. In this episode, Jessica Licata shares her experience of having a beautiful baby and being diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma during the pandemic.

Accessing healthcare as Covid ripped through Chicago was challenging, Jessica shares the lengths she went to in order to get a diagnosis. And why it’s important to learn how to advocate for yourself.

In this episode, we talked about:

• The challenge of a cancer diagnosis during the Covid pandemic

• How do friendships or relationships dynamics change during and after a cancer diagnosis

• The different experiences of pregnancy after cancer remission

• What is the importance of having a support group as you battle cancer

• Why do you need to celebrate your cancer wins

And more! Check out the full episode.

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The C Word Radio is a podcast that asks WTF does young cancer survivorship mean. If you got cancer and all you got was a darker sense of humor and PTSD join host, Helen King, and regular guests, for raw and at times inappropriate conversations about life after a cancer diagnosis.

Episode Transcript

Helen: What I'd like to start with is what does survivorship mean to you?

Jessica: Yeah, and that is a big question and I'm not sure why, but I have an aversion to the word survivor for myself, not necessarily for others.

The reason being, I think I'm worried that calling myself a survivor will jinx it in one way. I'm only a year out from finishing treatment. I don't know that I would feel confident using that word until I hit the two or maybe even five year mark. At five years, they say that's when we go back into the gen pop risk pool.

So I feel like that fear of relapse as a constant threat kind of tempers that urge to use that word. Then I also feel like survivor is used for people that have done something exceptional.

I'm not saying fighting cancer isn't exceptional, but I just did what I was told to do. I didn't quit. I did treatment and what my doctor said to do except for not eating sushi. I didn't do that one.

I don't feel like I've done enough in a way to earn that word. But for me in this space of having finished treatment and being NED, no evidence of disease or in remission or whatever you want to call it. What that means to me is the process of moving on and not letting it control your life by any means, but also not forgetting that it happened so it's an odd balance. It's not something to dwell on constantly. I don't think, but it also, it happened and does shape you in some ways, and it's important to acknowledge, that's just going to be part of you going forward.

Helen: Yeah absolutely. I understand that hesitation with survivor. I think it is almost like a loaded word in so many ways because we’ve put so many meanings and attachments to what a survivor is and what that means. I guess my aversion to it has slowly changed over the years, but I still don't love it because I get that as well of, yeah, what if I'm jinxing myself by saying, you know, by saying I'm a cancer survivor. It's just that constant sort of little voice saying what if it comes back.

I guess, paint the picture or set the scene for us of what was going on when you were diagnosed, what was life like?

Jessica: So things were crazy. My symptoms started in April of 2020. COVID was pretty new. We were about a month into COVID. I was living in downtown Chicago with my husband and my baby, that was under a year old. We were both working remotely from our condo with the baby. It was crazy time so do you want to hear like the whole diagnosis story?

Helen: Yeah, yeah, talk us through it. I mean it’s an important part I think of what's happened.

Jessica: So it was the end of April, 2020. And I noticed I had what I thought was just a sore muscle on the top of my right collarbone. And my Dad happened to be visiting. I asked him what it was because he's a surgeon. And so we're always asking him random things. He's never concerned, if anybody has grown up with parents in the medical field, they're typically the least sympathetic people you could go to for your ailments growing up.

But he was actually concerned, which was strange for me. I mean, he has never been concerned before about anything I brought to him and he told me to go to my doctor immediately. And the only doctor I had was an OB GYN because I was a very healthy 32 year old, you know, I've run marathons, had a baby, a beautiful, healthy baby.

Nothing is ever been wrong with me until my OB originally wanted to do a tele-health because of COVID. It was running rampant and we didn't know anything about it at the time, but I did push to go into the office. And by the time I got to my appointment, five days later, I had another bump on the back of my neck.

And so we thought that perhaps it was a reaction of some sort of infection, or we thought that maybe I had had COVID the month before, because I was sick. But at that point you couldn't get tests unless you really needed hospitalization. So we thought maybe this is COVID or mono or something else. So let's sit on it for a month. If it doesn't go away, then we'll take the next steps. But it'll probably go away in the next month. And I asked my OB, I said, we're about to start trying, like now I wanted to start this week, start trying to get pregnant again. Can I do that or do I really need to wait until we check this out? And she said, you need to wait.

Let's just see what this is before you get pregnant. All right, fine. And I was very annoyed to have to wait a month to have another kid. Over that month at the exact same time I started having back spasms, which I thought was because of poor posture, working from home, or I don't know I had a baby or whatever, you know, had no idea that these things were associated in any way.

But then over the next month I started developing more lymph nodes all along the sides of my neck and my arm pit. And then my back spasms started getting more intense and more frequent. I'm pretty tough. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I was curled up in a ball crying. I mean, I was also nursing at this time still. And I just remember trying to lie flat on the floor, which didn't hurt it. Trying to nurse my child and just crying the trend to relax so I could get milk out. It was just awful, but yeah, I'm like, oh, I just need to do some yoga. I need to do some yoga. That'll make this better. But it got to the point where I just had to start taking, I think it was three ibuprofen, every four hours just on the clock. And that was the only thing.

After a month of this called my doctor, when they got me in for an ultrasound, they couldn't get me in for another two weeks or something. And so that kind of began the whole fighting with the healthcare system to get diagnosed. But luckily my dad was around again, and I showed him the lymph node before I got the ultrasound and the other ones that had popped up and he was like, you need to go get treated.

I'm like, what are you talking about? Just treat me, just do whatever needs to be done. He goes, you don't understand, like I cannot, it is ethically wrong. I can't treat you in this situation.

Like what is wrong with me? And he was like, it could be cancer. I don't have cancer. I am healthy, this time I was now 33. I'm fine. I don't have cancer, but lo and behold, I did.

Helen: Listener it was cancer.

Jessica: but luckily having him or having somebody that knew the healthcare system helped me get my diagnosis within 10 days, I was able to go from Initial ultrasound to meeting with a hematologist, getting a couple of cat scans, getting a pet scan, getting a biopsy and meeting with my oncologist.

And the thought of it was just advocating for myself and pushing the surgeon that they couldn't get me in for a week or two to get a biopsy. And I went to his office. I just knew his picture from Google. And I talked to them in his hallway and said, look at this lymph node. I just need you to biopsy this.

Just see me really quick and we'll schedule it, this is going to be so easy. All right. All right, fine. They scheduled me for surgery and we've had it all done within 10 days I had my diagnosis, which was nice because I know a lot of people, especially people in my age group getting your diagnosis is a struggle that people are fighting with for years, because nobody expects it to be cancer. People are always looking for another reason you're having whatever symptom it is. Oh. And my diagnosis and I should mention. So I had lymphoma stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma. So that's why I was having so much back pain because in addition to all the spots in my neck and my armpits, it was also my spine and my bone marrow and my chest was pretty much everywhere in my hip.

It was all over the place, but it was almost not a relief, but it was nice to know that. All right, I'm going to do something that's going to stop this pain that's been excruciating. Wow. One thing I will say with Hodgkins though is that stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma is still pretty treatable.

I mean, when a doctor says you have stage four cancer and that's really upsetting, but I was fortunate enough that the Cancer I had does have a very high cure rate.

Helen: This amazes me cause I had breast cancer. And so stage four, that would be a pretty scary scenario to be dealing with, I want to skip back a little bit, cause my little brain is going Oh my goodness. The NZ healthcare system isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we have a public system and we also have, if you have insurance or you can pay for it you can access private care.

And so I'm curious in terms of you having to advocate for yourself, was that because of COVID? Was it because of insurance or because like so many of us, when you are younger, we are told oh no that person is far too young to have cancer. So that's not an urgent matter.

Jessica: Truly. A lot of it, I think was because of COVID and provider availability. Yeah, because they were trying not to have people come in and it was incredibly necessary and availability was limited. And then also how the system is set up. A lot of times, you're not talking to the provider's office specifically, sometimes you're talking to a scheduler who just picks whatever slot is open. So knowing what I needed to do and pushing until I was able to get it done. And again, I wouldn't have known this if I didn't have somebody that has been working in the healthcare system for decades. So very fortunate, I would have been waiting and waiting and waiting for all these different appointments.

I had my biopsy, my surgery on a Tuesday. And my first appointment with my oncologist was on Thursday.

My pathology report was not even ready yet, but my dad told me when you get to the office, tell the receptionist to call the clinicians, to check for your report. And if you're not ready to call the radiologist. So that's what we did. My oncologist was calling radiology while I was waiting to meet him for the first time. It's just things like that, that you have to push and you can't just accept the first thing somebody tells you sometimes. If you need something and this you're Karen, nobody knows or cares about you as much as you do. You need to push for what you need.

Helen: And that can be so hard. I know that for some people culturally, you don't question people in authority. And doctors are often put up on a pedestal of someone there. You don't question because they know a lot, I think, especially when you are younger and I hear it so often as well that you're told, oh no, it's far too young to be anything.

(11mins) Don't worry about it. That ability to push for yourself becomes even more important. It's okay.

Jessica: To be annoying a little bit in these types of situations, you need to take care of yourself.

Helen: Yeah. I often tell people that joke is I was told I was too young. Cause I went to it. I was 37 and I found a lump in my breast and I ended up going to a.

Doctor cause this is a bit weird and was told, oh, you know, it's, don't worry. You're too young for it to be anything sinister, probably within a month there I was booked in for a mastectomy. I tell people as well, if someone messages me and says, oh, I think I found something I'm really scared. I don't want to see it because you know, people sometimes.

Play ostrich and go, oh, I'm just going to do it more of this. And I will say to them, go and get it done if they say, oh, no, don't worry about it. Push for it because it's better off and get a mammogram or an ultrasound or a blood test and have that peace of mind that. I assume that you've been a [00:12:00] burden or that you're being a hyper contraction, something, it is much

Jessica: better to post.

Definitely. My mom actually was diagnosed with breast cancer at 39. Wow. Unfortunately passed away at 45 from it, a similar thing. They found a lump, she got a mammogram and the mammogram was normal. It's a challenge because we're not medical experts. You can do it. Ask for more information and try to learn more about your situation and ask as many questions as you can.

Yeah. Yeah.

Helen: You have highlighted such a problem for people all over the world. Now that COVID has just put an extra layer of complexity and especially medical. Because oh, health systems are so overwhelmed now, but something that you wrote about yourself that I think is so relatable. And I know for me and I come across so many other younger people who were like, this is that before cancer.

And before pets, you know, you hit your child in a, you're a young person, you've got a [00:13:00] career. You worked hard, you pushed yourself. And those sorts of things. How did. Change that, how did your cancer diagnosis impact, I guess the way that you were looking at?

Jessica: Yeah. And I don't want to be corny about it because there's one aspect of it where people think you get a cancer diagnosis and all of a sudden you're just like enlightened.

I see the world in a new way. And I truly value that kind of. Did you ever watch curb your enthusiasm? Yes. Okay. And there's one episode where they keep talking about how someone has a stage four cancer diagnosis. You have to listen to everything they say, we'll have this insight, but you have to listen to.

I'll try to avoid being like that. But truly I think that my diagnosis did help me take a little bit of a step back. I actually worked through a good portion [00:14:00] of my treatment until I realized that was stupid. I was getting thicker. With harder and harder for me to want to keep up with work and also take care of myself.

So eventually I did take a medical leave at first I felt a little bit of a failure. Oh, why can't I keep this up? Which is crazy. Chemo was hard if it's so hard. After my diagnosis, a couple of big things have changed. The biggest says I've been living in downtown Chicago for over a decade. So it was my husband.

And we actually had helped us decide to move back near my family, which is a very big change. I'm now. Northeast, Ohio, which is very different than the city of Chicago, but the whole experience made us realize that we just wanted more family closer. It just shifted priorities a little bit. And then also I still care about work.

I'm still driven and I work really hard, but I think I have a much better balance after work hours. If there's not something that needs to be. I don't need to just keep working for the sake of working. I'm alive [00:15:00] to be alive. I'm here to spend time with my child and my husband and my family, but I just think it makes that decision a little bit easier to make it helps you realize the importance of certain things a little bit better.

Helen: I feel like a lot of people are not after COVID just yet, according to this realization that it's not worth it anymore. It's just like working yourself into the ground or being completely stressed out, just. You're not people are really coming to that conclusion that there is so much more to life than your job, or trying to sort of push for this, I guess, higher, more or an all of that sort of stuff.

I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, but I've kind of been noticing it with people that since having to work from home and, you know, really being with their families, a lot of people are really reconsidering their priority.

Jessica: Definitely how I'm feeling. I think that I cancer died. Perhaps on what people are feeling already from focus [00:16:00] and having to at the same time, double whammy.

Helen: But I think as well, I know from my experience, we, uh, you go through this enormous event in your life where your world stops. All of a sudden it's sort of life or death. You'll face your mortality. And after that, you just can't put up with small things anymore.

Jessica: It's just like, oh no, no.

Helen: Yeah. So what has it been like moving back to a smaller town with your family?

They've spent a decade away and a much larger city.

Jessica: What's that transition hat I'm still in the middle of it. Definitely different. And I don't think it's the cancer thing. We used to be able to go outside and walk around. World-class restaurants just down the street. That's not here, but there are other good things about being here, as space and getting to see my grandmother and have helped with our daughter and fun things like that

Helen: for a [00:17:00] lot of people as well, a cancer diagnosis, or we go through treatment and things, it can change friendship or relationship dynamics.

What's that been like for you? How have you found your friendships or relationships during. Your cancer diagnosis.

Jessica: That actually is also part of what made me okay. With leaving the city. I think that could be my friendships have changed. And I think that cancer is a very isolating experience unless you've been through it.

Or if you've been very close to someone that's been through it, you know? And not, I don't blame anybody. You just can't understand that you don't know how hard it is. Some people don't know what to do to help. And again, I can't blame people for that, but during my treatment, it was interesting to see people that I thought would show up and be really helpful. Weren't. But then on the other side, I had people that came out of the woodwork and were fantastic. And some of them, they knew what I needed without even me articulating it. And that meant the world. That's part of what made me realize, I guess I'd [00:18:00] prefer to. Closer to more family than people that weren't able to show up when I really needed the help.

And I don't blame anybody. I get it. You can't understand it. I think it has created some distance on my part from people.

Helen: Yeah. That's such a common experience as well. And it's interesting that I even described it the exact same situation. People, I thought who would be there? Weren't and then I would have one woman who I hadn't seen in person and about 10 is, would show up every Tuesday with.

Oh, if she couldn't, she would send something and I think it is interesting. Yeah. I think cancer is such a confronting thing. And also, unless you've been through it, you don't realize how consuming it is or how tiring or mentally tiring it is. I think it can really change that dynamic in a friendship or a relationship.

You just don't really. Th that's going to be one of the four types of cancers. I think it can [00:19:00] either bring out the best or worst in people.

Jessica: Yeah. And it's tough because you're going through this whole thing and then you lose some friendships along the way to maybe not lose them, but change them.

Helen: And I think this sort of ties in to, I guess, some of those misconceptions that people have about cancer is that you go through it, you have your chemo, your hair starts coming.

Jessica: You kind of look normal and Kotex max again. And so what is normal and

Helen: then there's this expectation of, oh, you're just GSA here again, right? That's okay. Everything's back to normal, but it often isn't. So what's your experience been like? Have you gone back to normal? You like the rest of us?

Jessica: Things I hate is when people say, oh, well, like if I mentioned something about.

Oh, well, it's all behind you now. Just look forward. It's not behind me. One. It's hanging over my head every day until I hit that. Five-year mark can't stress [00:20:00] that enough. I mean, it is a terrible tackling angle about the view. Again, I don't hold it against people because I think they're just trying to say something.

Just trying to say, I really, if not all behind me, not long after I finished treatment, I got together with some friends and somebody said, but you're done now. Right? You're good. Now I'm not a crier. I burst out crying.

And I'm fortunate like I'm in remission. I responded to treatment. I have my best-case scenario. I'm pregnant. I think I mentioned that I'm pregnant again, like best-case scenario here, and it's still a struggle. I don't do well on it, but it's constantly there. And it's interesting. And I've heard these other people have said that on your podcasts as well.

You have a plan, you know what you need to do, and you are checking the boxes. You are moving through, you're doing what you have to do to survive and dirty it. I didn't really necessarily want to talk about it. Not that I [00:21:00] was avoiding it. I didn't feel the need. I'm just doing what I have to do. I didn't want to admit how thick I was.

Whenever people would ask how I was. I'm thinking, I'm glad I'm great. You know, kind of downplaying it. But now that it's over now, I'm starting to process. It feels like I want to talk about it. But, yeah, it's almost like for everybody else that time, that's past the time where it matters or when people care is one, when you're diagnosed, everybody's all kind of excited, but I'll work upright.

When you get diagnosed and then treated it's several months, you know, nobody can be that engaged for that long ago, but yeah. Now it's just figuring out what to do with it. One thing I wanted to mention that I think is helpful for people in the survivorship space is connecting with other people that have been in the same situation.

That's so I think your podcast is great to highlight this, but it's difficult for adolescents and young adults in the space because a lot of resources or groups, or what have you are targeted at either pediatric. For older patients. There's not a lot [00:22:00] for us in this space. I think it was a month or two after I finished treatment.

I did find a support group through a wonderful organization in Chicago, but I don't know most of the people in it were several decades older than me and most of them also had a stage four diagnosis and it was hard to connect with the people in there, both because we're facing very different challenges at these different times.

I'm trying to take care of a baby and get my career going and all these things while they are in different spots. But then also as somebody out of treatment in remission, from my diagnosis, for me, it didn't feel right. Comparing my experience with people that are terminal and are going to die. It's a very different space and I'm not going to complain to them about my struggles.

Post-treatment yeah. They're still in treatment for the rest of theirs. Yeah. I feel like there are a lot of great resources online. I don't know if you look at the cancer patient's Instagram. So I [00:23:00] see it while I was living in Chicago. I hung out with the person running the page that was nice to get to know them.

And they organized some meetups and things with others. Adolescents. Um, it's kind of a narrow space and hard to find other people that get it this time of their lives. Oh, Julie,

Helen: What I've experienced and also from my own experiences. Exactly what you've just said. Well, either facing parenting, being through chemo, and those sorts of things, watch IME.

As a whole other conversation of difficulty and those sorts of things, or like myself, like you're facing the fact that you probably won't have children and it's in this, the work or career and relationships and those sorts of things, there really isn't a space for us. And so what I've sort of experienced is a lot of us just feel disconnected.

It's really. Difficult to go back and the world, when everything has been changed so much and something you said before I hit go through phases with Tik TOK, where I can't stop [00:24:00] watching it is terrible because it is so appealing

Helen: just to have these little short bursts, this is exciting, but something valuable that I listened to the other day.

And it feeds into what you're saying before about when you're in the thick of it. And you don't really want to talk about it, which was my experience. And this man was talking about trauma and especially around COVID and things where things like, I guess mindfulness or, you know, self-care and some of the things that people say, oh, do those things and make yourself feel better.

He said they don't necessarily work very well when you're in the middle of what's going on, because until you are out of it and feel safe, you can't process trauma. And you know what we've been through as trauma, it's a huge trauma to go through a cancer diagnosis. Well any time. And so it makes so much sense to me when you talk about the middle of it, my brain can't even comprehend sort of expressing my emotions, clean alone at full of chemo.

That makes [00:25:00] it feel like someone's

Jessica: an.

Helen: But afterward that's when all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh, what on earth just happened?

Jessica: Like what was still can't believe it happened? It's so

Helen: weird. It took a while, but even actually throughout chemo, I would have these moments where I would wake up with a joke and I, my heater.

Jessica: Oh, my God I've got cancer. It was awful terrible. So it was like for the first time, in the middle of the night, many times. Oh man. Yeah, that's awful.

Helen: It's just crazy. Isn't it? It just really hard to comprehend that. Wow. That thing happened to me and it might happen again.

Jessica: I mean, that's the other thing it might happen again, and there's no way to know.

It's just, maybe it will, maybe it won't, we'll just keep an eye out for any [00:26:00] symptom. So that's what my oncologist told me. I'm like, all right. So. After treatment. So are we going to, if it comes back, if I have a relapse, are we going to find it through blood work? And they said, no more likely you're going to find it because now I'm going to freak out and think that it's back all the time.

And I know this is very common with people once they've finished. But every twinge, every lower back pain, I've probably had a night sweat or something like oh God, is this it? And you're immediately put back in that space. This could happen again. We'd just be doing this all over again. And can I do it again?

Helen: I asked myself that too. Could I go through that again? I don't know. I guess you do, but it's just time. I don't know.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, yeah, you don't know until you do it, get through it. Yeah. And another thing I wanted to point out for our AYA, adolescents and young adults or whatever you want to call it. I [00:27:00] think that a lot of people in that age group have a difficult situation with care because I think a lot of pediatric patients are going to have their parents ideally helping them older patients are more likely to have, I feel like a partner people in their twenties and thirties.

If they marry well, they may very well not have somebody there to help take care of them. I'd be remiss if I didn't give my husband a shout-out because I was very fortunate to have him taking me to appointments, and taking care of our daughter while working remotely. I mean, he did everything and I don't know.

Just challenged people. If you don't have somebody in your life that Abel we're committed in a way to, to help take care of all the others, the periphery stuff in your life, when you're not able.

Helen: And a lot of different people. I've spoken to have struggled with this as well. Cause I imagined as well, you a mother with a young child.

And I think when you're younger, often, we're quite self-sufficient. And so when we become [00:28:00] very vulnerable and need a lot of help, it's not a position that probably found us before. And so that's very challenging as well of all of a sudden being. That needs a lot of help. I know I struggled with that. I mean, I joked so many times and it makes me laugh.

But I drove myself to radiation every day for 11

Jessica: days

or sang

because it was,

Helen: yeah, it's a really hard position to find yourself all of a sudden aiding to rely on all these people to help you.

Jessica: I definitely. And didn't want to admit it. I would still, even though it was COVID and I was completely immunocompromised neutropenic, I still went to the grocery store instead of getting delivery, which I know was stupid.

I didn't want to think that I couldn't do it. [00:29:00] And so I did it. I mean, it took everything out of me. It was so hard to just lift the bag. And one time I went to the grocery store, I get to the car, I opened the trunk and the stroller was still in the trunk and it's kind of big. And so that required. Lift the bag.

And I got so mad at my husband, which is ridiculous. You left the stroller in the trunk. That is not a big deal. I got so mad at him, which was not fair at all. It was just, I'm already pushing myself to the max to get to the grocery store, to do this extra thing. And I just don't have it in me. He didn't want to admit it.

I just wanted to blame him for not taking the stroller out of the trunk. He handled it like a pro. He was pretty good about letting me just be a little crazy sometimes.

Helen: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So you're, you're expecting your second child, which is amazing. I mean, I know pregnancies can differ in any way [00:30:00] pregnancy to pregnancy pears, the pregnancy.

Now, given what you've been through is it a different experience?

Jessica: Yeah, I don't know how much of that is just because it's the second one. I know they're different, but I am so tired. I'm just a lot more tired with the first one. And I. Got pregnant, like six to eight months after I finished treatment with the, okay.

From my oncologist, he said, I could give it a shot and see if it worked. And it did. So I was really lucky that my fertility wasn't impacted. So I was really, really fortunate with that because we did do egg preservation just in case, but it really lucked out in the Kansas state. That's a really sensitive subject for people.

Understandably. So kind of being sensitive about. My body is, I'm just really tired and this is vain, but it's hard having your body change a lot very quickly. And then coupling that with, I hate my hair. Like this is not my hair. I [00:31:00] still growing in. It's weird. I'm in the mullet phase. Not a lot you can do about it.

You have to power through. So having my body be completely different than I'm used to and my hair at the same time, I just don't even recognize.

Helen: It's funny though because I get what you're saying and the terms of on the one hand we're taught, don't worry about that because it's, you know, a superficial thing or whatever, but I kind of failed that when your body has changed so much because of something that's completely out of your control, it's actually to do with.

Cause I know, yeah. Pregnancy must change your body. I've mentioned, it would be really challenging on top of that. Your body has been through this enormous experience with cancer and with you, you've lost all your hair or you've had surgery, which means that your body looks different now, or it's missing something or you have a scam or chemo chemos impacted your.

Those things are slightly harder to deal with then, oh, your body changes

Jessica: over time because it's like, well, yeah, it does. But when

Helen: [00:32:00] it's due to the fact that you've had this enormous sort of health event here, I kind of feel that those things are slightly had, uh, to deal with than your usual, your body's changing over time.

Jessica: You are a little bit more emotional and you're pregnant. And when I was pregnant, when I felt not like myself, I would do my hair and make it nice. But now that still growing back, have my pair and strange body, I'm happy about it and appreciate it. Yeah. You're

Helen: allowed to be both Eric and I think you're allowed to hold folks and be annoyed and happy and all of those.

Thanks. So cool. To be able to talk to you. I always appreciate hearing people's perspectives and their experiences, because I think what I'm learning is that, you know, even with different cancers, we do often really share a common experience. Even if they're at variations and differences and stuff, the common experience.

Is often the loneliness, the isolation, the confusion, [00:33:00] the hell do I grieve now and all of this stuff. And I feel like being able to share these things with people may, I don't know, maybe we can create the space that hasn't been lift for us.

Jessica: Well, thank you for doing your part to help that along. And just

Helen: before we have been a shout, what is your biggest, I guess, recommendation or piece of advice?

Anyone that may be coming out of treatment. What would you recommend might help them for where

Jessica: they are? I think trying to define other people that have been in a similar situation. I didn't realize that this a lot of times your cancer center will have adolescent. Cancer group, or just looking online and just being able to hear that other people have the same experiences and thoughts, what have you is so validating and just makes it a little bit less isolating.

And I think we know only other people that have been through it and get it. So that would be my number one piece of advice. And then also [00:34:00] everybody says it, but just feel how you want them to feel. There's no right or wrong way to do. I highly recommend celebrating the wins, doing the cancerversary cake, if you want to celebrate being alive.

Helen: Absolutely. Oh, Jessica, thank you so much. It's just

Jessica: been such a pleasure to talk to you. You too. Thank you so much. If you ever need people for whatever, like, I really believe in what you're doing and I think it's. Thanks so much for