Episode 1: Diagnosis
In this inaugural episode, we unpack the day of Ella's diagnosis with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
SHOW NOTES
Sources:
Hodgkins vs Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma
Wait Times for Treatment Initiation
Kate Bowler, Author and Cancer Survivor
TRANSCRIPT
Kayla: You're listening to the My Sister's Cancer podcast. I'm Kayla Crum, registered nurse and writer.
Ella: And I'm Ella Beckett, social worker and cancer survivor.
Kayla: We're sisters on a mission to care for the cancer community through the sharing of real life stories, a sprinkle of sass and lots of support.
Ella: Join us in a new kind of pity party. It's a pity so many of us carry the heavy burden of cancer alone. So let's make it a party and carry it together.
***
Ella: “You never think it will happen to you. You don't for a minute think you'll be in the one percent. Why on earth would you have to be the one out of 100 people with a life-shattering disease? If I've learned anything in my 18 and a half years, it's that life never quite goes how we expect it to.”
Kayla: You just heard a few lines from my sister Ella's journal the day after she was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin's lymphoma. On this podcast, we're going to dive into a little bit of our story and Ella's experience with cancer to provide a background for all of our upcoming episodes, which will explore the world of cancer and all the many ways it affects the patients and their loved ones. So, Ella, I wanted to start our first podcast by giving the listeners a couple sentence summary of your cancer journey - which I know is an impossible task - but just a very broad jumping off point for us to then unpack the beginning of your journey with a diagnosis.
Ella: Yes. So I was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin's lymphoma when I was 18 years old. I went through about three to four months of chemotherapy to treat my Hodgkin's lymphoma and was placed in remission at that point. Unfortunately, less than a year later, I relapsed. And I endured about three to four more months of chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and eventually a bone marrow transplant that put me into remission. And I am now five years plus removed from my transplant.
Kayla: That was a good summary of a very complex and windy path. The word that you used, endured, definitely jumped out at me, and we'll be unpacking all the enduring that comes along with cancer in these episodes, I'm sure. For the listeners who don't know, I am Ella's sister. I'm about two and a half years older, so when she was diagnosed at age 18, I was 21 and just finishing up my nursing degree, and we actually were at the same college for that one day before she had to leave and deal with her cancer first. But we did get one spring semester together before I graduated. So then when she relapsed, I was a newly-married new nurse working the night shift at the same hospital. So that's a little bit about where we come into this cancer world. And our hope for this podcast is to really look at how it affects siblings in particular, because our experience is out of sisterhood, but every topic imaginable really, related to cancer. It's something we talk about a lot and never really stops affecting you once you're in it, unfortunately. So we wanted to create some community around that. So, for starters, today we'll be tackling the diagnosis piece. And I remember, Ella, that summer, you had graduated from high school, and you just weren't yourself. You were tired, kind of depressed, and yet it's also a weird time to graduate and be on the brink of moving out. So I think myself and our parents were maybe more apt to dismiss it. But you really started to feel like something was wrong in your body, if I remember right.
Ella: Yeah, that's very accurate. I was coming off, as you mentioned, the high from high school graduation. I think being a high school senior is a really exciting time in a lot of people's lives, and that was true for me, too. I had a great community at high school. I was involved in a lot of different things, and it was sad to see that all come to an end. And so I think the few months after graduation when I was experiencing this extreme fatigue, a little bit of weight loss and just a lack of appetite in addition to yes, feeling low. I think at first, as you mentioned, I attributed it to maybe just some mental health difficulties that I was working through. And the longer that time went on and the more fatigued I became, I think I began to realize that it was probably something else medically-related or health-related.
Kayla: Yeah, I remember we had you tested. I say “we” like I was a part of it, but mom took you to get tested. We were all living at home at that point, so it feels like I was a part of it as I was between college semesters. But you got tested for mono a couple of times. Nothing came back positive. I had had mono in high school, and that really knocked me out. I feel like they ran a bunch of just basic tests and nothing came back positive. I do think that in media or pop culture, as much as you might see cancer, you often see or you hear about people finding a lump, which actually was your experience. So it feels sort of cliche, and yet it's a cliche for a reason. And you had the weirdness of being out of the country when that happened. Do you want to tell us a little about that?
Ella: Yes. So that same summer when I was just not really feeling myself, I believe it was early August I had the opportunity to travel abroad to Honduras and when I was there - it was one of the last days that we were there - and I remember so clearly I was changing my clothes. We had been swimming that day in a swimming pool and I was changing my clothes and I somehow caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I was changing and there was a lump glaring back at me toward the base of my neck. And I had never noticed it before. It was almost as if it appeared out of nowhere. I like to think that I'm really in tune with my body and sense when things are new or different. And I just remember just like my breath catching in my throat at the sight of this protruding lump at the base of my neck. I would say not quite golf ball-sized but maybe a few centimeters smaller than that. And of course your mind goes a million different places in that moment. I think, in hindsight, I should have told someone that was on the trip with me because unfortunately I just kept it quiet. In some ways I think when you say something out loud it makes it real instead. So I so desperately wanted to just pretend like it wasn't there because I didn't want to have to deal with whatever it was. And in that moment I was really hopeful that it was some weird thing that I had picked up in Honduras. We had been drinking interesting water and been in a swimming pool that was probably not the cleanest. There's a variety of different illnesses you can pick up in different countries. So I think in that moment I was really hopeful that it was anything else. And I just kept it to myself for those last few days and then of course, told mom immediately when I got home.
Kayla: Did the word cancer jump into your mind, though, when you saw it?
Ella: Oh, absolutely.
Kayla: I don't think I ever asked you that directly before. Yeah, that's scary. It still baffles me that yeah, like you said, it's almost like it appeared out of nowhere because it had been summer. We live in a little beach town in Michigan. Your body had been exposed in your neck and chest area. So it's just interesting to me that it sort of just appeared. I guess in hindsight it grows slowly and then all of a sudden you just kind of see it. It's just such a weird concept to wrap your head around.
Ella: Well, and what's so interesting to me is how even though I was experiencing the fatigue, I was still able to quote power through and do a lot of physical activity leading up to that trip. But also on that trip we were physically building a road, shoveling rocks and working long, hard hours in the sun. And what's interesting is I don't really remember being too tired to participate or engage in what the group was doing.
Kayla: That's so crazy. You were like building a road with cancer. To think about now, I wonder if it's one of those things where you forgot what normal felt like because it happened so slowly. I know that if you have like a long flu or cold, even all of us right, a couple of weeks in, you're like, I don't even know what normal feels like. And I'm sure we'll revisit that theme throughout this podcast. But yeah, that is kind of crazy to think about what you were still doing while feeling so ill on some level. So you came back towards the end of July, and then I think a key part that I want to make sure we highlight in this conversation is that it took a month, really, to get from finding the lump to actually being diagnosed, which is how you ended up all the way moved into college before you got the devastating news. Do you remember the order in which those - the next steps kind of happened? I remember the biopsy, but I'm sure there were things before that.
Ella: Yeah. And your memory is correct. I think I had said early August, but I think it was the end of July, as I mentioned, because we were hopeful that it was something that I might have picked up down there. The first step was simply a visit with my primary care physician who put me on antibiotics, I believe it was for a week or two. And I can't remember if at that time they also ran blood work or if they waited until the antibiotics had run their course and done nothing to reduce the swelling or the fatigue or anything. And if that's the point that they ran their first blood work, I'm not sure I can't bring all of that back.
Kayla: I almost think they did it both. I could be wrong again. I was in nursing school, so I was in this weird spot of Mom, who at the time was running this ship because you had just graduated high school - like you weren't a real adult yet, even though you were technically 18, which, again, is going to be a theme of this experience: The Young Adult Cancer World. Mom was, like, conferring with me quite a bit along this process, even though I still had a year to go in nursing school. As soon as you say you're going to do something medical, everyone in the family starts coming to you with medical questions, which I'm sure happens to law students and everything else. But I feel like it was the comparison of the first blood work they did to the second that was the most concerning because of the rapid changes. And I believe it was your white blood cells because it was lymphoma. We didn't know that yet, but… And of course, they thought it might be an infection, because it really was a swollen lymph node. We just didn't know if it was swollen with infection or with cancer. One thing that sticks out in my mind is it ended up being a physician's assistant who you hadn't even seen before, I don't think. Who referred you to get your biopsy, I believe. Is that right?
Ella: Yes. So I believe I ran the two weeks of the one antibiotic, and then I think at that point is when I remember clearly, Mom asking, what else could it be? What are we trying to rule out here? And that's when the C word was first brought up, was that unfortunately, yes, that is a possibility. That it could be cancer. And I think that's the point when we were referred to an ENT to do the biopsy.
Kayla: Yeah. Ear, nose and throat doctor for anyone who doesn't know ENT. And I feel like after the C word, as you said, had been thrown out there, me and mom and dad didn't really even consider that. I think we just didn't let it enter our psyche as, like, a self-protection thing. But it seemed to me later like you maybe had come to terms with it more than the rest of us as a possibility.
Ella: Yeah, I think that's probably true. Another factor in all of this was that a good friend of mine from childhood, her brother was about two weeks ahead of me in a very similar process. And I think it was around the point that he was officially diagnosed with - I believe it was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - that it really hit me that, oh, that could be me too. Right. Because cancer is always something that happens to other people. It happens to people in books and movies and so and so's grandma, but cancer can happen to young people. And I think that was - I'll never forget there was a moment where I was standing upstairs and I think I was about to take a shower or something, and that's when it just hit me like a wall, just the reality that that's what it could be. And... and I just remember crying as I was getting in the shower, just, like, weeping, because it's that reality of “it could be me.” This could be the thing that you dread the most.
Kayla: Wow. I never heard that specific memory before. Yeah, that's tough. I feel like… yeah. Makes sense, though, that you had cried about it and accepted it into your brain, whereas I think the rest of us were still in denial. Interestingly, you said that your friend's brother made you feel like it could be you. I was aware of that situation as well, and it did the opposite for me, because my statistical rational brain was like, well, one kid from our little community has cancer. Certainly there won't be another one. And interestingly, when you got to the ENT, it was the same doctor, I think we found out later. And he was, like, thinking the same thing. He had just sent that other kid on and still thought, there's no way this other young person also has it. He ruined you forever for statistics, I think. Well, what did he say?
Ella: I think I ruined him forever too, because I think those were his first two cancer diagnoses. And I think that sticks with you. But, yes, you mentioned statistics. He told me that there was a 99% chance that it wasn't cancer.
Kayla: Okay.
Ella: I clung to that 99%, because that's pretty solid, right?
Kayla: Oh, yeah.
Ella: Yes. I have a very complicated relationship with statistics now.
Kayla: Yeah. I feel like you're trained to think 99% means something is impossible. Like if 99% of it - I think about this with birth control too. You'll read the different packages and they'll say like, 98% effective if used correctly, like for taking your pill or whatever, but then you're like, wait, that's two women out of every hundred women who still get pregnant. It's the same kind of thinking like, oh, wait, there's still that one person. And when you're that one person, it blows up your whole world and so, yeah, it definitely changed statistics for all of us, for sure.
Ella: I do think a lot of times we use statistics as a comfort and I think he had good intentions in saying that statistic to me, but yeah, like you said, when you're in the 1%, it doesn't feel very good.
Kayla: No. I remember being at my landscaping job that summer, the day that you had your biopsy. And it's just funny, like, you just described that moment when you got in the shower. I remember even, like, what tank top I was wearing, which is so silly. And coming to meet you guys at the hospital for when you came out in recovery. I was going to sit with mom and dad while they did your biopsy. And I had been sweaty and working outside gardening. And then you're in this air-conditioned hospital, and so my sweat kind of, like, dried and stuck to me, and you're just in this waiting room and you sort of feel like a trapped animal. And, yeah, it was just this very distinct experience. I still remember in my body just waiting and how you try to have a snack or watch TV or whatever, but there's just this anxiety buzzing in your mind, and it's like, we knew, I think, that you weren't going to get an answer that day because it has to go under the microscope and be examined. And yet, in a way, I was hoping… he had even mentioned - the doctor had even mentioned it could be a botfly. He had seen a lady recently who had insects inside of a lump in her neck, and then they cut it open and they flew out into the operating room. And it's pretty pathetic, but that's what I was hoping would happen, because then we would know right then, and it would be done because they would have solved it. So you're in a pretty bad place when you're hoping you have a botfly in your sister's neck. In your neck. Yeah. So that was the literal day before you had to move into college. Yeah. And the freshmen go earlier than myself as the senior. So, like, me and Mom and Dad moved you in, and you had this bandage on your neck. Bless your heart, meeting all these new people.
Ella: Well, and I felt like a schmuck because I had weight restrictions, so I couldn't - we were moving me into college, and I felt like a diva because I couldn't carry more than, I don't remember what it was, like a few pounds, and I hadn't really told a lot of people, obviously, what was happening. So, yes, I was in this very strange place where I felt like it was our little secret, and only my closest people even knew that it was happening. But then here I am, supposed to be, like, so stoked to move into this next chapter, but I was 100% holding myself back because I had that 6th sense that maybe this isn't really, like, maybe I can't really stay right now.
Kayla: Yeah, I forgot about the weight restrictions. That's funny. I see why you felt like a diva. That's something we'll discuss in depth on another episode, too. But the invisibility as a young person of being sick in any capacity, but especially with something like cancer, where often you can hide it pretty well. Like later when you got a wig and stuff or a handicapped parking pass, you had numb feet. That's, like, way down the road in this story, but people make snap judgments, especially about young people. So, yeah, I get why you thought, like, well, I'm making everyone else carry my stuff. I feel like a diva. I guess one thing I want to pull out of this conversation is that you and mom were pretty persistent in getting this solved. Our mom is a social worker, and Ella now has become one as well. But our mom is very dogged in getting people the care they need, whatever that might look like, including her own family, but also at work. And so I feel like we had an advantage that a lot of people don't have going into this. She had also recently gone through her parents decline and death, so was very used to navigating the medical world, the insurance world. Unfortunately, she had already learned those lessons both in her work and personal life. And so I even feel like the fact that it took maybe three to four weeks from the lump to the diagnosis is actually kind of quick. I feel like your self-knowledge of your body and then Mom's persistence in saying, okay, the antibiotic didn't work. What's next? What are we ruling out? All of that… in my experience as a nurse, I hear stories of where it takes months before people have answers. And so I just want to encourage listeners to not doubt yourself if something's wrong in your body and you know it, you're right. Like, you are your own best expert. Obviously, I want you to listen to medical advice, but a lot of times you do have to call and call again and go again. I think I read somewhere that the average time to diagnosis from first suspicion is like, eight to ten weeks, which is almost double what you had. And I'm not saying that to pat us on the back. I just feel like we had some advantages that not everybody has. We also are lucky to live close to a major hospital system; within an hour. That can be difficult if you don't live near one or obviously, insurance is a whole other discussion. I think the other thing I want to touch on today is getting the call. Again, this is a weird thing because you were 18, but barely. And like, what, 18-year-old… most 18-year-olds are not independent, functioning adults. I mean, there are exceptions, but yeah. So you still had Mom, like, fielding all your phone calls and stuff. And so I was still back home with Mom and Dad, and I can just still see the whole experience of mom getting the call. It's like I can walk through the memory. I don't remember any of the words, but I can see all the pictures in my head. And even just the weirdness of, like, waiting for the call. Like, you never want to lose sight of your phone and just kind of, like, hovering around waiting for it. And yet you're still trying to do normal life stuff. Like, I was getting ready to move in next week to my apartment. Mom and Dad were working. Right? You make dinner. Just the strangeness of waiting for a biopsy result, which we we're going to get very familiar with, waiting for results as we went down this path, but this first time especially. And I think those expressions, like, it turns your world upside down or everything stops. People say that because it really does feel like that sometimes in movies. You know, they'll pull back and it'll be silent, but there will just be that ringing sound, like a ringing in your ears, almost like that was my felt experience. That's probably why they do that in movies. Like, when something horrible happens, you sort of have this zoom out, ringing in your ears thing. What happened is that mom got the call and was pulling, like, scrap paper towards her to take notes, because that's her way. She's always taking notes on what anyone's saying on the phone. And I was sitting across the dining table from her because, of course, I was waiting for this call too. And you and I have eavesdropped on her phone calls for years, like, as children. So I was pretty adept at figuring out the other end of the phone call. And this one didn't take much guesswork because she was crying pretty early on into the call.
Ella: I believe the initial phone call was the doctor who did the biopsy himself, because I remember mom saying that he was even crying on the phone. Like, I think this really rocked his world too. And I'm sure the statistic that he quoted me was still ringing in his ears too. I'm sure that was not forgotten on his part, and I'm sure he felt, I mean, obviously terrible about the whole situation or any part that he played in giving us a sense of false hope. But you can't blame him for that because we're human and we love to comfort ourselves with any shred of hope that we have. But yes, I remember mom saying that he was pretty rocked by that. And then I believe that's when he said, you can expect a call from the children's hospital. And then I think they called a little bit later.
Kayla: Yeah, that makes sense. I just remember her - I mean, she gets tearful, but it was like her full-on crying face. You know how people just have that crumpled look? And then I had to call Dad to come home. He was supposed to go to some other appointments and errands. And obviously, looking back, I mean, maybe we should have just let him live in oblivion for a couple more hours, right? Why not? But when you receive the most devastating news you've ever heard I think both me and Mom, our instinct was A, to be together as a family, and B, to do something, and there's nothing to be done other than tell someone, tell people to help shoulder the burden. So I called him and told him to come home instead. And it's like, of course he knew then it was bad news, and yet we didn't tell him over the phone, so I feel bad about that in retrospect. So he got home pretty much already knowing and then just all standing in the front entryway, he had it confirmed and just yeah, I just remember, like, sitting - we have a little stair there, and I was just sitting there watching mom and dad, like, hug each other and cry. And it was just, like, the worst thing I'd ever seen. And it's crazy because all of this happened and you didn't even know yet. That's the weirdness of you being 18.
Ella: Yeah. I remember so clearly that we had it set up in such a way that if it was good news, I think Mom was just going to call me and tell me, like, hey, start this prescription. We sent it to the Meijer by your college. And then obviously, if it wasn't good news, you guys were planning to drive out there and tell me in person. So when I get a text from Mom that says, where are you on campus? I think I knew before that point, but then I'll never forget walking over and seeing the minivan and thinking, oh, my gosh. And then I just think about how incredibly hard that must have been for all of you, but really for Mom and Dad who just moved their youngest daughter into this next chapter of life and tried to encourage me and support me and cling to that hope and that promise for the new chapter. And then 24 hours later, 48, whatever it was, having to drive back there and deliver the worst possible news and say, okay, now here's what we have to do about it. And I think at the end of the day, I think it was my decision to move home and do my treatment. I just don't even think it was ever in the equation in my mind to stay there and do college while simultaneously going through something like this. I mean, I think there's people that do that and I commend them for their strength, but I think at that time, I just knew I wanted to move home and just kind of put college on hold.
Kayla: Yeah. My memory is that you came home with us that night because who wants to sleep in a nine by nine room with someone you just met when you know you have cancer for the first day? But then the next day already we had that first appointment and the doctor was basically like, yeah, I wouldn't recommend dorm living. You're going to be pretty immune-compromised. Which, like you said, I think had already been our assumption. But it's - that just solidified it. And it's tricky because it was like an hour away from home. It's not like you could have just commuted to your classes easily. I mean, an hour is doable and yet not for day-to-day life. Yeah, I can still remember that moment, too, in that old minivan that was the family car. And just like, seeing you in the bright sunlight coming across the crosswalk and seeing us and just, like, knowing. And you pulled open that door that was supposed to be electronic and wouldn’t open for years. So it falls open, you climb in your seat you always sit in and it just was this weird mashup of childhood and routine with everything wrong.
Ella: Yeah. So weird.
Kayla: Yeah. Kate Bowler talks about the before and the after and what you were saying earlier. That's what came to mind for me, and I resonate so much with that, is, like, we had life before that moment in the minivan and that whole day, and now there's a life after. And those are two completely separate chapters in many ways. Yeah. I think more people can relate to that now in these post-COVID times, or, I mean, ongoing COVID times, however you want to frame that. But that moment of before and after, I think is more palpable to more people now that we kind of all shut down for a while there. And we'll talk more about that, too, at a later date. But, yeah, that is a really distinct experience to have your life change on a dime like that, even though, like we said, it took a month to get there. You are holding out hope in some place in your heart and your mind that not everything's going to get wrecked until it does.
Ella: Yeah.
Kayla: I just mentioned a minute ago, you walking through the bright sunshine, which brings me to a metaphor that has been helpful to me. As I've looked back on the cancer experience that our family has gone through, it occurred to me that your cancer followed a seasonal progression. So diagnosis happened in August, the very end of August. But in Michigan, here where we live, it's hot and sticky. When you go back to school, it's actually very still summer like and September sometimes is still pretty hot as well. And diagnosis just felt to me like that disorienting heat that comes in waves off the concrete. Bugs are everywhere. Fruit or flowers that used to be in their prime are now just kind of overripe and rotting on the ground. It just felt like this overgrowth and this oppressive humidity is sort of how diagnosis felt to me. And then we moved into the treatment phase in the fall. You had three to four months of chemo in there. September, October, November, a little bit into December, which honestly coincided with what was happening outside, like the leaves fall off the trees, you were losing your hair. Sort of this, like, dying of the body, dying of nature. And then winter being isolation and recovery to an extent. And a year later, you ended up in the winter having a bone marrow transplant as well, which is a more extreme isolation. And then spring equating with survivorship and spring in Michigan. If you're anywhere in the Midwest, you know, spring is no joke either. You'll get a nice day and then more snow and the flowers come up, and then it snows, and it's just a lot of stop and start and slowly inching your way back to nice weather and realizing that you're never really going to quite go back to how it was before. Every year is different. So that's sort of the arc of this podcast. As we move forward, we wanted to start with really an overview of Ella's diagnosis and how we got here. And as the weeks go on, we're going to unpack different topics to share with the community and we really do want this to be a community focused space. During Ella's cancer, I in particular did not find a lot of support for adult or young adult siblings of cancer patients. There's a lot for spouses and kids and kids’ siblings, which is great, and I am super happy about all of that. But especially being in this weird young adult space, siblings are still a pretty big part of your life, and sometimes they stay a part of your life for decades, and this is just an unexplored area. So this is really what first sparked the idea for this podcast, and I've done some writing on this topic as well. So this is going to be for everybody, anyone who knows someone going through cancer. Hopefully you get more of a window into the experience and into what may or may not be helpful or what they may be going through, or if you are going through it yourself, your sibling, your loved one. Hopefully you feel a little bit less alone and feel like your story is reflected back at you a little bit. Or you can either commiserate or you can say, this is what was different for me, and find some community in comparing and contrasting. Misery loves company sometimes, so I think there's something to be said for that as well. So we just really want to carve out a space for particularly the young adult, sibling and patient community. But really, anybody affected by this, and sadly, one in three Americans gets cancer before they die. So this is a large community that nobody really wants to be a part of, but it's here, so we might as well make the most of it. I know you shared at the very beginning some lines from your journal. Was there anything more from that that you wanted to share? I really appreciate you being open with that. I wish I had journaled more at the time to look back at what I was really thinking or feeling. I admire that you had the presence of mind to do that, to process and take care of yourself in that way, but.
Ella: Yeah. I'm really also glad that I documented as much as I did. At times it was just a few lines here and there, but even that I'm really grateful for. I do wish that I had documented my journey more in photos. I think in some ways, I think I just didn't want to remember all of the details, or didn't like the way that I looked, or didn't want to have vivid, clear memories of what my hospital room looked like or just different things like that. But now, of course, over five years out, I wish that I had documented the season a little bit more. I think I was also in a season where I was very into putting my best self out to the world. I loved planning my Instagram and my aesthetic. And as great as that all is, I think I am much more leaning toward authenticity in what I put out into the world, but also just in what I document. So in many ways, I think I could have been a bit more honest when all of this was happening. And we might talk about this in another episode too. Just in how we communicate things.
Kayla: Yeah, I feel like that's good to say here, though, at the start, for anybody who is just starting their journey and maybe found this particular episode because it's called Diagnosis or something like that. Don't be afraid to take the pictures. Don't be afraid to write down even your angriest thoughts or your scariest thoughts. If anything, I think both of us wish we had done more of that. We have a little bit. And you don't have to necessarily share it publicly, even the photos just have a private album on your phone or something. I definitely think we wish we had more photos just because it is such a defining part of your life. Even if you end up in remission, it's always a part of your story. So if you're at the beginning, first of all, so sorry, this sucks, and there's nothing we can say to fix it, and I'm sorry for that. But also, don't be afraid to document it in whatever way feels right. And I do think part of what we're doing now is processing it in a way that we haven't before on this podcast, and through writing and talking about it and thinking about it and hoping that for other people, maybe it doesn't take five years before they really unpack everything. So don't be afraid to document it as you go, for sure. Well, that is our intro to this podcast. We're going to have many episodes, we'll move through the seasons that I mentioned a little bit ago. So this summer we'll be focusing on diagnosis, which it may seem like we would run out of things to say about that, but there's actually a shocking amount to talk about regarding first-time diagnosis. Relapses, the very beginning, and your orientation to being a part of Cancer World can be very overwhelming. So that's what we're going to cover this summer. And then this fall, we'll move into more of what treatment is like for everybody involved. So we appreciate you giving us a listen today. If you are in this space, we're sorry you're here, but we're glad you're here because we might as well be here together. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.