My Journey

I'm not anyone famous. I'm a 31-year-old wife and mother of three. I'm also a cancer survivor. I've been battling Hodgkin's disease for the past two years and am almost done. It's been a rough road and hard to explain to people who haven't gone through it. I don't know about other cancer survivors, but I can honestly say that it's changed my life for the better. It has made me a much stronger person than I ever thought I could be and it helped me to realize that life is too short to worry it away. There's so much more out there and it's easy to take advantage of the things you have.

When I was diagnosed, I was numb at first. Then I started getting angry. I never denied that it had happened; I was ticked off that it happened. That's when I found out exactly who my friends were and how important my family was. I told a woman whom I considered my best friend for at least three years, and I found out she wasn't the friend I thought she was. We used to talk to each other just about every day, sometimes twice a day. After I told her I had cancer, I was lucky to hear from her once a week. She didn't seem to talk to me anymore, and that hurt. One thing I've noticed while going through this is a good support system is very important. My family was wonderful, for the most part. What friends stood by me were great, too. My doctors and nurses were great, too.

Road to the Unknown - Artwork By Nina Kuiloff

I think I scared people, too. I don't mean scared as in frightened. I think I intimidated them. I wasn't ashamed of my illness. I'm still not. People deal with adversity in different ways. I chose to be very open about it. I'm not afraid to talk about it. In fact, I'm quite willing to talk about it. I wasn't placed on this earth to impress anyone and if they don't like me, that's too bad. I wasn't afraid to walk out of the house with only a bandana on my head because I had no hair. I wasn't embarrassed to be out in public with only 1/4-inch-long hair on my head. I chose not to wear a wig. I didn't care what people thought about me and still don't. I've got scars on my legs from Hodgkin's; I'm not embarrassed about them. I see them as battle scars. I had a friend who suggested I buy a wig so that we could go out. When I told her that I wouldn't wear one, she tried talking my husband into talking me into buying one because I made her uncomfortable. I don't have anything against wigs, if that's what a person chooses to wear. I didn't want to wear one because I wanted people to know I was sick and that I wasn't worried about how I looked. I was still alive! And, unless one goes through it, no one can truly understand what you're going through.

I went through about seven months of chemo during which I had to put my life on hold. I couldn't even plan out weekends with my family. I didn't know if I'd be sick or not. I had to stop volunteering at my daughters' school because I was too tired. I hadn't been able to work since March 2000. After the chemo, I was told that my cancer was gone. After that, I registered for school. (I want to be an ultrasound technician.) I started volunteering with the American Cancer Society. In other words, I started living again. Boy, did it feel good!

But it didn't last long. I had a follow-up CT scan done in August and it showed that my cancer had come back. Because my body had had so much chemo, my next step for treatment was a stem cell transplant. I'd heard of stem cells but wasn't sure of the specifics. I had to have three more chemo treatments to clear my bone marrow. After those treatments, they collected my stem cells and froze them. I was admitted into the hospital in December 2001. I had a PICC line placed in my arm so that I wasn't getting stuck with needles every day. For three days, I underwent chemotherapy that "killed" my bone marrow. I was given back my stem cells on January 2, 2002. I was in the hospital for two weeks after that, fighting to get my counts up to where they needed to be so I could go home. I'll be honest, those were the worst two weeks of my life. I had mouth sores so bad that nothing helped to ease the pain. The only thing I could eat comfortably was JELL-O. I was miserable but happy. I was happy because I knew that I was getting better and that my cancer would be gone soon.

Now, I'm at the final gap in the road. I started radiation therapy this past week. As of right now, I have only 14 more sessions to go. I have to go Monday through Friday for treatments. They're a breeze compared to everything else. I'm not thinking negatively about anything. In September, I'm attending the Celebration on the Hill with the American Cancer Society as a Relay Ambassador. I'm going back to school next year. I'm taking life one day at a time and enjoying every second of it. Sure, it's lonely sometimes; I don't have many people I can talk to anymore. But I'm a much better person than I was five years ago. As weird as it sounds, I'm glad I got cancer. I wouldn't change a thing.

Bio: Jessica Mundt was born in Chicago, IL in 1970. She has two sisters and a brother,all younger. She married her husband Rich in November 1995. Together they have five children. The children's ages range from 4 to 12 years old: three boys and two girls. Ms. Mundt and her family currently reside in Wisconsin. You can contact Ms. Mundt at the following e-mail address: mooly@charter.net