With a heavy family history, including many hospital visits, weighing on me and a new romantic relationship that I was terrified would forever be defined by cancer, I had no choice—I was going to survive this!
Support groups and resources were not aimed at my age group, and many people around me didn't know how to handle the situation. Not even the Swedish system knew how to deal with a 30-year-old student with cancer, and I would simply be left without support. I want to highlight the concept of a "cancer hangover"—the feeling that comes after, when everything catches up with you and you are expected to be healthy. When the bubble bursts and you see that life has gone on for everyone else while you have fallen behind. Friends who have left, exhaustion, the pressure to return to life with a new body, a new state of mind, and the burden of trauma.
