![]() I had to hit the call button to go to the bathroom. You have to be comfortable with it because it’s either your mom or a nurse. She hadn’t seen me like that since I was born. “I had a pick in my arm, it was sore so I couldn’t bathe myself and I had to learn to be vulnerable with my mom. “The second night I had to deal with my first shower,” Allison said. ![]() Allison could feel the little independence she’d gained as a high school girl slipping through her finger tips. Within the first two months, you could see her ribs. A walk down the hall was a marathon for Allison. Her hands and feet turned purple, her resting heart rate was 130/140, her blood pressure was through the roof and she couldn’t walk 10 feet without getting out of breath. Soon after Allison experienced side effects. Due to its toxicity, a cardio protective medication was given just before the treatment. When she wasn’t huddled over the toilet, she was curled in a ball watching “The Proposal.”Īnd in March 2023, Allison went into heart failure due to doxorubicin, a form of chemotherapy, also known as “the red devil”. ![]() As if she was a juice box and some five-year-old with sticky hands had sucked all the fruit punch out of her. ![]() Chemotherapy is so toxic that if you were to pour it on your skin you’d suffer rashes, burns, vomiting, dizziness, the list goes on. What most people don’t realize is that chemo isn’t some cure or cold medicine you swallow fast to get better. The only symptoms Allison presented prior to treatment was back pain and trouble breathing. I had to ask if I could eat and they said no, because I had a biopsy later. “All I had was and they needed me to fast for the labs. “I do remember that I was starving,” Allison said. The doctors found four masses (infected lymph nodes) in Allison’s chest and upon diagnosis rushed her into surgery. The affected lymphocytes, by causing them to lose their infection-fighting properties, make you more vulnerable to infection. That is when Lymph Node Cells start to multiply in an abnormal way and begin to collect in certain lymph nodes. “My body was trying its best and I had to come to peace with the fact that I could be dying and I didn’t need to think about it anymore.”Īllison had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, type B. “The hardest part was when you’re hurting like that you wanna blame somebody,” Allison said. His favorite was about the beige beanie she often wore, asking “where’s your shell peanut?” anytime she’d take it off. And Jake, the youngest, couldn’t keep himself from making bald jokes. Piper, her 12-year-old sister, gave her a letter about how she felt was losing her sister to cancer. And even then Tyler would look anywhere in the room but Allison. It took a while for her siblings to visit. Slowly she got better at putting on a brave face, at making the “I’m fine’s” more realistic. appointment her mother, Andrea Allison, couldn’t face her without tearing up as she clutched the same snotty Kleenex. Soon after something inside her snapped, and Allison was forced to pick up the pieces in a hospital gown, drowning in care bears, casseroles and cards sent by teachers, grandparents and kids she hadn’t talked to since the 4th grade. She was confused when her mom explained that had cancer. She was confused when the doctors said she couldn’t eat. She was confused when she needed a chest X-ray. She was confused when she stepped into the ER. Did she mean the mental hospital? Allison was painfully confused as to what was happening. Stepping into her mom’s red RAV 4, the first words she heard was “you’re being admitted”. Her first thought was that somebody died, which was ruled out because otherwise Tyler would be there too. ![]() But to her surprise, she was handed a slip with the time to leave circled now, signed by the secretary.Ĭonfused, she called her mom, who sounded off and was coming to get her now. She pulled in the student lot at precisely 7:39 a.m.Īllison had a doctor’s appointment, she was supposed to leave 10 minutes early at the end of the day. She rapped on his door, urged him out of bed and groaned as she heard the shower running minutes later. Allison anxiously texted her 14-year-old brother Tyler. They were supposed to leave in two minutes and the upstairs usually bustling with the commotion of zippers, bookbags and electric toothbrushes was silent. Until she made the mistake of realizing an hour already passed. She had time to pin her hair just the way she liked it, and time to do her makeup, all without bothering to glance at the clock. A Pinterest worthy piece of toast, lathered with peanut butter and honey. Courtney Allison woke up at 6:00 a.m., which was oddly early considering that for the first time in ages she had time to make breakfast. ![]()
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