“Can you please tell me about it? Whatever you’re okay with sharing right now.”

Pulling back from him a little, I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. This is new to me because usually when I meet someone who knows I have cancer they’ve already heard the story from a family member or a friend. I’ve rarely had to share it. I think back to the beginning and try to explain it all to him.

“I found a lump on the side of my neck when I was seventeen. Well, Adam, my boyfriend at the time, did. He had just gotten over strep, so I didn’t think anything of it. When it didn’t go away, my mom brought me to the doctor. After two failed strep tests, the doctor passed it off as allergies and said it would go away. Slowly it got bigger, so I was given antibiotics that did nothing. More lumps formed under my right arm, so my parents brought me back in—this time to a different doctor. ‘Just your hormones,’ that’s all she said. I felt fine. I had no other symptoms, so there was no reason to run tests. My parents didn’t think to question the doctor because, after all, she’s a doctor.

“Just after the New Year, the fevers started. I got night sweats, and the lumps got so big they became painful. I couldn’t raise my hand in school, or turn my neck from side to side. One morning, I couldn’t get out of bed because I hurt so badly, and my chest was so tight. My dad brought me to the emergency room, demanding tests be done.”

Parker doesn’t speak, but gives me a small smile of encouragement to continue.

“The rest happened so fast. I had a CT, MRI, PET Scan; you name it. Blood draws and a biopsy all in a week. One minute I’m hearing the words college and graduation, and the next all I hear is cancer. You have cancer.”

Clearing his throat, he asks, “What kind?”

“At that time, I was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It had moved to lymph nodes in different parts of my body, and to my lungs.”

Shaking my head, I stop. Even now, thinking back to my first diagnosis, it makes me so angry. All those months of nothing being done. Not even one test. Nothing.

“Surgery wasn’t an option, except for on one of the lumps on the side of my neck. It was so big that the general surgeon I met with at the time decided to remove it.” I point to the long scar on the right side of my neck.

Parker gives my hand a little squeeze, so I keep going. “I met with an oncologist and started chemotherapy right away. It was awful. I got extremely sick until they found the drugs that I could handle. I was forced to drop out of school because I couldn’t keep up. My teachers and principal were great because they worked with me and allowed me to do course work at my own pace, but unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough to graduate with my friends that June.”

“That explains the graduation pictures of you and Jean,” Parker states, remembering the photo he saw in my scrapbook.

I nod. “I got so sick that I had to be admitted for my treatment. While I spent my eighteenth birthday getting chemo, my friends took a senior trip to Cancun. While I was shopping for wigs, my friends were shopping for prom dresses.” I close my eyes at the memory. It was one of the worst times of my life.

“They kept texting me pictures of all the different colors and styles of dresses along with ‘ Wish you were here.’ Eventually, I threw my phone across the room so that I wouldn’t have to hear it beep one more time, or see one more dress.”

“I’m so sorry, Aundrea.”

I shrug. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. No one should have to go through that.”

I gaze into his pained, glistening blue eyes that hold so much emotion, like he’s actually feeling everything I’m telling him.

I take another deep breath. “After nine months of chemo, and thirty-six rounds of radiation, my markers came back clear. I went a year with everything going well. I was feeling great. I wasn’t fatigued or sick. I was actually happy. But that all went away when one of my blood tests came back elevated and additional tests had to be done immediately. I was told my cancer was back—stage three. It was at that moment that I realized you don’t have to feel sick to be sick. People can feel invincible one day, and be given tragic news the next.”

I pause, glancing at Parker. He’s watching me intently with soft eyes. He doesn’t have to speak for me to know what he’s thinking. I see it all. I see the emptiness. The sadness. The longing. All the things I’ve felt.

“I needed more chemo and radiation. I didn’t understand … all that treatment for what? For it to come back? For the last two years, I’ve had off and on chemo between oral and IV drugs. I did trial studies, different drugs, newer drugs, everything. In and out of hospitals, scans and more biopsies. After everything failed, Dr. Olson suggested the bone marrow transplant. We got my counts to a good enough place where I was a candidate to be my own donor.”

“Can’t they just go in and remove it?”

“Not with Hodgkin’s. It travels in your lymphatic system. Just slithers its way through your body. One second it can be here and gone, and the next it shows up somewhere else. It spreads like the plague. It’s chemo and radiation, or just chemo for treatment. And, hopefully, in my case, a bone marrow transplant.”

“And you already had that done?”

“Just before I met you I had a needle stuck through my pelvic bone. They harvested my cells, and then froze them until I’m done with the chemo. I only have one treatment left. Then I think it’s a couple weeks until they give me the cells back. I need this to work, Parker.”