I am not missing!

Wait! Hold it! I am not dead! Don’t send out the troops! I have been dealing with a lot.

I am ready to explain and let you know what I have been dealing with all these months while my stories have been stalled and the blog has been gathering dust. Hold on to your hats. It might get graphic. You have been warned.

It has been a roller coaster of emotions since I got my diagnosis in November 2023. After all, how does one take being told you have less than a year left?

I hid under the covers and watched TV for months before I finally realized that what I was feeling was depression, and I needed to snap out of it. I was making myself eat. I wasn’t really hungry.

Crawling out of it came in stages.

First, I sat at my laptop talking to my friends in Discord. I was still in my pajamas, but I was out of bed. I still wasn’t doing much of anything else, but I was up and talking to people. I still had doctor’s appointments, but they seemed like a chore, and the last thing on my mind was creating or writing.

The next stage was getting dressed. I don’t know if any of you suffer from depression, but this was a big step for me. I was still only going to the other room to talk to my friends, but this time I was out of my pajamas.

I started getting the urge to clean and cook. I was getting my appetite back and even cooked occasionally, but every time I sat to write, I doomscrolled while talking to friends. I still wasn’t ready to write or create.

It was during this time, that I realized more online people than I had thought were worried about me because other than sparse postings on X and liking posts, they had not heard from me in their server or seen me in their live chats. It is always when you are always at your lowest when you find out who is in your corner, and you know what? It gave me a boost.

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The cancer is progressing slowly due to the immunotherapy, but it’s still tearing up the apartment. I have two tubes, one coming out of each kidney because it’s rerouting the plumbing, and we’re trying to prevent kidney damage. My bladder, who went on strike, is slowly crossing the picket line and working again.

My oncologist is hopeful for a trial coming up. I have to go on the 10th of this month to get my cheeks swabbed for T-cells.

When I qualify (Being positive here), they will reprogram some of my T-cells and have them attack the cancer directly. She looked excited about this trial, which made me hopeful.

After all, I am fighting this with everything I have, and if I have to be a guinea pig to trip across something that works, then stick me in a cage and stick a water bottle on the side of my cage. I am in this for the duration.

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This is the sappy part. Thank you for all your support and being there. I don’t know where my mind would be without your support.

Until next time,
Anissa “Maddy” Walker