The night of my debs was the first time I felt a lump. The hairdresser noticed it. She said, “You have a little gland up there,” but I hadn’t been aware of it. I suppose when it’s on your own body you think it’s part of the furniture. That was August 2011. When I went back to repeat my Leaving Cert in September I was getting worked up and stressed about things, which wasn’t like me at all. I take life in my stride and I’m quite happy-go-lucky. But I wasn’t being happy-go-lucky at all that year.
I was tested for glandular fever and all my bloods and ultrasound came back normal. But the day I walked out of my HPat with my friends, my mum said that whatever way she looked at me, she knew something wasn’t right.
I had another ultrasound and it showed that the chain [of nodes] in the opposite side of my neck was also enlarged.
I had a biopsy and when the results came back the doctor said, very matter-of-factly, “Elysha, we found a tumour of white cells and something called Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” I didn’t know what Hodgkin’s was. I didn’t really hear the word tumour, to be honest. I heard “white cells”, and white cells means inflammation. I still didn’t freak out. Then Mum started to cry. She said, “It’s cancer.”
It’s one of those moments when you just . . . bang, smack, you’re shocked to the core.
Exams
I know it’s silly, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Can I sit my exams?” The doctor wanted me to have scans and start chemotherapy straight away but all I was thinking was, I have English Paper One in two weeks, I don’t have time for this.
I electively deferred treatment. I said, if I’ve had this for 10 months, three weeks aren’t going to kill me. I’m planning for the long term now, and if I give up, the cancer wins. If I don’t sit my exams then I’m almost being submissive to a disease, and that certainly isn’t in my nature.
I finished my last exam and two hours later I was in Beaumont Hospital getting hormone injections to shut down my ovaries for an induced menopause, to save my fertility.
My friend Lisa came with me and we actually had a laugh about it: finish exams, check; shut down ovaries, check; get ice cream, check. I had no other options; I couldn’t go around it, so I just had to go through it.
I’d had four sessions of chemo and they were tough but doable. I cut my hair short, and some of it fell out, but I still had a head of hair by the end of it. I had radiation sessions lined up after that, but for the moment I was enjoying the fact that I had finished chemo and I had secured my points for medicine. Then my doctor phoned to say that along with the radiation, more chemo was needed because there were still spots showing up.
Square one
So I was back at square one, but worse because I wasn’t as healthy and fit as I had been when I first started out. I thought radiation would be a walk in the park because chemo is so invasive – it affects everywhere – but I found radiation a lot tougher.
My throat was stripped raw. I couldn’t eat for weeks. I was on nutrition-type drinks. I was knocked for six in terms of energy.
I ended up losing my hair, which I suppose at 19 was such a poignant thing. I didn't wear a wig, even though we had bought one, so I used to go around with my little egg head and no one tiptoed around it. My sister used to joke, paraphrasing that line from Mean Girls: "I think you shaved your head to look like a British man; you look like Regina George."
Having cancer kicked the confidence out of me. It was almost as if things kept being taken: my energy, and my independence as a person because I was so reliant on others. You feel redundant. Lots of people say the same thing; you wonder how you will go back out into the world as a “normal” person and slot back in. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
If I needed to scream and shout because I was angry that this was happening to me at 19, that was okay. It was better to let it out than to bottle it up.
I finished treatment at Christmas 2012. In February 2013 I had my first CT contrast and it was clear. I was in complete remission.
It took the guts of a year to get back to feeling like myself, but there are still some days that I’m incredibly exhausted. After I won the Rose of Tralee in August, I just crashed: I stayed in my pyjamas, cuddled the dog and ate pizza.
I took a lot of good things out of my illness, and it has shaped me into who I am today. Maybe if it hadn’t happened, I might be more dismissive of patients or might not be as headstrong about certain things or be as academically focused.
But now I know how quickly things can be taken away, so I give everything my all.
In conversation with Nora-Íde McAuliffe