How community support makes all the difference
Ambassador Carolina shares what the Trekstock community means to her and how she found support from people who'd been through cancer treatment at a young age.
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Carolina, a Colombian lawyer, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in 2017. Trekstock connected her with people who were having similar experiences and she finally felt like she belonged. The best part? The feeling of hope she got from seeing others who had recovered and were getting their lives back on track.
I am a Colombian lawyer who, more than a decade ago decided to move to London to do an MBA in International Business and get to know the old continent. Then I fell in love with London and all its perks. I stayed working for a Law Firm and was pretty much a workaholic, fully submerged in my career.
I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in July 2017. After the diagnosis, I started fertility conservation treatment the next day and two weeks later, after my egg removal, I started my chemo. Nine months later I had a bone marrow transplant.
Feeling like the odd one out
I was an inpatient for all my treatment and I was in isolation all the time. The risk of infection was so high I decided to ask all my friends and family to visit as little as possible to avoid me catching viruses and bacterias. That created a distance between my friends, family and colleagues. However, the physical distance created was not an issue until I realised no one else within my group of friends had had cancer. I felt like the odd one and you don’t want to overwhelm people talking about cancer and its wide side effects all the time. I felt everyone just looked at me like a sick little lamb and couldn't really relate to me on the kind of feelings and experience.
Discovering Trekstock
I found Trekstock in October 2018, through the Guy’s Cancer Centre Yoga Teacher, Joelle, as I had asked her if I could be placed in a cancer yoga/meditation group for younger people. She said that there were no other young people but I could get in touch with Trekstock as they ran yoga classes and activities for young adults with cancer.
When I found Trekstock and their lovely community, it was brilliant and like a breath of fresh air as I could finally talk about all my cancer experience honestly and openly with others within my age group. They really understood what I was talking about and vice versa.
Connecting with others
I love the fact that I can connect so easily with other young adults thanks to the safe networking environment that Trekstock creates. It allows us to get to know each other and share our cancer experiences and our life after cancer.
I've connected with many people and made great friendships. And these friendships have become as important and valuable as any other of my friendships before cancer.
Every single programme that Trekstock has offered, I have taken, and I have learned loads. They all help us get empowered on how to take care of our health better after cancer and how to make sure that we have a strong voice when pushing to be heard about any health concerns.
Community is invaluable
The community and connecting people is invaluable for me and is one of the gems of this charity. The network created has the most value for us, as this really allows us to feel normal again and not just the odd one out of the bunch diagnosed with cancer when young.
By hearing the stories of other young adults with cancer, it helps us to feel encouraged and safer that things do get better, and that it is worth keeping hold of hope as you see many of us way ahead of the game all recovered and with their life’s back on track.
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