u/waywardcroissant

I'm three weeks post-op, and everything has gone smoothly with my healing, but there's one problem.

I want to buy so many clothes now!!!!
In so many different styles too! I feel so much more confident, so I can rock masculine and feminine clothes and feel good doing it. But that means I have the urge to replace all of my boring oversized dysphoria shirts with a new wardrobe. I'm too broke for this! 😭

This is such a privileged problem to have, I know. I just wanted to share a silly thing that really solidified the fact that I will never ever regret doing this. I finally feel like me.

I was diagnosed with PMBCL Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma last December at the age of 23. At the time, I was living with one of my best friends 2.5 hours away from all of my family. I wasn't happy with my job, I was making very little money, and I was exhausted all the time, but I was independent and away from my abusive father. I was in the process of healing.

Then the diagnosis came. And suddenly I was moving back in with my mom (who thankfully had by this point left my father), not working, not taking care of myself, destroying my body with the most aggressive chemo possible, and basically only leaving the house to go to appointments. Life was hell. Living that existence for four months, and then two more months of not knowing whether or not it even worked, destroyed my psyche. I've had recurrent moderate to severe depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember, but this was a whole different animal. I fantasized about suicide almost constantly. I probably would have gone through with it if I didn't know for a fact that it would destroy my already struggling mom.

Somehow, I ended up on the other side. I'm in remission as of the end of June, but I've never felt more lost. The littlest things send me into a nervous breakdown. My mind and body can't handle the stressful fast paced environment of my old job, but my medical leave is almost up, so I have to figure something out. And as if the job market wasn't terrible enough as it is right now, I don't have a college degree, I don't have a driver's license, so wherever I go needs to be accessible by bus, and I can't do anything too physically demanding or requires me to be on my feet all day. I know that means that I'm probably going to end up in an office job where I type numbers into a computer all day and feel my soul die. It makes me feel sick.

I'm only 24 and I feel as if my life is over. My mind and body have been shattered and I don't know if I'll ever be able to recover. I can't relate to anyone my age anymore. Their lives are just beginning and I've already mourned mine.

I'm just over two weeks away from my surgery date, and while I'm super excited (and anxious lol), I've also been experiencing so much more chest dysphoria.

I imagine that it's because I'm thinking about my chest a lot more instead of just dissociating. That and I've been spending a lot more time watching videos and reading posts about other people's experiences, so it's at the top of my mind.

I know that I should just be glad that it's happening so soon, but when I look down and am greeted by Thing 1 and Thing 2, I just feel sick.

Anyone else experience this? How'd you cope?

I finished chemo back in early April, and now I have about an inch of hair! Fantastic!
Unfortunately, for the past couple of weeks, my head has been so itchy and flaky! I can't quite tell if it's dandruff or dry scalp, but either way, it's very annoying.
This has never happened to me before. Has anyone else had this? Is it temporary or just one of those physiological changes that come after chemo?

8 years ago, a 16 year old me was googling "can cis women get top surgery" and crying every day about my chest which I had hated ever since I hit puberty. Spoiler alert: that kid was in no way cis. It's okay, I figured it out eventually.

At the age of 21, I was finally able to move 150 miles away from my toxic household, and I spent the next couple years learning how to live for myself.

At 23, I knew I was finally ready for top surgery. I had saved up all I could, I had a strong support system, and I was emotionally stable.
I got my consultation in the Fall, and I got my surgery date scheduled for January 26th 2026.

But I was having breathing problems and chest pain. My GP told me that my chest sounded fine, and since I have GAD and Panic Disorder, it was probably just my anxiety. So even though I knew that didn't seem right. I waited for it to pass on its own. It didn't, so I got a chest x-ray. It showed an 11 cm long tumor in between my heart and my sternum. It turned out to be Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. And suddenly, my life shattered around me.

I'll spare the grisly details of the worst seven months of my life, but let me just say, cancer? chemo? 0/10 experience. Would not recommend. Don't try it at home, kids.

But finally, after all of that torment. After darkly wondering whether or not I was going to die with these two sacks of flesh still attached to me, I did it. 5 days ago I was declared cancer free. And my oncologist, who knew about my previous plans, said that I am now healthy enough for surgery.

So obviously I called my surgeon's office the same day lmao. I left a message, and the next day I got my new surgery date. July 28th. I'm going to be free.

And you know what? I have been CRAZY expensive medically this year! (Which has been thankfully covered by financial assistance) So I've hit my out of pocket maximum like 20 times over. I'm getting top surgery for the cost of the post op supplies I bought earlier!

All of this to say, if it feels like the odds are stacked against you, and that you'll never be able to get to live in a body you love, please don't give up hope. It might feel like it's taking forever, but the time will pass anyway. Just keep fighting.

At my end of treatment PET scan for PMBCL back in May, I received a very upsetting Deauville 4 score.

Everyone here (as well as my oncologist of course) reminded me that the mediastinum is a very sensitive area that is prone to inflammation, and that I shouldn't panic.

Obviously I panicked anyway. I'm a catastrophizer at heart. But you can all say that you told me so! I had another PET yesterday, and it showed full metabolic response. I did it!

It feels so surreal. I certainly don't feel like a cancer survivor. I don't even know what that means to me. Especially with the possibility of recurrence or secondary cancers. I'm just trying my best to enjoy this, and to start rebuilding my life.

This is half looking for advice and half just needing to rant.

I know the answer to this is definitely going to be: "Ask your surgeon and oncologist", but I wanted to see if on the off chance anyone had experience with this situation or something similar.

I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma exactly two months before my scheduled surgery date (because I'm the unluckiest man alive ig). So obviously that was postponed until after I'm all clear.
I went through six rounds of chemotherapy, and I'm (probably) done with treatment, but it's best practices to keep the chemo port for a while because recurrence is most likely in the first year post treatment. So it's staying for a while.

My plan is to call my surgeon's office as soon as I get a clean bill of health, (which my oncologist is completely on board with). My dysphoria has skyrocketed over the course of my cancer journey, so I really need to do this as soon as possible.

My fear is that the surgeon won't want to operate so close to a medical implant or it may affect the results somehow. My port is just above where it feels like my breast tissue begins, which is way too close for comfort.

I can't deal with another roadblock in the way of top surgery. I feel like I'll have a full on meltdown if I get told that I have to wait another year.

Is there anyone who can relate to what feels like a very unique experience? I'm kinda spiraling.

From mid-December to the beginning of April, I went through six grueling rounds of DA-R-EPOCH. This past Tuesday, I got my end of treatment PET scan, and my results are very similar to my interim PET.
My doctor says that this is fairly common, and it's possible that the activity is from my body trying to heal. So I got blood drawn for a clonoSEQ liquid biopsy, but I probably won't get the results back for at least a MONTH.
If I still have lymphoma, the next step is immunotherapy and CAR-T cell therapy.
I've heard that the prognosis for PMBCL is much worse if the initial chemo doesn't wipe it out. So I'm spiraling a little bit.
I was so ready to be done with all of this and get back to trying to rebuild my life. So to hear that I might be just as sick as I was in February makes me want to rip my nonexistent hair out.