Blog 7: Round Two. Same Cancer. Different Woman.

Round Two.

The second time I had to go through chemo, something in me broke before the medicine even touched my body.

Because this time, I knew too much.

The first time, I was scared because I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what chemo would feel like, how it would change my body, my mind, my appetite, my energy, my spirit, or the way I moved through my own house.

But the second time, I knew.

I knew the smell of the cancer center. I knew the sound of the machines. I knew the feeling of the port being accessed. I knew what it felt like to sit in that chair and watch bags of medicine hang above me like they were both saving me and destroying me at the same time. And that is a different kind of fear.

It is one thing to walk into something unknown. It is another thing to walk back into something you already know hurt you.

When I was told I had to do chemo again — this time for the recurrence — I tried to prepare myself. I tried to tell myself, You have done this before. You can do it again.

But deep down, I did not want to do it again. I did not want to be strong again. I did not want to be hooked up again. I did not want my life to go back to being counted by chemo rounds, side effects, pump days, recovery days, bathroom trips, and prayers whispered in the dark.

But I wanted to live. So I went back.

August 2025.

I started chemotherapy again the week of August 18, 2025. Twelve more rounds.

This time, the chemo was FOLFIRI.

And FOLFIRI was different for me. It didn’t feel like FOLFOX. It attacked me in another way — it went after my digestive system like my stomach and intestines had become the battlefield. It made my body feel like it was constantly trying to figure out what had just been poured into it.

My stomach would cramp so bad at night. Not just a stomachache. Not just discomfort. Cramping — the kind that wakes you up, the kind that makes you curl your body up and try to press the pain down with your own hands, the kind that makes the house feel too quiet because everybody else is asleep, but you’re wide awake, breathing through another wave.

There were nights I lay there in the dark, scared to move too fast, scared to eat the wrong thing, scared my stomach was about to turn on me again. It felt like my digestive system no longer belonged to me. One minute I’d think I was okay, and the next minute my stomach would twist so hard it stopped me in my tracks.

People talk about chemo like it’s only nausea or hair loss. But some of the worst parts are the things people don’t talk about because they’re uncomfortable — the bathroom issues, the cramps, the way you can be hungry and scared to eat at the same time, the way your body makes you feel like you can’t trust it anymore.

And then there were my feet.

There were days I could barely walk on them. I don’t mean they just hurt a little — I mean I would stand up and have to prepare myself before taking a step. Pain would shoot through them, this deep soreness that made every step feel like my body was begging me to sit back down. Going to the bathroom, getting something to drink, standing long enough to do anything — all of it took effort.

Before cancer, I was used to moving. Used to getting things done. Used to pushing through. Chemo did not care about any of that. It sat me down whether I wanted to sit down or not.

Her name was Faith.

Every round, I came home with the pump. I named it Faith.

Maybe that sounds strange to some people, but I needed to call it something that reminded me I was still believing. I couldn’t just look at it as poison. I couldn’t just see it as this thing attached to me, making me sick, following me from room to room. I needed it to mean something else too.

So for two days, Faith came home with me. Faith slept beside me. Faith went to the bathroom with me. Faith sat next to me while I tried to rest. Faith hung from my body while I tried to be a mother, a wife, a worker, a person.

Some days, that name was the only thing keeping me from resenting it completely.

Because the pump was hard. It was hard to come home and still be connected to chemo. It was hard to lie in bed and feel the tubing. It was hard to wake up and remember, before I even opened my eyes all the way, that I was still attached.

The cancer center didn’t stay at the cancer center. It followed me home in a bag. It came into my bedroom, my living room, the quiet moments when I wanted to feel like myself for just a little while.

And every time I looked down at it, I remembered: I am still in this. Still fighting. Still connected. Still not free from it yet.

The weight nobody expected.

This time, they put me on steroids to make me eat. And they worked.

But that came with its own pain.

While chemo was tearing through my body, the steroids were making me hungry — and making me gain weight. That was hard mentally. Confusing. Frustrating. It felt unfair.

People think when you have cancer, you automatically get smaller. They expect you to look sick in one certain way — thin, fragile, matching the story they already have in their head.

But my body didn’t do that this time. My body gained weight. And I need people to understand how painful that was.

Because I was already fighting for my life, and then I had to fight the way I felt looking in the mirror, too. I was swollen. I was heavier. I was uncomfortable. I didn’t recognize myself.

And the cruel part was, I wasn’t gaining weight because I was out living some happy, carefree life. I was gaining weight while being poisoned. While my stomach cramped at night. While my feet hurt so bad I could barely walk. While I was attached to a chemo pump named Faith.

That’s a strange kind of grief — to miss your old body while your current body is doing everything it can to survive. To look in the mirror and feel disconnected from the person looking back. To know you should be grateful your body is still here, still fighting, still breathing, but also be honest enough to say, I do not feel like myself.

And I didn’t.

I’d look at old pictures sometimes and feel a sadness I couldn’t explain. Not because I was vain. Not because weight was the biggest problem. But because cancer had already taken so much from me — and then it took the comfort of recognizing myself, too.

People might have looked at me and thought I looked fine, because I didn’t look the way they expected a cancer patient to look. But they didn’t see the nights. They didn’t see me curled up with stomach cramps, or trying to walk on feet that could barely carry me, or planning my whole day around my digestive system. They didn’t see the way I had to sleep carefully, move carefully, sit carefully, and still try to keep some kind of normal going inside my house.

The part nobody sees.

Because going through chemo again is not just physical. It messes with your mind.

The first time, you tell yourself, I just have to get through this.

The second time, it feels like, How am I back here?

How am I back in this chair? How am I wearing a pump again? How am I planning my life around chemo again? How am I asking God for strength for something I already thought I survived once?

That was the part that made me cry in places nobody saw. I had already fought so hard. I had already done the surgery, the chemo, the side effects. I had already tried to rebuild my life. And then cancer came back like it had the right to ask more of me.

There were moments I felt angry — not at God, but angry that I had to do this again. Angry that my body had to keep being put through so much. Angry that my family had to watch me suffer again.

And then I’d feel guilty for being angry. Because I knew treatment was a blessing. I knew there were people praying for a plan, for options, for something — anything — doctors could try.

So I was grateful. But I was also tired.

Both can be true.

You can be grateful for treatment and still hate what it does to you. You can have faith and still cry. You can want to live and still be exhausted by the fight. You can name your pump Faith and still have nights where all you can say is, God, I cannot do this without You.

Some nights I didn’t have a long prayer. I didn’t have beautiful words. I didn’t have the kind of faith people post about with perfect lighting and a clean ending.

Some nights, my prayer was just pain.

Lord, please.

That was it. Lord, please help my stomach. Lord, please let me sleep. Lord, please help me walk tomorrow. Lord, please let this treatment work. Lord, please don’t let my family see how scared I am. Lord, please give me strength, because I don’t have any left.

And somehow, He did.

Not always by taking the pain away right when I wanted Him to. Sometimes He gave me enough strength to make it to morning. Sometimes enough to get disconnected from the pump. Sometimes enough to take one painful step, and then another.

Sometimes the miracle wasn’t that I felt better. Sometimes the miracle was that I made it through another night.

But this time, everything was different.

Here’s what I held onto through all of it.

This time, my team ordered CEA checks every two to three months throughout treatment. They ordered MRIs. Multiple CT scans. They monitored every detail, tracked every shift, and pulled up my imaging so I could actually see what was happening inside my own body.

The difference from my first treatment was almost incomprehensible. I hadn’t known what I was missing until I finally had it.

Slowly, the numbers started moving in the right direction. February 2026. I finished my last round.

April 16, 2026. I had surgery to remove the tumor. My follow-up showed a CEA level of 0.5.

That number means one thing: remission.

Still here. Still me.

With painful feet, stomach cramps, and the weight gain, I was still here. With Faith attached to my body for two days at a time, I was still here. With fear in my chest and prayers on my lips, I was still here.

And that mattered. Because cancer tried to make me feel like my life was nothing but treatment.

But I was more than the chemo chair. More than the pump, the side effects, and the weight gain. I was still a mother, a wife, a daughter and still a woman with a story. Still a believer, even when my faith came out through tears.

I won’t pretend I handled every round of it gracefully.

Some days I cried. Some days I complained. Some days I was scared. Some days I felt ugly. Some days I felt heavy in every possible way. Some days I wanted to be left alone. Some days I wanted someone to sit beside me without asking me to explain.

But I kept going. Not because it was easy. Because I wanted to live. Because I wanted more time. Because my family still needed me. Because my story wasn’t finished.

I’ve been here before. I know the road from here isn’t a straight line. Every two to three months, I go back for labs and CT scans. Every three months, I’ll hold my breath a little until the results come in. Scan anxiety is real. The fear doesn’t completely disappear just because the tumor does.

But I am here.

What going through it twice taught me.

Going through cancer twice taught me things the first round never could.

It taught me that healing is not a destination — it’s a practice. It taught me that you don’t have to feel strong to be strong. Sometimes strength looks like crying in the parking lot before an appointment and then walking through those doors anyway.

Sometimes it looks like a pump named Faith and a prayer that’s only two words long.

It taught me that the people who show up matter more than I ever understood.

It taught me that joy and terror can share the same breath. That you can laugh on the same day you sobbed until you had nothing left. That humor isn’t denial — sometimes it’s survival.

And it taught me that the rawest, ugliest, least photogenic parts of this — the cramps, the swelling, the tears nobody saw — weren’t failures of faith.

They were faith. Just faith that looked like still showing up.

I’m still here.

I am not the person I was before July 2023.

But the woman I became through all of this? She’s someone I’m proud to be.

— Von Unfiltered

Stage 3 (2023) · Remission (2024) · Stage 4 (2025) · Remission (2026)

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” — Romans 8:28