Young adults will tell of cancer survival
Saturday gathering tackles pregnancy, work, other issues.
On a Friday evening in 2011, as she prepared for a weekend trip with her husband to San Antonio, Rachel Cruz received a phone call from her doctor. He had bad news.
She had cancer. Melanoma.
At 32 years old and a few months into her first pregnancy, the diagnosis was daunting and to Cruz, almost unthinkable.
“I was not unlike other people that say ‘Cancer sucks, but that’s something that affects older people, or small children.’ You don’t think of someone who’s 30 having cancer,” she said. “It would have been really helpful to talk to somebody that had been there before.”
On Saturday, the University of Texas at Austin will host a free conference dedicated to convening young adult cancer patients and survivors and getting them to discuss issues surrounding cancer.
The Cancer180 Survivorship Symposium, put on by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, will include sessions titled “Work and Cancer,” “Managing Stress During Your Cancer Journey” and “Fertility, Pregnancy and Family Planning after a Cancer Diagnosis.”
Cruz said this type of event can help cancer patients get to know other people going through similar struggles who can more easily understand their pain and frustration. Although her family and loved ones were supportive throughout her diagnosis and treatment, sometimes they just did not understand, Cruz said.
“In hindsight, I realize how much of my worrying could have been lessened had I had a group like Cancer180,” said Cruz, who is now cancer-free and volunteers at other Cancer180 programs at the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
After her cancer diagnosis, her entire social life changed, Cruz said. The Cancer180 Survivorship Symposium will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Thompson Conference Center at the University of Texas, 2405 Robert Dedman Drive. The event is free. Register at cancer180.org.
“I remember that everyone was so hush-hush about it,” she said. “It wasn’t necessarily a stigma, just nobody knew how to talk about it... Any sense of normalcy in my social life was going out the window.”
And that’s why events like the symposium are important, she said, because they allow cancer patients to get together and talk about things that other people may not understand, including the frustration of being the subject of conversation because of their diagnosis.
Connor O’Leary, the keynote speaker at the event, will touch on another frustration some young cancer patients of- ten endure. At 18 years old, O’Leary was fulfilling his dream of becoming a professional cyclist.
Then, at what seemed to be the beginning of a bright career, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
“At first it was surreal, I didn’t believe it,” he said. “I felt like I’d done so much to take care of my body, to be prepared mentally and physically for this sport ... Why did I spend all this time getting to that point? Why did this happen to me?”
But eventually, O’Leary beat cancer and returned to cycling. He also gained a new appreciation for the brevity of life, he said, which led him to pursue his passion for traveling, eventually landing him on CBS’ “The Amazing Race.”
And Saturday at the event, he’ll be sharing lessons from his journey, hoping to inspire other young cancer patients to continue their fight.
“We’ve been dealt this hand and gone through this disease,” O’Leary said. “It’s not ideal, but there’s so much we can learn.”