Vivienne tells her story of Hodgkin Lymphoma

This is my story of being diagnosed of Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 16 in 1974.

It started when I was sweet sixteen. Should have been full of the joys of life, but something was just not right. I had just finished my exams in school and did well. I had a steady boyfriend and life was good. But that was not the way I was feeling. I am now 42 years of age writing this story.

I would get up in the morning feeling tired. I had a summer job and really had to drag my way through the day. I would fall asleep any chance I would get. Felt miserable in myself. Then I was taking dizzy spells and started to loose a lot of weight. Which I was very happy about, as I always wanted to have that slender figure, that you would see models with, but I wanted to feel good with it also.

My mother was starting to get concerned and took me along to the doctor. He politely told me that I was depressed, I found this very annoying as I have always been a happy go lucky type of person. My mother suggested that as there was diabetes in my father's family, she would like a blood test done to confirm that I was not a diabetic. He agreed and sent me off to have them. Boy was this scary, as I had never had anything like this before.

When I returned for the results he confirmed that I was acutely anaemic and suggested that I go to see a Doctor Fennelly in St Vincent's hospital as soon as possible. Now it was really getting even scarier. I got my appointment to go and see this very big man. He informed me that my blood was very low, and he would like to take me into hospital to run some tests. The most I ever had wrong with me was colds and I always suffered with chilblains every winter, and now they were talking about me having to go into hospital for tests. This was for old people, and not a 16 year old.

I was half excited about going into hospital, as I was one of six children and this was one way of getting lots of attention, that would have been hard to get when you are at home. Admitted into the hospital all older people around me doctors and nurses asking me the same questions time and time again. Then they told me I was going to get a course of iron injections to bring up my blood. Boy were these painful, my rear end was black and blue, for weeks after. I was having lots and lots of tests, you must remember this was twenty six years ago and they did not have the technology that they have today. Every day the dreaded nurse came to take yet another blood test. My weight was still dropping and although I was doing nothing, I was still tired all the time. I did not like the food in the hospital at all; the dietician came up to see if there was anything I would eat. I did not like meat and was very fussy about food; I missed my mam's cooking. So then she decided that she would start to bring me in food from home to try and get me to eat. Even this did not taste the same as everything had the hospital smell off it.

I was very lucky as we lived near the hospital and my mother came in every afternoon to see me, and my boyfriend came in every night without fail. I really looked forward to these visits to break the monotony of the day. My friends were very supportive. This is one way of finding out who your true friends are, as when you are ill you really need the support of family and friends. Thankfully I had this all through my illness.

The weeks were passing by and the tests were getting more intensive, and they still could not find out what was wrong with me. My weight had dropped from nine half stone to six stone. After having a course of iron injections I was told that they did not work. So all I got out of them was a bruised and painful rear end. I was black and blue from blood tests. I had x-ray after x-ray. Then they decided to do a biopsy. This scared the living day lights out of me. They had to put me asleep to do this and then they were going to cut my throat to take some tissue to send off to get analysed. But this was the one that found out what the problem was. They now had a name for my condition. It was Hodgkin's Disease. Who had ever heard of this? I certainly had not. But was I going to find out everything about it over the next few years. Now that they had found out what it was, it had to be staged. I had a bone-marrow test done which I found extremely painful. Then I had to have a linfangram done, this is where they injected blue dye into your system through your feet. This takes hours of you lying on your back and waiting on this blue dye to go through your veins. Then they had to take lots and lots of x-rays to show up where the Hodgkin's Disease was attacking my body.

Now I have been staged as stage 3b, which meant that the disease was attacking the upper and lower parts of my body. The doctors explained all about the disease and what the treatment they had planned for me was, 3 years of chemotherapy, never mentioning the word cancer to me at any stage.

I was told that it was a very curable disease and I would have a rough time ahead but it would be worthwhile. It was quite possible that my hair would fall out, but would grow back after treatment was finished. All in all I had now been in hospital for seven weeks. I was told that I would have my first treatment and then they would see how I was and I may get home the following week.

This was the first mention of me being allowed to go home. I was so fed up of hospital, the routine of it. The clinical smell of everything. Having no privacy and I just wanted to be healthy and get back to being a teenager. I felt cheated that everything at home was continuing while my life was on hold. Family life was just the same as if I was there. Never realising how much there life was disrupted, with my mother missing every day because she was in to visit me. Plus the stress and strain of the worry they were suffering because of my illness. My older sister and her boyfriend came in to see me on her way to her debs all dressed up. I cried because she was so beautiful. I envied her so much.

My treatment started. I had to get a *bleep*tail of drugs made up for me and they were fed into me by a drip. I could smell periwinkles and asked the doctor if he could smell them and he informed me that there was a substance from periwinkles in the drugs. As soon as the drugs started to kick in, I started to feel very nauseated. I don't think I have ever been as sick in all my life. I thought if the disease was not going to kill me, well the treatment would. I was sick for the full night after my first treatment. I really felt awful.

Finally the day came when I was finally allowed home to have complete rest. I was so excited I could not sleep I was afraid that something would happen I would get a temperature or something would stop me from getting home. Thankfully I packed up all my get well cards and presents that I had accumulated over the eight weeks and brought them all home.

My treatment regime was that I was to come into hospital every Friday to get my treatment stay over night and go home the next morning. I would have one weekend off in every four. How I would look forward to this. When I got home everything seemed so different the family were all making such a fuss of me. At first I liked but then I just wanted to be normal and not to always be sick. Part of the treatment was that I was put on steroids which made me very hungry. At only six stone I was no problem having to eat and now that I was back home my appetite came back even though with all the drugs I was on nothing tasted nice. Then I developed the problem of mouth ulcers and cold sores. All part and parcel of the treatment.

Week after week I went in for my treatment my weight was coming back in spite of how ill I was with the treatment. My energy levels started to come back again and I started to get bored being at home all the time I needed something more in my life. When my friends were heading off to discos and clubs my boyfriend and myself had to settle for the quieter life style. We developed a love of the theatre and went to the cinema a lot. I then decided I would like to get a job to occupy myself as I felt it would help me to cope. A friend of the family gave me an office job and knowing my circumstances I had no problem getting time off to go for my treatment. I would take half day Friday go have my treatment, stay in the hospital over night and be so sick. My father would collect me on the Saturday and I would go home and sleep for twenty four hours. Sunday I would start to come around and then I would be back to work on the Monday.

After six months of having treatment 3 times a month they suggested that I now only needed it twice a month. This was such a bonus. Things were starting to get better and better all the time. But my weight was now going on faster that I had lost it and I was starting to bloat out. It was a very unhealthy looking weight I had now soared to eleven stone and I was not happy about that to go from six to eleven. But my health was improving. I thankfully never lost my hair. It was very long and started to thin out but it stayed put.

Two years on treatment my boyfriend asked me to marry him and I was so happy to think all he had been through with me he still would risk marrying me. Naturally I said yes and we got engaged. The next visit I went for the doctor told me he was very happy with my progress and felt I had enough treatment after only two and a half years instead of three years this was a real bonus. Life was looking good again.

We had a big wedding and life was blissful. One day on my way home from work a friend handed me an article she had read in the paper about Hodgkin's Disease written by Dr Fennelly. I was sitting on the bus and read the article and could not believe that I had been treated for this disease for two and a half years and had to read in the evening newspaper that it was a form of cancer. Every part of my body shook I did not know how I was going to get off the bus as I was in such shock. When I got home I asked my husband if he knew it was cancer that I had? Of course everyone except me knew that it was cancer. I was so angry, everyone did it to protect me, wrap me up in cotton wool to stop me from knowing that I had cancer.

I found this very hard to deal with. Once having dealt with the medical side of it then when I was least expecting it having to deal with the emotional side of it. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that people tried to do it for the right reason.

A year and a half later I conceived our first baby we were so happy, unfortunately it did not last as I miscarried at three months. We were both deviated. Six months later I became pregnant again and I was so nervous but thankfully I blossomed and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and called her Cleona. I could not believe that she was so perfect and started to become paranoid that something would be wrong with her. I had her down with the doctor to keep checking her blood to make sure that she was OK. Twenty one years on she is very healthy. I had then two more healthy children Jennifer and Joseph and I am so lucky to have had them..

Twenty six years on I have a very hectic life I am involved in lots of different activities. I enjoy every moment of my life, I think I am making up for lost time in my teenage years as I live life to the full. I went back to studying and I take part in lots of sport activities. I think having been sick makes me appreciate life so much that I want to get the most I can out of it. Last year I had a big party as a celebration of life, to me it is worth celebrating 25 years since diagnosed of cancer.

There were times when I was on treatment you wonder is it worth it or would it be easier to stop the fight. For me every bit of fight I put into getting well again was worth it. There are times you have bad days but we are all human and even if you had never been ill you will get these.

I have a keen interest in photography and last year there was a tour put together where ex-cancer patients were asked to submit work that would show how they felt during their treatment. I submitted some photos and explained what they meant to me. This tour is at the moment in America and has toured Ireland.