Cameron vs. HUGELY Inconvenient Cancer

It was either this or scream into the void.

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  • Remission (xL version)

    I would say I’m sorry for the delay in posting this, but you WERE warned!!!

    OKAY, so I know I SAID this wouldn’t be a place for inspirational and sappy posts, BUT I do have to say some things that are borderline-sweet. So, I’m gonna get it out of the way first so we can move on.

    It’s official— after 12 rounds of chemo and 7 months, I am FINALLY in remission!!!

    sappy stuff (brace yourself)

    GIST: I love y’all lots & appreciate all the support and love. You rock.

    To all of you who have sent gifts, texted or DMed message of support, and donated to my GoFundMe— to say I appreciate every single one of you doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about y’all. You reminded me that I don’t have to face things alone and that my support network is so much more vast than I even knew. One thing that I know for sure— I never imagined the amount of love and support I would get from so, SO many people. And while there might not seem like anything positive could happen as a result of cancer, I can honestly say that this is the exception.


    To my friends at Carolina Park Elementary: I can’t even begin to thank you for your love and support. Thank you for donating your sick days, for putting together the most precious gift from my students (a quilt with a square made by each of my 27 kiddos <3), for making meals for me and my family, and for all of the loving and supportive messages. I am so honored to call you all my friends. While I may not be teaching at CPE next year, I promise I will come back to visit! You haven’t seen the last of me, that I promise.

    To my parents, family, and friends who physically took care of me when I couldn’t care for myself, who answered my facetimes and talked to me for hours when I couldn’t be around people, who came all the way to my house to sit and chat from a distance when I was at my weakest— I will never be able to tell you how much I appreciate you.

    okay that’s done now. let’s get into it!

    When I was first diagnosed , I could NEVER have imagined how much the next 7 months would change every single aspect of my life. I assumed that chemo would suck (and I was absolutely correct), but I had no idea I was getting on such a buck-wild rollercoaster— a rollercoaster that has and will keep buck-wilding past the end of my chemotherapy treatments. Did I mention I don’t even like real rollercoasters???? Not to self-psycho-analyze (something I most certainly never have ever done ever not even once), but it definitely has something to do with the absolute lack of control in what feels like a life-threatening situation that makes rollercoasters a no go from me. And that is just how I feel about ACTUAL rollercoasters, so you can only imagine how much I enjoyed the feeling of metaphorically riding this rollercoaster.

    Now that I have officially entered into remission, I am finally able to really take a look at where I am now and what tf just happened. Like I said in my first post, if I came across a post about someone with cancer, I’d want to know everything just because I’m a curious person. There is just SO much I could talk about and I have literally no idea what y’all want to know, so I decided to make a little Google Form for you to anonymously ask me whatever you want! Click the hot pink button and ask me whatever you want to know. It can be about chemo, cancer, or anything. You can also just tell me what you want to hear more about! Whatever it is, I promise I won’t judge you (as long as you don’t judge my answers!). I feel like this might be a great place to start.

    ask a question or make a suggestion

    Okay, that’s it for today (unless I get a lot of good qs and feel like answering them today)!

    xo, Cam

  • here we go

    Fair Warning: this blog will not be in the least bit inspirational. It will be mildly reflective at best, aggressively nonsensical at worst.

    Alright. Here we go. I have no real idea what this blog-ish thing will become — but I can tell you 2 reasons why I made it:

    Reason #1 — I didn’t want to overshare on Instagram and subject the people who just wanted a quick “all clear!” update to a ten-paragraph trauma-dump caption.

    Reason #2 — If I saw someone post about having cancer, I too would want to know all about it. So if we don’t know each other all that well (or at all), no judgment.

    So if you’re here, I’m assuming you’re willingly stepping into the overshare zone. Welcome. I’ll try to keep it semi-coherent.

    What to expect (hint: the answer is nothing. Expect nothing.):

    I can confidently assert that there will likely be absolutely no consistency to this blog-ish thing.
    New posts will appear whenever I feel like emotionally unraveling online. It will not follow a schedule, a theme, or anything remotely resembling structure.

    I’m so serious — I have absolutely no plan for this at all. I won’t even promise it will be totally about cancer/chemo-related things. Genuinely no idea. Well okay I have a few ideas: I WILL definitely do a post about the full-on horror story of how we *finally* discovered I had cancer. No idea when that will be posted, but it will. Maybe I’ll do a cancer/chemo must haves list.

    Today or tomorrow, I’ll post the unabridged version of my Instagram “I’m in remission!” caption. That’ll be coming soon(ish), so stay tuned. I’ll (probably) post on my Instagram story when I put something new up here — unless I’m nauseous, hyperfixating on something wildly unrelated, fully entranced by a 6-part docuseries ranking Hitler’s clique on a scale of evilness (Spoiler: they were all fully evil) or
    emotionally held hostage by yet another crime procedural series with 20 seasons (shoutout NCIS).

    Anyways, thanks for being here — whether you’re supportive, curious, or just deeply nosy.

    — Cam

    Oh yeah, also, if you are one of my former students and you somehow found your way here, I love ya lots and I am going to be just fine, but this blog-ish thing is for grown ups. Go read a book. Or play outside. Or draw something fun. OR, better yet, tell someone about the 3 G’s that we learned about in Social Studies and then listen to my favorite song ever (the Hyperbole song from Flocabulary. It’s on youtube.).

    Love, Miss Smith