Part One: How I Met Cancer

Hello  everyone my name is Kirushni Nadarajah and I am 17 years old. In May 2010 both my life and my family’s turned upside down as I was diagnosed with anapaestic large cell lymphoma- a rare type of cancer of the lymphoid tissue. Never in a million years did I think I would be in a position where I’ve had to fight for my life, but yet luckily here I am today in remission cherishing every little moment in life. I’ve decided to write my story, as painful as it may be, so that other young people fighting cancer know that they are not alone. In this story I will share my experiences of beating cancer. There is only one belief that got me through to win this battle:

'You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option.'

The Symptoms 

It all started off a day before a school trip to France, I started experiencing symptoms of tiredness and really bad headaches but I just thought it was something normal and blamed it on the fact that I was excited for the trip. Despite the symptoms I was experiencing, I still went on the trip thinking I would be fine and the symptoms would wear off once I was distracted on the trip. I was completely wrong because throughout the trip my symptoms got worse and my whole trip was ruined. I just didn't feel right, so I knew something was wrong. On Friday I got home from the trip, I went to bed straight away as I was feeling extremely tired and nauseous, my mum thought it was because I had done a lot of activities and walking on the trip and I may had caught a cold, so I rested all weekend hoping I would soon be back to normal. All weekend I stayed in bed and barely ate anything, I also started experiencing night sweats and would wake up in the middle of the night and ask my mum to open the window which she thought was strange as it was really cold all weekend. I was sick all time and could not even sit on the sofa and watch TV, my mum took me to the GP on the Monday, the doctor thought it was just a virus even when I told him all the common symptoms of lymphoma and prescribed me with antibiotics. My mum asked if he could do a blood test just to be on the safe side but he refused and said there is no need as I would be okay after I take the course of oral antibiotics. I took the antibiotics for 3 days and my symptoms were just rapidly getting worse, my mum rang the GP again telling him that I'm getting worse, so he prescribed me a different course of antibiotics over the phone, even though with a virus antibiotics should kick into your system within two days and you would start to feel better. All I wanted was to feel better and there was no sign of the second prescription of antibiotics working at all so my mum rang the GP again and he just insisted that it was virus and told me to give it time. My temperature was extremely high and would not go down even with paracetamol, I had a permanent headache and I definitely knew something was wrong and so did my mum. We went to A&E about 2 or 3 times they just said the same thing without even testing me and each day my body was getting weaker and weaker. Two weeks of going back and forth to the GP and A&E department my mum decided to take action, she rang the GP first thing on a Monday and strongly argued about the fact he prescribed me antibiotics over the phone without assessing me or anything and insisted that he gives me an x-ray scan. If my mum hadn't of argued and insisted that I needed something else like an x-ray or blood test, then I don't even think I would be here today.

The day the GP gave me the X-ray forms my mum immediately took me up the hospital for the scan, I remember being so weak and could barely walk to the X-ray department, I literally forced myself to get there. The radiologist told me to take a massive breath in so she could do the X-ray but I physically couldn't do it, I tried my best but no matter how hard I tried I found it impossible. I was sick during my X-ray scan and I could no longer hold my own body. I can remember crying because I just couldn't cope with the fact that I was not getting any better and  I was falling apart. The radiologist took me to the A&E department in a wheel chair for me to be assessed by a doctor and they finally did a blood test and assessed me like any good doctor should have done after I had told them my symptoms. Results from my blood tests showed there was something wrong with me and I was told that I should be kept in hospital for further assessments at the children ward in Margate.

Children's Ward Margate 

In the ward I was put on antibiotics intravenously (through a drip) for five days there was still no sign what was causing my symptoms doctors thought it could of been a bug i caught from France but the antibiotics i was on orally should of got rid of it. The doctors even admitted they have no clue what it could be  because they have treated it if it was a viral infection, a week later i had  CT scan which I was extremely scared about as i have never had a CT scan before in my life! A lovely student nurse came with me to support me and made sure i was okay throughout the scan. A few days later the scan results came through, I was lying in bed sleeping when a doctor came into my room and asked if he could speak with my parents about my scans. I was so confused of what it could be, to be honest  I just wanted to back to normal feeling myself again so whatever the news was I was just hoping they would be able to make me feel better. My parents entered the room with the doctor, the doctor explained to me that the scans showed enlarged lymph nodes  suggesting that i might have lymphoma but they are  not entirely sure  so they are going to send me to the Royal Marsden Hospital for further testing to actually confirm the diagnosis. Everything was just a blur to me, if i am honest I did not have a clue what lymphoma was until the doctors explained it was a type of cancer, i was scared of what was going to happen to or even if i was going make it through as I  was so unwell.

That night I was transferred to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton in an  emergency ambulance, I could hear the sirens and I was thinking to myself 'what is actually happening to me?' I went from my biggest worry being about fitting into my new school to being in an ambulance and wondering what on earth was happening because being in an ambulance made me feel like I'm in an episode of Eastenders. I was so poorly that it hadn't sunk in that I may have cancer, I arrived at the Royal Marsden hospital a few hours later where my breathing started to get worse. I literally didn’t have any energy at all and I just wanted to sleep but I couldn’t I was sick constantly because my body had just started  to shut itself down. The doctors did all sorts of blood tests on me that night and the next day a doctor broke the news to me and my mum that the blood test did not show any sign of cancer, part of me was happy but I was worried and confused about what was causing me to be this ill. My journey didn't end that morning as I was transferred to St Georges Hospital in London to hopefully find out the actual cause of all my symptoms.

Intensive Care-St Georges Hospital


Everything started to seriously get worse from this point onwards I cannot clearly remember anything as my body was completely shutting down but my mum has told me the whole story. I was first sent to the A&E department where they again did several tests and assessed me, soon a paediatric doctor came and assessed me and insisted that I needed to be transferred to the intensive care unit. That evening I had an oxygen mask to help me breath and a catheter because I was so unstable that I couldn't get up and go to the toilet. The next day I could not breathe at all and I said to the nurse " I cant breath give me something", immediately a doctor came and saw me and told my mum I needed to be sedated. Sedation is where is a drug is injected into you which puts you to sleep, not only was I sedated I was also put on life support for 10 days. Before I was sedated the consultant spoke to me and told me that I would be in a paradise holiday having the time of my life and believe it or not I actually dreamt of being in Africa having the time of my life for 10 days! I have  always wondered how he could have known that!  During those 10 days I had heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure and my lungs had collapsed! Lovely!

 I was in a really critical condition and nobody knew if I would make it through or not. I had all the nurses and doctors from the intensive care unit surrounding me many times as some parts of my body would not behave! Many doctors from different departments assessed me to see if they could figure out what it could be, doctors thought it could be some sort of disease/bug that I caught from France so they tried all different antibiotics on me, however I did not respond to them. They also tested me to see if I had caught any European diseases but still my blood tests came back negative.  I cannot imagine how my family and friends must have felt, thinking about it now is emotional let alone actually facing it in real life.  I had the best support from my family, apparently my whole family filled the visiting room when they heard I was ill! Ten days later I was taken off the life support machine once my organs were all back to normal and my heart was starting to recover, however I still had a tight oxygen mask attached to me because my breathing was still not quite right.

I can now remember vague parts of what happened after I woke up from all the drama. I woke up and I had no clue what was going on, I had tubes and wires covered all over me and loud noises surrounding me from all the machines. My mum was standing beside me and I can remember her calling my name "Kirushni Kirushni, Kirushni, Kirushni", I slowly opened my eyes and looked at my mum who was smiling at me, it took me a while to figure out where I was. It felt like I was still in a dream (not the paradise one!) I was trying to get my head around where I was  and what I was doing in a hospital bed with all these wires and tubes attached to me and noises constantly beeping. If any of you have been through surgery and had anaesthetic you know the feeling of being so sleepy, waking up from sedation felt like that but ten times worse.

Once I was awake things started to go in the right direction for me-organs wise, but I was still not diagnosed which was the biggest worry. Different doctors/surgeons would come and assess me to see if they could find any sign of what it could be, five days later I woke up and was told that a surgeon found a lymph node on my neck which they wanted to do a biopsy on. Biopsy is where they surgically remove a piece of a tissue (in my case the lymph node in my neck) which is examined by the pathologist under a microscope  to discover the cause or extent of the disease. The day after the surgeon found the lymph node I had my surgery done, it was the first time I've ever had a surgery so I was really worried and scared but in the end it was alright because I was asleep for the surgery.

The Diagnosis 

A few days later the biopsy results came back, my parents had a meeting about the results and the doctors broke the news to them that I had anapaestic large cell lymphoma; a type of cancer. A word no parent wants to hear about themselves let alone about their child. God knows how they coped with my diagnosis, I asked my mum how she felt when she heard the news and she said that she felt heartbroken and in shock. They went through my treatment plan with my parents, all this information must have been overwhelming for them especially as they had no knowledge of cancer as no-one in my family or previous generation has had it before. The consultant asked if my parents wanted to tell me about the news or if they wanted him to tell me, my parents were so upset with news that they couldn't bear to tell me so they asked him to tell me instead.

I was lying in the hospital bed when the consultant and my parents walked into my cubicle, my parents facial expression were just not the same. I remember my parents standing beside me and the consultants exact words were "Kirushni we have now found out what is wrong with you; you have lymphoma". My response was "what’s lymphoma?” The consultant said to me "it’s a type of cancer, but it is treatable. As soon as I heard the word cancer i started crying, my parents were besides me trying to hold back their tears as they tried to comfort me. At the time I had no knowledge of cancer at all, my immediate thoughts were that cancer was a disease that old people get which you die from. He then explained to me that my treatment would be six months course of chemotherapy, hearing the news that I have cancer and being in intensive care was overwhelming enough but hearing that I’d have to go through another six months of hell really got me upset. I was just confused, angry, sick and tired of everything; all I wanted was someone to tell all of this wasn’t happening and that I could go home and be normal again. Words cannot explain how upsetting and tough it was getting around the fact I had cancer at 12 years old, an age where i should be worrying about if I had done my homework that was due in the next day, not worrying about whether I would be alive tomorrow.

It took me a while for all the information to sink in and I was trying not to worry but it was so hard not too, all sorts of questions and thoughts were spinning round in my head. I was still not fit enough to start treatment and recovering from intensive care was the worst part. I was in bed for over a month without any movement so all my muscles were stiff, therefore i could not move, walk or do any simple tasks that most people take for granted. Physiotherapists would try their best to get me out of bed and do simple exercises but my body was too weak to keep up with everything. It was just so awful recovering from everything and i just wanted to escape from it all. I just left everything in God’s hands and hoped for the best.

My 13th Birthday 

On June 6th 2010 it was my 13th birthday, unfortunately being a teenager was spent in intensive care but my family and the intensive care team made it as special as it possibly could have been given the circumstances. The nurses got me in the spirit by getting me out of bed and changing me out of my hospital gown into my own clothes but I still couldn’t sit up or move so the nurses had to dress me. With a lot of help they managed to put me on a wheel chair and take me to the visiting hall where a mini party was set up for me which was so sweet of my family and the intensive care team. Even though I couldn't do a lot it was so nice to just to spend time with my family and have a break away from being attached to some sort of medical equipment. It made me realise nothing is more important than being surrounded by your loved ones no matter where you are and what condition you are in. I would also like to say a massive thank you to the St George's intensive care team for making my day special!

                             Here are a few pictures that were taken on my birthday :)

I eventually did recover from intensive care, recovering meaning my organs and breathing had improved, but I still had a long road ahead of me with my battle. It was time to escape the intensive care unit after spending one and half months in there and it was so sad saying goodbye to the intensive care team as they all felt like family to me because I had spent such a long time there. I cannot thank them enough for saving my life and for caring me like their own child, I had such a brilliant bond with all the nurses and doctors and I will never forget all the hard work they put into keeping me alive!

My battle did not end there i had a long road ahead of me with my cancer treatment in my next post i will be talking about my treatment and my road to recovery.

Thank you for reading and hope this has helped you if are going through a similar situation or if this has given you any information about my battle. 

Kirushni xxx

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