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POGO > Articles by: Jamie Irvine
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Author: Jamie Irvine


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Happy Days Again: My Post-Treatment Cancer Journey

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Jamie Irvine

Ella Gwendolyn Jeffery

The first time I had a dressing change, I cried over what my life had become. Three weeks earlier I was healthy and doing all the things an 11-year-old should do—running, climbing, and swimming. Here I was now: fighting a disease that I knew nothing about, except for the fact that it ruins lives. It was ruining mine.

A nurse tried to comfort me by saying, “When this is all over, you’re going to be happy and healthy, and nothing’s going to ever bother you again!” I believed her wholeheartedly; I couldn’t bear to think of any other outcome.

My leukemia did go into remission; the bone marrow transplant cured me of my cancer for good, and I  became healthy again. Achieving happiness was a different story.

I returned to school full-time, less than a year after my diagnosis. School was what I had missed most during treatment, and I was expecting it to be fun. But on the first day of grade seven, I found myself in the bathroom having a panic attack. I was worried about germs and all the things that could make me sick. I was scared that my immune system wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Then there were my classmates. They had changed so much during the year I was away. I suppose I looked different too, but the difference in them seemed so sudden and was scary.

Some days I would be in a fog, remembering physical sensations of the pain I endured and fearing it would return. By mid-week I was overwhelmed and exhausted. I started faking being sick to get out of school early. My mother wasn’t fooled, but she didn’t say anything because she knew I was struggling—not physically or academically, but mentally. My world had almost ended, but I was expected to act like it had just kept turning.

That first year back at school, I began counselling with a wonderful therapist at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. It took dozens of sessions before I was even able to talk about my leukemia diagnosis, but my therapist remained patient until the day I was able to say, “On October 18th, 2014, I was diagnosed with cancer.” I was challenged to go through these memories, write them all out, and say to myself, “I was diagnosed with cancer, but it’s gone now. I won.”

When I was asked to write this story about a pivotal moment in my cancer journey, I wondered if it would count to write about the recovery after treatment. But then I realized, a huge portion of recovering from a traumatic event is the mental health process; accepting what has happened to you, and knowing that while your life has changed forever, you can still make happy, timeless memories.

In my opinion, the key to recovering mentally from an event like childhood cancer is to acknowledge what happened, express it in any way that you see fit, and then remind yourself of how hard you fought to beat the illness. After that first writing challenge in therapy, I began to write out every detail I remembered from treatment—thoughts, physical feelings, and descriptions all went into a series of journals. Even my memories of what I was wearing on a given day went into my writing! And, over this period, my fog went away. It took years, but more and more I was able to live in the moment with my friends and family, rather than being stuck remembering pain from the past. School became less of a trial and more of a pleasure.

Now I am in classes at my dream university, and I love the life I have created. There are still days where I feel sad about what happened to me. I don’t think you should come out of cancer thinking that nothing’s ever going to bother you again, but I do know that over time, things get better. To every childhood cancer warrior out there, know that you are strong in your battle, happy times do come, and no matter what, every day you are winning your fight!

Posted in Transitions | Tagged The POGO School and Work Transitions Program, transition

Poop and Farts: The Inside Scoop on My Colonoscopy

Posted on August 9, 2021 by Jamie Irvine

 

Now, many people will tell you that going through cancer changes you and gives you a new outlook on life, and in many cases, that is true. That said, I think it is safe to say that much of my personality has remained the same from before my treatment. This year I’ll be turning 36 years old and I’ve been cancer-free for over 20 years. I believe that one specific aspect of my personality aligns with most people’s inner child:

“I think poop and farts are hilarious!”

Is it childish and gross-out humour of the lowest order? Yes, but it is still funny. I mean, a well-timed fart or good old poop joke still has me laughing. And my juvenile sense of humour has been somewhat useful when I go to my check-ups, where, inevitably, one of the questions I get is about poop or, in medical terms, “bowel movements.” Due to my treatment, my pancreas doesn’t entirely work and things can get a bit messy, so, it’s possible that I get the poop questions more than others do.

Anyway, during one of my recent POGO AfterCare Clinic appointments, my health team suggested that I get a colonoscopy due to the type of cancer treatment I received as a child and the fact that there is some family history of colon cancer on my dad’s side. (This part was not funny.)

Both my parents have had colonoscopies, and they offered some advice based on their experience, like do not eat certain Jell-O colours as they dye your insides. But, most importantly, they told me that in both their experiences, the worst part was not the procedure itself but the purge the day before.

For those of you unaware of the process, a few days before a colonoscopy, you start a low-fibre diet with no red meats. The day before, you can only have clear liquids and take what I would call “super laxatives”…and oh boy, do they work. One of the late effects of my cancer and treatment that I regularly deal with is spending more time close to the bathroom, but this was on a whole other level. I believe several texts to my mother included the words, “Oh God, why won’t it stop?”

The actual colonoscopy wasn’t that bad. I experienced a slight discomfort at first, but that was about it. And it is really freaky to watch the camera work its way through your colon.

During my procedure, they found a total of seven polyps (this is a lot). Luckily, the gastroenterologist was able to remove all of them and the lab results showed none were cancerous. The bad news is that because they found so many, I have to go back in three years rather than the regular ten.

While I don’t look forward to my next visit, I’m glad that I went because now I know that my colon is healthy at the moment and that the polyps that were removed don’t have the chance to turn into something much worse. One of the many benefits of going to a POGO AfterCare Clinic is that the doctors know your diagnosis, treatment protocol and what late effects need to be monitored.

Believe me, as a pessimist, I know that it sucks to go through the hassles of test after test, and I find myself thinking, “What if?” But I just remember that if they do find something, it’s better if they find it earlier rather than later. 

On the positive side, I now have medical proof that I have a tight butt; I refuse to look at it any other way!

You can read more about Jamie’s cancer experiences including his challenges with mental health and his brush with hockey fame.

Posted in Transitions | Tagged AfterCare, Survivor, The POGO School and Work Transitions Program, transition

Ethics and Consent in the Age of Precision Medicine – Forging a Path Forward

Posted on November 22, 2018 by Jamie Irvine


VIEW THE PRESENTATION

Presentation Description:
According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, precision medicine is “a form of medicine that uses information about a person’s genes, proteins, and environment to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.” Based on the use of targeted therapies, precision approaches hold great promise to improve outcomes for children and adults with cancer. However, precision medicine also poses challenges related to informed consent. First, precision pediatric oncology has yet to realize its potential, raising concerns about overpromising and unrealistic expectations of benefit. Second, because precision pediatric oncology remains largely experimental, clinicians must generally apply standards of consent appropriate to research. Third, precision approaches often yield insights about patients’ and families’ inherited cancer risk; as a result, clinicians must incorporate elements of genetic counseling into the informed consent process. This presentation will address these and other challenges that pediatric oncology clinicians will increasingly face as we move into the era of precision cancer medicine.

Speaker:
Steven Joffe, MD, MPH
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy

Dr. Steven Joffe is the Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He serves as Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and directs two post-doctoral fellowships in bioethics and in the ethical, legal and social implications of genomics. He is also Professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Joffe attended Harvard College, received his MD from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and received his MPH from UC Berkeley. He trained in pediatrics at UCSF and in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Joffe’s clinical work is in pediatric stem cell transplantation. His research addresses the ethical challenges that arise in the conduct of clinical and translational investigation. He has been principal investigator of National Institutes of Health, Patient-Centred Outcomes Research Institute (NIH, PCORI) and foundation-funded studies that examine the roles and responsibilities of principal investigators in multi-centre trials, governance in learning healthcare systems, return of genetic results to research participants, and the integration of genomic sequencing technologies into cancer care. He is a member of the U.S. FDA’s Pediatrics Ethics Subcommittee and of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Genomics and Society Working Group.

Posted in Misc

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