Unstoppable Testimonies

Hello! I’m Yaiza and when I turned 21 I was diagnosed with an unclassifiable lymphoma. It was a 14 cm tumour in the mediastinum. It collapsed a lung and displaced my heart. We had to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. 

I am a very optimistic person, so when I was told that, because of my young age, I had a good chance of overcoming it in a few months, I kept that in mind and faced the treatment with high hopes.  So when the results after the first chemotherapy were not good, I was a bit surprised and slightly discouraged. I was told “don’t worry, we have more treatments to try” so I trusted them again and we started this second round of chemo. This time was no different. The second chemo did not work either. A year had already passed since my diagnosis when I underwent autotransplantation and subsequent radiotherapy.  My haematologist called me to bring forward the appointment with the results after the autologous transplant. 

Not only had it not worked, but it had spread and was more aggressive than ever. We tried a new treatment, but the lymphoma seemed undeterred. 

Again, he brought the visit forward. But this time, he was especially insistent that I be accompanied by my family. It had been almost three years, three years without a break. I was exhausted, mentally and physically… I had just turned 23 and I was getting the indications of what my last month of life was going to be like.  Then he told me about an experimental treatment that had just arrived at another hospital, and finally I started that new trial. 

It worked, there was hardly any trace of the lymphoma and later I had a bone marrow transplant from my brother Dídac, even though he was only a 50% match. I had a lot of rejection issues, which I still suffer even today. It has been many years of unremitting suffering, anguish and fear, but I am grateful and happy to be able to talk about all this in the past tense.

Now, with my experience, I help patients and their families with first-hand information through social media (@Yaizacumelles) so that cancer and everything it entails is no longer a taboo subject and those newly diagnosed people can better understand each part of their illness.