By: Courtney Malcic, 38, Kidney Cancer

Picture this: I’m 23, pescatarian, loving life in Arizona, hiking, poolside, working my dream job at MAC cosmetics in hopes to be a global senior makeup artist. On November 1, 2010, however, I noticed a cough. The doctor said I had walking pneumonia and an ingrown hair under my arm. As time went on my shins itched like an internal itch. I thought I had dry skin by living in the desert. Then came the drenching night sweats.

That little lump I saw my arm? It grew to over the size of a golf ball and was so painful to the point where I had to go to the ER to have it opened, drained and packed. It was MRSA.

The timeline here gets blurry, but I do remember being told I had valley fever and pleurisy by other doctors. I went home, but then came the stabbing chest pain in the middle of the night, sending me back to ER. Several hours later while on morphine I got a radiology report that said “worrisome for lymphoma” and again, they sent me on my way so sick.

I didn’t know what any of this meant.

Thankfully, my mom flew out to get me from St. Louis to bring me home. There, we still receive false positives from blood work, which comes with a lot of uncertainty. The pulmonologist felt a lump under my left collarbone, and even said he “thought the shoe fit for valley fever.” However, I wasn’t okay with that and I advocated for a biopsy.

Soon after, maybe that night my mom got the phone call. I had cancer. I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Before my port was in and I started chemo, they asked if I ever wanted a family someday and I didn’t know, so I had my left ovary removed to freeze my eggs.

Bone marrow biopsies are a blast, especially not under anesthesia. All in all I was stage 2B and also ended up being part of the 10% of HL patients that had to undergo a Bone marrow transplant. What should have been 6 months of chemo turned into over 3 years of 33 rounds of ABVD, ICE, and BEAM. BMT. There was a point where I had severe pneumonia and was intubated for 2ish weeks, in a coma. I learned how to walk again, then 17 rounds of radiation.

Throughout this period of time that prolonged my treatments, I lost every inch of hair on my body: brows, lashes, all of it. I got surgical Menopause because my other ovary died during my BMT. I am infertile. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking how far I was from the version of myself that was in the beauty industry, modeling. I saw myself grey, bald, lifeless. However, I was still determined to win.

Unfortunately, I got addicted to opiates through my port and had to be on Suboxone for a year to battle that. I didn’t even know what an opiate was when I was that age.

Fast forward to June 5th 2013 I rang that bell for the last time. I then moved back to Arizona a month later in remission to get my life back, and I did. I had a new apartment and was back with MAC cosmetics as an artist. I ended up living a sober lifestyle for my health, and in that time, 3 years later I had my port removed to then be diagnosed with a primary immune disease that requires life long treatment of healthy human donor plasma.

I was crushed. I felt defeated. That was 2016. I had a breakup and this new diagnosis and moved back to St. Louis for family and friend support in 2017. I didn’t know what this looked like. Now, all of a sudden I’m 38 and after an emergency spine surgery last August there was a “new finding”on my scan from my spinal surgery. I read my MRI report this past October- Bosniak IV renal cell carcinoma.

I have checked out, lost my mind, and I feel paralyzed with fear of not being able to still not get busy living again. They want to watch it for now so I’m just existing with this cancer that has an additional finding but is too small to characterize.
I attended cancercon in 2017 and felt like I found my tribe after finding Stupid Cancer through my hospital. I met my lymphomies: we could speak the same language without misunderstanding or confusion.

Additionally, I also ended up doing makeup for the CSCAZ teen proms and women’s survivor fashion shows. It was my calling. I felt a peace then with what I went through. How I was able to spread hope and share beauty with my talent and skill with makeup artistry. I have since felt lost the past few years by just getting sick all the time and I feel like I just exist.

I met lifelong friends through Stupid Cancer. I am grateful for Stupid Cancer. I am grateful to be able to share my story. I say my cancers and chronic illness don’t define me. I overcome everything that is thrown at me. I need to turn my pain into power and help others because of my experiences.

To be continued.

Love,

Courtney