I'm a 27-year-old cancer patient and here is what I wish I knew before my diagnosis

I think that when you hear cancer you immediately go Oh my gosh I'm going to die and I was 23 years old so I was about a year off from graduating college everything was new to me I was trying to figure out who I was as an adult and then suddenly I have this diagnosis just looming over me hi I'm Natasha Allen I'm 27 years old and I'm battling stage 4 cancer one thing uh that I definitely wish I knew was um that a lot of people will reach out to you um people that you haven't talked to for years will crawl into your DMs and either tell you oh uh like I'm here for you you'll have people that you didn't even know battled cancer tell you about their story um not all of it is good uh some will give you some toxic positivity and tell you just you know chin up you can you can do this uh when they really don't know you some of your friends will no longer be your friends uh throughout the cancer Journey um so you'll have friends that you thought were going to be for lifers uh but they end up um falling off because cancer is too much for them but you'll also find out who your real friends are and some people will step up in ways that you didn't think were [Music] possible you I'll have um a lot of confusing emotions you know you see your friends uh continue on with life um go to law school or business school get into relationships get engaged um and you kind of feel stuck just because you have to battle cancer but life still goes on for everyone else it's okay to say no uh just make sure that you put yourself first because in the end uh you can't battle cancer if you're looking out for other people uh first uh before you look out for yourself I also wish that I knew how lonely um a cancer Journey can be uh you feel kind of distant and a disconnect between your Healthy friends just because um they're going through life uh in a different uh way um you also feel lonely uh in the sense where when you go to the cancer center you're most likely the only one your age there a lot of people don't like talking about death uh even though that could be a reality for a lot of cancer patients because death is the uh worst outcome and that's always going to be on your mind if you're uh battling it even if you're the most positive person the thing with cancer is that at the time of diagnosis Everything Changes life gets divided into two sections it's you pre-cancer and then life after cancer a cancer diagnosis uh does not mean the end of living so one thing that I've learned about myself just um having cancer is that I prioritize my happiness more uh and I started doing things and going to events and finding uh hobbies in my 20s that I originally did not have um and you'll get a perspective on life that you didn't have before um and I actually kind of like who I am right now um and I hate to say it but it is because of cancer but also I guess because of how I approach cancer

Channel: Good Morning America

Views: 75,897

Keywords: 27-year-old, Allen, Natasha, abc, age, cancer, diagnosis, gma, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-110717223, patient, sarcoma, synovial, young

Id: b88shk7stK8

Length: 3min 55sec (235 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024