Staying Positive Through Cancer
- Fitness trainer Gemma Seager, 38, was experiencing back pain over the course of a year that eventually turned debilitating. She later found out it was due to an incurable cancer called multiple myeloma.
- The blogger has had a difficult experience with the intense treatment, but is remaining hopeful, knowing that she is very fortunate to have caught the disease in the first place.
- Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer, which means a person will always have this cancer. However, with treatment, it can go into remission and remain undetected for years.
The Lipstick, Lettuce & Lyrcra blogger, who lives northwest of London in a university town called Norwich, had chalked up the pain to a workout injury, had spent money on treatments such as massages and acupuncture, but it just kept getting worse. Thankfully, Gemma finally went in and had an MRI nearly 10 months after the pain beganbetter later than never, but the moral of the story here is … don’t wait!
Read More“Sometimes I just feel empty and lost. BUT I know I am resilient. Resilience doesn't mean bad times don't affect you, it means you bounce back. And I know I'll bounce back."
Despite the fact that Gemma got her degree in personal nutrition and has always been into fitness, doesn’t mean she has always liked fitness. Fueled by fashion and vintage glamour, she chose to be active to fit into her clothes, and “be able to eat more pizza.”
Since her diagnosis, however, Gemma has finally grown to love exercise, as she knows it is in her best interest to be as healthy as possible while fighting this disease amid her new normal.
"For most of my life I felt that exercise was all about weight loss and burning calories the idea that it might actually be enjoyable was inconceivable," she said.
Related: What to Know About Diet and Exercise if You Have Cancer
Gemma has now gained a new perspective that serves her well with her clients. She feels she is more relatable than most.
"I felt I had something to add," Gemma shared. "I think it's daunting for some clients when their trainer is 20 and super-fit and can't understand you when you tell them you're struggling to fit exercise into your schedule or that wanted 'before and after' photos.
"That's what I've absolutely loved about my job, helping people look at their bodies in different ways,” she added, explaining that it’s all about “the mental and physical,” not just purely transformational for the mirror.
Gemma’s Blood Cancer Diagnosis
May of last year, Gemma was rushed to the hospital with a collapsed vertebrae and a potential spinal nerve compression.
"The scan showed my vertebrae had pretty much disintegrated," she explained, "I was told I'd probably need urgent spinal surgery. I couldn't believe what was happening. Just nine months earlier I'd been running, working out and training clients and now I was bloated, puffy and felt ancient.
The following month, in June, Gemma received her official diagnosis: multiple myeloma.
"Hearing the words was hard, but I had already been warned it could be cancer and from what I'd read, it was not a surprise,” she recalled.
Having experienced such horrible pain for so long, the relief that came when Gemma first started treatment was night and day, though it brought many other difficulties as well.
"Treatment is like another full-time job," Gemma admitted, "there are endless blood tests, tablets, steroids that give you water retention, injections for you to learn to do, chemotherapy, appointments and scans to go to, it's consuming. Then there are the side-effects: the steroid weight gain, the fatigue, the infections, the bloating…as I said, a full-time job!"
Treatment & Stem Cell Transplant
Last September, Gemma prepared her body for a stem cell transplant.
"Dealing with the treatment I need had taken time and I was apprehensive about the stem cell transplant because it meant a long stay in hospital with no visitors," she said.
Stem cell transplantation (SCT), also referred to as a bone marrow transplant, “is a procedure in which a patient receives healthy stem cells to replace damaged stem cells,” according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Before the transplant procedure, “the patient receives high doses of chemotherapy, and sometimes radiation therapy, to prepare the body for transplantation,” which is called conditioning treatment.
All has gone as well as possible ever since, and Gemmawho chose to shave her head prior to treatment to feel empowered in her choice is currently on maintenance drugs for her disease. She knows how lucky she is to have caught her cancer relatively early, and Gemma is remaining hopeful.
Related: Which Multiple Myeloma Drugs For Maintenance Therapy: Are There Options?
"You have to keep in mind at all times that all the treatment and the side-effects are so that you get a longer period in remission and therefore a longer life. When you have a goal like that, it's easier to accept what happens you're just happy to have options.”
Understanding Multiple Myeloma
When a person has this multiple myeloma, white blood cells called plasma cells (the cells that make antibodies to fight infections) in your bone marrow grow out of proportion to healthy cells.
Those abnormal cells leave less room for the healthy blood cells your body needs to fight infections. They can also spread to other parts of your body and cause problems with organs, like the kidneys.
The Multiple Phases of Multiple Myeloma
Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer, which means a person will always have this cancer. However, with treatment, it can go into remission and remain undetected for years. But sometimes, the cancer can return or relapse after treatment. If this happens, your doctor can put you on one of the treatments you have already tried again, try a new treatment or recommend that you enroll in a clinical trial.
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