4 days ago
My Childhood Cancer Story with Kirsten Trammell
To continue raising awareness for childhood cancer this month, I’m finally sharing my story about my recovery from childhood leukemia. To help me, I’m passing the mic to my podcast manager, Kirsten Trammell to interview me about my childhood cancer experience and how it’s shaped my life.
When I was 8 years old, I was diagnosed with childhood leukemia, which sparked years of testing, hospital visits, and treatments that still left me with only about a 20% chance of survival. Despite this less-than-positive news, my family and I persevered and continued to follow the treatment plans that gave me the best odds.
Fast forward 41 years later, I’m celebrating another survivor milestone, overcoming not only the low chance of survival, but all of the other health complications that I was told I’d have as a result of the disease.
Learning that having a healthier home can help reduce the odds of childhood cancer and other health problems has fueled my calling in life to teach others about how to make a healthier space for themselves and their families.
So I’m so excited to be sharing my story with you today, and to continue raising awareness for childhood cancer and research efforts. If you want to know how to support funding and research, visit the links below to learn how.
Cal’s Angels (childhood cancer organization): https://www.calsangels.org/
And as always, you can find the episode summary and cheat sheet for more information here: https://slightlygreener.com/episode22
Key Topics:
* Discovering my illness at 8 years old
* What I see differently about my diagnosis from an adult perspective
* Lingering PTSD and extreme health anxiety
* A 20% survival rate and going through chemo as a kid
* Feeling a lot of community support growing up
* How the illness affected my family, particularly my siblings
* The importance of keeping things as normal as possible for a sick kid
* Debunking stigmas against childhood illness and disabilities
* Managing lifetime health anxiety after chronic illness
* How I knew it was time to share my story
* How looking at the bright side and being able to laugh has helped me get through the tough times
For even more information and to jump-start your home detox in as little as 7 days, join our membership here: https://www.slightlygreener.com/membership
Buy The Slightly Greener Method book here
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Website: https://slightlygreener.com/
Instagram: @slightlygreener
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