There’s never a good time in your life to be told: “you have cancer.” But I was halfway through Year 12. It just … seemed a bit unfair. Here I was—you know: school captain. I played in the band, the local tennis club … and I was doing pretty well at school. I was feeling good about my final exams—I wanted to do a double-degree in commerce-law at uni. You just … don’t expect it. My name is Ediz. I live in Melbourne. Halfway though my final year of high school, I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. This lump appeared under my arm, from out of nowhere. As soon as the specialist told me, I went straight into get-things-done, survival mode.
I tried my best to keep my parents from worrying too much. My dad works as a panel beater, and I caught him online, looking up possible links between automotive paints and cancer. I was like “Uh, Dad! Don’t read that stuff!” And my sister was pretty down about it. I got all of her friends together and told them what was going on. I asked them to look out for her. Everyone told me I should quit being school captain, take the year off. You know, defer Year 12. I said no. My doctor insisted I give up sport, so I did. But I kept at it with everything else. The gravity of it all didn’t really sink in until much later. I ended up in hospital for my chemo every second Friday, for months.
My hair kept falling out so I just shaved it off. And I had this portacath implanted in my chest. Then there was the radiotherapy, every day for a month. It really knocked me around; I was always so tired. Every minute that I was awake I spent at school, and then when I’d get home from school, I’d go straight to sleep, wake up the next morning, and go back to school. I decided to sit my exams, even though I was in the middle of treatment. And I did OK, but I just missed out on getting into Law at uni.
You know, I was pissed off about that. I was like “Arrgh! Damn you world! Why are you doing this to me?” The staff at Peter Mac do a fantastic job. You know, when a little kid gets cancer—it’s horrible, obviously. But they’ve got their family to support them and make decisions. And when you’re older, you’re hopefully smart enough to think “OK, I need this treatment.” But with teenagers, it’s really tricky.
You don’t feel like a kid anymore and you’re going through that rebellious stage in your life. Throw a cancer treatment on top of that and it’s like: Hang on a minute! I’ve got no idea what to do! Without the Peter Mac specialists and their skillset, there would be a lot more young people with cancer who would be dropping out of treatment, or who wouldn’t get diagnosed and would miss out on treatment. As for me, thankfully, it all worked out. I responded really well to the chemo. I got better. And 5 years later, at my checkup, the doctor said to me, in the nicest possible way … “I hope I never see you again.” And I said, “So do I!”.