Kristen Zamojc woke up one night with a “really terrible pain” in her upper abdomen when she was 26-years-old. Turns out, she had a seven-centimetre mass on her kidney.
“I was scheduled for surgery, they took it out, they had found out it was cancer, it was very unlikely to come back—[there was] about a one to two per cent chance it would come back.” She was told to go on and live a normal life, but her follow up scans showed the cancer had come back on her other kidney.
Zamojc was sent for genetic testing and learned she has hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma. “Getting a genetic diagnosis that my body was programmed to grow cancer and it would continue to grow cancer until it killed me was very hard to accept at the age of 28. That was when I really started to struggle with how to move forward with my life,” she said.
“It’s a tough road to find your way forward as a young adult with cancer,” said Geoff Eaton, executive director of Young Adult Cancer Canada (YACC). “YACC is all about community, creating community and connection for people that are craving that and trying to find their way forward and can really benefit from the wisdom of the lived experience of others just like them.”
Zamojc attended YACC’s Retreat Yourself BC in 2016, finding others who truly understood the challenges she was facing as someone with cancer in her 20s, such as facing mortality as her life was just getting started, and making decisions on things like marriage and children with the awareness of her genetic disease.
“We went from having 20 strangers; by the third hour we were there, we were all best friends. I think finding a community where all of these people were going through incredible hurdles, yet they were all still there and they were still alive and they were still able to do those milestones and those things that we are trying to do at this age, it gave me a lot of clarity to the strength that I could find despite my diagnosis.”
This year’s World Cancer Day theme is “united by unique,” a sentiment felt deeply at YACC. “Uniting young adults with cancer is our mission, it’s what we do. And the unique element of the theme this year is super powerful for me. This is a very customized experience you are going through. You can learn a lot from others, and thus the power of uniting, but the other reality is this is your road to travel and it is a unique road, and I encourage everyone to unite with peers,” said Eaton. “You’re going to find real power in that connection with other people who get it.”
Another thing he hopes people will engage with is the Recover Study, YACC’s community-led research project that aims to learn more about quality of life after cancer and how a diagnosis before the age of 40 impacts one’s life. The survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete and eligible participants must have been diagnosed with cancer before the age of 40 and currently be over the age of 18.
“Recovery takes longer than treatment,” Eaton said. “Your story can help change the experience for young adults currently dealing with cancer, and who are yet to be diagnosed. These findings will not only shape YACC’s programs and services, they will help illuminate a path forward and shed light on how to live a life worth living after cancer.”
