Lena Rutherford was just 24 years old when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, in the prime of her social life. After receiving the news, she left Chicago with a moment’s notice and headed back home to her family in Colorado, leaving behind her apartment and friends. There, she started six months of chemotherapy. During that time, she often felt lonely and isolated, partly because she was stuck in the house dealing with side effects and partly because she didn’t have many friends in Colorado.
With the help of her family, Lena found ways to rebuild her social life during this time. Together, they put together a Team Lena email newsletter, created a blog site to share updates and express herself, and circulated T-shirts for loved ones to wear in support. Lena connected with friends through Facetime hangouts, participated in sports and recreational activities once healthy, and spent quality time at home with her pets. Perhaps most significantly, she became closer with her family and shared more emotions and experiences with them than ever before.
“When you go through something like cancer, you realize the small things are the big things. For me, knowing that people just cared about me and how I was doing made a huge difference. It can be isolating going through something that so few people have experienced themselves.”
Learn more about how Epic Experience empowers cancer survivors to live beyond cancer at www.epicexperience.org