Tori Allan

Supporting my husband, Ben, who was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in April 2018

The biggest challenge in my blood cancer experience was that I didn't really realize what would come after.  When you are going through a cancer diagnosis, especially as a young person, it kind of hits you like a train.  Then you go into survival mode, and you just put your head down and go through it.  As a supporter, the biggest challenge for me was dealing with all the emotions and trauma I was experiencing, and feeling like I didn't have an outlet for that while Ben was going through his treatment.  I didn't realize I wasn't dealing with it very well at the time.  I went through a lot of the harder emotions after he was healthy again and it felt very backwards. Both Ben and I reached out for some therapy after he was in remission. It was so helpful to speak to an objective therapist and normalize how I was feeling and the way it was all hitting me later on. 

How has my life been changed by a blood cancer?  It's a perspective change.  As a young person, you feel invincible up until you realize that you are not.  I appreciate all the different outcomes that this could have come out to.  Moving forward, this continues to change your life and it solidified my priorities - how important family and close friends are.  It also highlights what is not important - the little things that we could get worked up about day after day - in the end, those things are secondary.

We found the LLSC later on in our journey - Ben was in remission and looking into some programs through Wellspring.  Ben was really craving community of some kind - we had a great support system but we needed a group of people who could relate to our experience, especially young people.

For me personally, it meant a lot to see all the support that Ben and I had in our amazing group of family and friends who came out to Light the Night, and also the community as a whole - everyone who was there, all the volunteers who were involved.  I loved being part of that and being behind a cause that is really making a difference for people.  I got so many comments from everybody on our team about how moving it was - to see so many people touched by blood cancer, all in the same place and for the same purpose.  The fact that it is at night with lit lanterns adds this magical element to it.  This is a memory that sticks with them and then just bleeds out from there.

There are so many amazing non-profits to be involved with, but for anyone who knows someone or who has been touched by cancer, they know how gutting and isolating an experience it is to walk through.  The LLSC is bringing light to that through a community and the money that is able to be raised for research & support, especially for the people who would not have access to those resources otherwise.  If we could just put blood cancer to bed, that would be amazing!