After battling cancer, Siversten inspires others

Junior marketing major Kristen Siversten was diagnosed with cancer right after high school—two weeks before she started college when she was 18.

Doctors had to tell Kristen she had cancer four times because she was on a morphine pump after they had to break one of her ribs to take a biopsy. The biopsy was of a tumor wrapped around her heart and bronchial tubes.

Kristen was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma at a hospital in Atlanta in July 2006. She began chemotherapy treatment in August 2006 and was in and out of Scottish Rite Children’s hospital for the next six months. She went through treatment for two and a half years. Kristen said it was difficult to talk to others about what she was going through during treatment.

Kristen Siversten

“It is painful and I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I felt like it really wasn’t their business,” Kristen said. “A lot of people are like that when you’re going through tragedy—you don’t really want to open up and tell everybody your problems.”

Kristen learned of the Light the Night walk from one of her doctors. Light the Night is the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s fundraising event that honors those who have battled or are battling cancer. Kristen found this to be an opportunity to give back to the community that had supported her but also a way to connect to those who were fighting the same battle she had.

“I would see other kids that would get cancer and I was like, ‘I can relate to you’ and try to talk to them but people are really closed off at that point when they’re going through it,” Kristen said. “At that point I decided–I want to give back, I want to help out.”

For the past three years, Kristen has been team captain of “Kristen’s Crop”—her own Light the Night team. In those three years, Kristen has raised between $3,000 to $5,000 through fundraising events.

Gamma Sigma Sigma, GCSU’s national service sorority, participates in Light the Night in Atlanta. Junior nursing major and captain of Gamma Sig’s team Casey Dotterweich has been involved since high school.

“Walking (Light the Night) is an incredibly moving experience,” Dotterweich said. “I think seeing babies and children in strollers with their white survivor balloons certainly put life in perspective for me. They’ve barely lived and they’ve fought this terrible disease for most of their life.”

Last year at the Athens Light the Night walk, Kristen was recognized as an honored hero and spoke about being a survivor at the event.

“I think they chose me because I was a survivor and because I went back to college while on chemotherapy,” Kristen said.

Kristen took a year off of school once she was diagnosed but started at Gainseville State College in 2007.

“I was 19, I was ready to go off to college. I wanted to be like everybody else. I wanted to be a normal kid,” Kristen said.

Kristen had difficulty managing classes and treatment. She was recommended by some of her professors to drop their course because they didn’t believe she could pass.

“I ended up passing their classes—it made me more determined to pass their class,” Kristen said. “Just having the mindset that ‘I do have cancer, I can do anything I put my mind to.’”

Junior special education major Mandy Slack has walked in Light the Night. Slack finds inspirations in the stories told by survivors and families of survivors, saying the whole event is moving to watch unfold.

“It’s amazing walking with survivors, caregivers and other supporters and seeing all of the balloons literally lighting up the whole walk,” Slack said.

Kristen battled with the pain of chemotherapy and juggling school, but found the strength to keep going through her support system. Kristen was surrounded by friends, family, church and a whole community of people world-wide through her CarePage—an online community blog where she was able to update others of her condition.

“When I ended up losing my hair I had a small group of guy friends and they shaved their heads when I had to shave mine,” Siversten said.

Kristen lost her hair twice during treatment. The shock of losing her hair was difficult to overcome at first, but she drastically changed her outlook after meeting another cancer patient.

“I met this girl and she helped me a lot. She made me realize that it’s okay to be yourself, it’s okay if you have cancer. It’s what you have and you can’t do anything about it,” Kristen said.

After being in treatment for two and a half years, Kristen began GCSU for fall semester in 2009 and finished her last round of chemotherapy in November of 2009. Looking back now, Kristen has a sense of how having cancer has changed her life.

“I’m definitely stronger. Whenever I see a task that’s really difficult I remember when I had cancer and I think of it as a little bump in the road,” she said.

Posted by AubrieSofala on Oct 8 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.