You can tell she takes care of herself in the way most people should. A woman of style, sass, and a whole lot of grace – contemplation floods her eyes like memories clouding up a perfectly blue sky, only to leave the feeling of peace, no matter how cloudy any day may seem. The fear of the unknown no longer phases her, as the crashing waves of her own sea have seemingly met the shore sooner than she anticipated. She is a girl with dreams and passions and guilty pleasures just like everybody else. Playing guitar, cooking, reading, and being with her sorority sisters bring her joy. And the little things matter to her, like the mini succulent she holds that was given to her as a gift that day and how she savors the Cajun chicken taco in front of her that doesn’t make her feel sick. Where there is pain, there is relativism, and where there is darkness there is bound to be light. Finding positivity out of disease is not always easy, but I was gently reminded recently how no matter what you might be going through - pain is relative. For Camille Goodale, a now junior at Colorado State University, battling a serious illness was the last thing she had ever expected to happen to her as a sophomore in college. Being 19 and diagnosed with leukemia is not exactly what you think the doctor is going to order for you. But for Camille, she had no choice. One moment she thought she was anemic and was kicking her ass at the gym to get in better shape. The next moment, she was on the phone saying, “Mom, I just got a call that I have leukemia.” That day - April 25, 2016, dramatically changed Camille’s life as she was quickly headed to the hospital to begin her treatment. She was two and a half weeks away from finals and summer break, and had just dyed her hair a pretty bright shade of blonde. The heart wrenching news shook Camille into bursting tears as she thought it was some sort of a death sentence. Dying at 19 was not an option for her; she began to think, as negative emotions increasingly rattled through her thoughts after the shocking news. “I was so naïve, I thought I was going to the hospital for like three days,” Camille says. But those three days turned into 37. They were long, depressing and sunless days, filled with many visitors and a never-ending assortment of chemotherapy, a “chemo-cocktail” as Camille likes to call it. “I didn’t realize there were so many different kinds of chemo. I thought it was just chemo,” she says. Attending an out-of-state school to try something new away from her home town in Washington and create a new set of memories in Colorado, seemed to be a chapter in her life that she knew she was entirely ready for and could not wait for the best four years of her life. But just as the seasons change and chapters have their highs and lows, as do our lives. And she was quickly realizing that. “When you’re 19 and a sophomore in college, you don’t think you’re going to get cancer,” Camille says. “Cancer is for old people, and for cats. I’m 19, what the heck.” Now 20 years old and about eight months after the shocking news, she sits wide-eyed and attentive, naturally relaxing into her chair across the table as she honestly and humbly continues to share a chapter of her unexpected story. Her sincere strength shines through her dainty and gentle stature and her beautiful blonde hair flows over her shoulders as her eyelashes flutter to the satisfaction of the quaint local taco joint and appetizing food in front of her. To my surprise, the long, thick and perfectly groomed hair that lay on her gentle scalp held more significance than I had ever imagined, or at least thought to think about at the time. She lost her hair around the beginning of summer 2016, and I simply could not believe that her hair was not real. “It was so traumatic,” Camille says. “I had recently just dyed it blonde and I was so mad." Admiring how real her hair looks and dancing around the topic of hair for a while she expresses her true sadness for losing such a vital component to a woman’s image. She laughs as she says, “I paid a pretty penny for this wig, let me tell you.” She can do whatever she wants with her hair and after getting over the weird sensation of washing it, she says it’s not so bad. “You know the feeling when you come home and take off your bra after a long day? That’s how I feel when I take off my wig,” Camille chuckles. “I can just throw on my beanie and it feels great.” The doctors gave her treatment after treatment, medicine for the nausea, more for an increased appetite, and just about everything in between. “I lost a lot of weight because I wasn’t eating and was so nauseated,” she says. “Medical marijuana wasn’t even working anymore because I was getting too accustomed to it.” Nothing sounded appetizing for a while and she has had to get accustomed to a specific eating schedule in order for her to not get terribly sick in the middle of a work shift. She works at a coffee shop on CSU’s campus, and at the Nordstrom Rack as well, working about 25-30 hours a week – all while battling cancer, trying to stay as active in school and her sorority and being a recruitment coach this past year. “I try to do as much as I can and I’m still trying to be as active and as normal as I can, but I hide it very well and I make it look pretty damn easy, not going to lie,” she says. A co-worker of Camille’s at the coffee shop, Rachel Branson, says she is completely inspired by Camille and her strength. “Some of my favorite things about her are her sarcasm and that she’s real,” Rachel says. “Some people could use something like cancer as an out, but she doesn’t really tell people unless she has a reason to. She didn’t just quit work and she doesn’t use it (leukemia) as a scapegoat, she appreciates the fact that she can still go to work.” Camille’s positivity radiates from within as she talks about cancer like it’s an easy thing. She is not one to feed into the negativity she says. “I figure, if I can push through, it’s eventually going to be over,” Camille says. “Like, why would I feed into it, you know?” Rachel points out that Camille uses the mundane as a treat and that they bring her back to her center. “It makes me appreciate the little things more too – it really puts it in perspective for me,” Rachel says. Being young and active helps to heal and there’s no doubt that she is doing all the right things to help kick cancer’s ass. A mentor of Camille’s from the Natural Resources school at CSU said to Camille that there is a scientific reason she got cancer, but that she thinks that a lot of the negative things Camille was holding onto deep down and was suppressing, manifested into cancer so that she could come to terms with all of it. “My mind was so blown, I was like you’re so right, this is my body telling me you have shit to figure out,” Camille says. Going beyond inspirational by having the mindset that she has and approaching her sickness in such an incredibly positive outlook is admirable. Most people question cancer and all of the reasoning behind it, what causes it and why. But Camille has seemingly stopped questioning and begun to reflect upon it all. “Cancer is kind of, okay not kind of, cancer is a huge part of my life, and it does influence a lot of the things I do,” she says. “A lot of the things I say and how I act.” She somewhat jokingly states that she obviously wished it were the flu or something else that her body could have manifested, but she is a woman who knows that life doesn’t really work that way. “It’s weird because I actually somewhat enjoy life now, even though it is kind of terrible in a sense,” Camille says. “But I am a lot happier than when I was angry and in [my old major] equine science.” Waking up and sleeping have become easier for her if she stays positive, and she admits she has finally gotten over the whole “fomo” (fear of missing out) part of being sick. She used to go out a lot she says, but that there is more to life than getting drunk every weekend. Perspective has encompassed much of Camille’s thinking, bringing outlooks that have set her a part from a lot of people she once thought she was closest to. “I feel a hell of a lot more mature,” she says. “I do view things a lot differently than most 20-year-olds.” She lights up as she reflects on the positive things leukemia has done for her, like bringing other positive people into her life and reminding her what is most important, like her newfound friend Nicole who was going through a similar kind of leukemia. “If cancer was a positive thing, it gave me Nicole and it brought back my friends that I’ve kind of drifted a part from – it brought them back into my life,” Camille says. Going through a life-altering change like battling leukemia has also brought upon a very insightful takeaway by Camille of that which pain is relative. “You can feel the same amount of pain as I feel about losing my hair, as you might feel about getting an F on a test that you studied really hard for,” she says. We are all allowed to feel pain, Camille reminds us. These events change you, they make you a different person, and there is one thing for certain – she has inspired many. There’s something to be said for the fact that someone who is battling leukemia can say that pain is relative. We can all learn from that kind of person, as she knows it’s not easy, but worth it. “It’s hard, let me tell you,” she says. “But there are silver linings in everything, and here I am.” “If I can at least influence one person, inspire one person, than I have done my purpose in life I think,” Camille says. “Life has definitely been different for me. So I take every day like it’s my last – because it could be.” Camille, thank you for sharing your radiance. You are an inspiration.
xo, Alex.
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December 2016
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