An interview WITH JAKE ANDRIEN ‘21
When you think about what makes a student great at Devon, certain words come to mind: bright, outgoing, gentleman, and well-rounded, among others. These characteristics fit Jake Andrien ‘21 perfectly down to the letter. In the classroom or out on the field, Jake always looked to improve in everything he did. His teachers loved having him in the classroom, and coaches say he was a fantastic teammate. During his time at Devon, Jake was a member of the Bowling team and the 2019 State Championship Baseball team. But the pressure of a state championship or the stress of college applications could not prepare him for one of his biggest tests. This past June Jake was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Through months of treatment and prayers, Jake is now cancer free. Many of us have gone through this process, or know someone who has, and in this interview, Jake talks about what his experience was like and how he worked through it with the help of family, friends, and faith.
1) At what point did you feel something was wrong? And how did you feel about your diagnosis?
Around some time in April, I noticed that swollen bump on my neck. After questioning what it was, I later realized it was just a lymph node and it is a normal thing to have swollen. I just pushed it off thinking it would eventually go away. About a month later I noticed it hadn't changed at all, but I still wasn’t worried about it. When I was working out one day, I was doing an exercise and felt a slight pain in my armpit. Then I felt that same bump of a feeling in that area. At this point I was curious as to why my lymph nodes were swollen, and I knew that they only get swollen when you are sick but I haven’t felt sick at all. I started questioning it if it could have been from the vaccine that I recently got, because I did not know what it could possibly be. Then a month later I had a doctors appointment scheduled for 2 days after my graduation just to get my physical for college, but I am family friends with my doctor and thought I would just ask him about these lymph nodes. The night before my physical I was talking to my uncle, who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was in college, about these lymph nodes and he was asking me if I've been experiencing any of these symptoms that he had before he was diagnosed because he knew that the doctors looked at his lymph nodes before his diagnosis but I did not have any of the symptoms that he was mentioning. The day of my physical I asked my doctor to look at the lymph nodes and he sent me for blood work and a chest X-ray. And that night my X-ray came back showing some bumps on my chest, but did not fully tell us what it was. But from that night until my diagnosis I told myself to expect the worse of whatever the outcome will be. I did this because I knew it would make it easier later when getting the news to keep a positive attitude. The next couple weeks were just testing and scans. Then eventually I got a biopsy on the nodes in my neck and after that surgery they were able to diagnose me with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had to get a PET scan a week later which confirmed it was Stage 3. Everyone around me was devastated with the news, but I expected the worst from the beginning. So this made getting the final news easier. All I thought after getting the news is when can I start treatment. I was willing to take whatever treatment plan would kill this the quickest, no matter how aggressive the treatment was.
2)
What has treatment been like for you? What do you do to stay positive?
I can not lie and say treatment was not difficult, because it was, I hated every day of it . But I did not want the people around me to know that because I knew that I would be able to handle it and allowing the people around me to know that I am fine allows them to feel better which is what I wanted people to think. After my first cycle, I was able to figure out what days were going to be my worst and it seemed that only the first day of the first 2 weeks of each cycle was the worst. After knowing that, I was able to set my mindset to “you just need to get through these days because you can handle all of these easier symptoms.” The way I stayed positive through this whole journey was being able to
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