After four months of chemotherapy, Moncton City Councillor Shawn Crossman is feeling positive and has a new perspective on life.
Shawn Crossman was diagnosed with Myleoma cancer in July.
After his 16 weeks of treatment, he feels great. He takes note now of many of the little things that he never used to, “Now is the opportunity for me to re-evaluate my family, to re-evaluate my career, to re-evaluate exactly what I do every day, to make sure that I put my best foot forward. That is how it has changed my life.”
He says he hasn’t let this disease bring him down, “I get out of bed everyday, and I don’t think of cancer first. I think of putting on my socks without pain. I think about going into the shower without pain. I think about my daughter, those are some of the things that come to my mind.”
The next step, is a stem cell transplant, and the process begins next month, “I will have a full body x-ray, to see exactly where this cancer is within my system now. I don’t think anything negative will come out of that. On November 7th, I have a bone marrow biopsy. What they will do is they will go into my bone marrow and pull out a sample. I will have to wait two or three weeks to wait for that sample result. Then I will be transferred to Halifax where they will do a stem cell transplant. My immune system will be lowered to a newborn, and then they will give me a high shot of chemo for a few days. Then they will reinsert my stem cells. I will then be transferred back to Moncton Hospital where I will spend time in isolation to build up my immunity again. I am feeling very positive about this, and what is to come once it is over,” Crossman says.
He knows, there will be good days and bad days, but he refuses to let this disease run his life, and he never thinks of cancer first.
“This is something that affects 90 per cent of people in the country, but you don’t know when you’re going to get it. It’s cancer. It comes and goes, it’s a word. It is 99 per cent mental, and that’s the way I’m looking at this.”
