I could sit here all day and stare at my computer screen and try to think of some eloquent phrase to come up with to describe me, but if I did so, I wouldn't be me. When people ask me who I am and what my life has been like many things come to mind. I am independent, adventurous, and strong. I love doing things for myself and on my own. Sure, I do things with people too, but that's just an added perk. One day I will travel the world. I will see the world for myself. I absolutely love traveling, and going places that I haven't gone before. I am also strong, not necessarily physically, but emotionally. No matter what is going on in my life, most days if someone was to ask how I was, I would simply tell them I'm fine and hope they dropped the subject. However, I want to let you in on a little bit of what has made me the woman I am today.

Life has not been a walk in the park for me, but who's life is? I have gone through many things in my short 21 almost 22 years of life on this earth. My parents divorced when I was a baby. Dad got remarried when I was in elementary school. High school sucked, because it was high school, do I need to say any more? But beyond all the little things that we can move past, there was something more.

I went off to college and before I could finish, the doctor's found a thing in my chest.

"Cancer." They said. "Hodgkin's Lymphoma. But it's the good kind."

Excuse me doc, but since when is there a good cancer? I coped with it fairly well for the first six months of treatment, and when they went to check at the end of treatment to see if the cancer was gone, it wasn't.

"Maybe it's a false positive and it just looks like it's not gone." These were the words that I spent the next month praying that he was right. But to no avail, I had been misdiagnosed 7 months ago. Not only did I have Hodgkin's Lymphoma but I also had Nonhodgkin's Lymphoma. This is what they call, Grey Zone Lymphoma. I guess they couldn't come up with a better name, I'm just in the awkward Grey Zone... I'm sure there are so many questions running through your head, "How did they miss that?" "Is that even possible?"

As much as I would love to answer those questions, I will wait till another day. However, what I will tell you is that this lead to another 6 months of treatment -- Intense treatment. But with all that said, I have been in remission for just shy of 6 months. You might be wondering to yourself at this point, "What does that have to do with who you are?" It's simple, whether I like it or not cancer changed two things about me: it made me a fighter, and it made me a survivor.

I fought for my life for 18 months and I never thought I would see the day when I can go 3 months between appointments. But I can, that is what makes me a survivor. I survived the hell called life with cancer. I fought to survive and I won. However, like I said it changed me.

It is part of who I am and how I live my day to day life. I wake up in the morning grateful simply to be alive. I think about my job and realize that I wouldn't have it if I wasn't home. I think about my friends and realize they are the real ones, the ones who stuck by my side through it all. As much as I wish some days that I never had cancer and that I could go back and make it all go away, I wouldn't. No cancer doesn't define me, but it did help me find me.

So who am I? I am an adventurous, independent, strong woman, who fights and survives the even the hardest days and I will never take life for granted again.