This blog is Anastasia’s continued story of how she navigated graduate school while undergoing breast cancer treatment. Building on her previous blog she now shares the realities of balancing intense medical treatments, academic responsibilities, and personal challenges in a foreign country. It’s a candid look at resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.

What was supposed to be the start of an exciting academic journey quickly turned out to be a battle for survival. Navigating my first year of graduate school while undergoing cancer treatment is the focus of this blog. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I left Ghana for Indiana, USA, full of hope and joy to pursue my master’s degree. But just one month into my program, I was handed devastating news: a breast cancer diagnosis. Now in my final year and treatment over, I find myself reflecting on the journey so far. This blog focuses on the storms I weathered while trying to keep pace with school and treatment simultaneously. In my next blog, I’ll share coping strategies and moments of grace that gave me strength to keep going.

When Everything Changed

Being a graduate student and a teaching assistant is challenging on its own. But navigating that while battling cancer in a foreign country? That certainly adds an entirely new layer of complexity, and that was my reality. My program started in August 2023. With enthusiasm and unshakable optimism, I dived deep into my coursework and teaching responsibilities.  I was totally oblivious of what lay ahead in a few weeks. After I received that distressing diagnosis, I faced fast moving decisions—beginning with a chest port placement surgery. That was the first of a long, awful treatment process. That night, the searing pain in my chest from the surgery seemed to whisper, “This is only the beginning.” It was a warning of the difficult road ahead.

The Weight of Treatment

Approximately two weeks after the surgery, I began a rigorous array of treatments that lasted one full year. The treatment tested every part of me—physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Each treatment came with its own side effects. Chemotherapy stretched into six-hour hospital visits and was overwhelmingly intense and very exhausting.

Then came KEYTRUDA, a treatment that was relatively less time-consuming but still took a significant toll on me. In addition, there were painful monthly injections on the sides of my belly to suppress my ovaries. The purpose was to prevent pregnancy risks during treatment. The combined side effects of the various treatments included bone pain, serious anemia, dizziness and severe headaches, body pains, insomnia, boils, painfully swollen feet, neuropathy, frequent nausea, blurred vision, “chemo brain” (a mental fog that made concentration painfully slow), weight loss, fluctuating appetite, exhaustion, and of course the trauma of hair loss.

All these and other side effects increased my hospital visits, leaving me with scant time for my studies. Anxiety was very high and hovered constantly, waiting to detonate like a bomb! Though treatment has ended, and now in my final year of school, recovery is still ongoing with some side effects gradually fading, but I press on, forward ever in His Holy Name!

School work and Treatment

With all this going on, I obviously had a very rough journey in the first year of my graduate school, and only began to find my footing in my second year. Regardless of the situation, I tried to keep up with coursework and teaching duties. For most of the first semester of the first year, I pushed through until my body started giving out near the end. The treatment made me too frail to walk around campus safely. As a result, I could not fully complete that semester.

When the second semester began, I was already behind. Outstanding assignments loomed, and stress levels soared. If only I knew then what I know now: Don’t fall for perfection paralysis. It doesn’t have to be perfect every time, so just breathe and let it be enough! But I’ve always experienced a deep sense of anxiety and stress when tasks remain incomplete or not turn out perfectly as planned—it felt like second nature to strive for completion at all costs. That trait clashed with my body’s reality. The treatment side effects dictated to my body when and how I could work.

The second semester was tougher. It saw the transition from chemotherapy to KEYTRUDA with a new series of adverse reactions. I will briefly delve into a few of the side effects which cannot be easily forgotten. On the very first day of the second semester, I was welcomed by a painful boil on the upper part of my inner right thigh—harsh start to a new semester, with such an unwanted companion! The positioning of the boil made it very challenging to walk normally, except to spread my legs slightly. It was very embarrassing. I also remember an incident later in the semester when both my legs became painfully swollen at the end of a lecture. If not for one good Samaritan, I would not have been able to get home that easily.

Though I often felt sick, I pressed on, determined not to miss classes and risk accruing more outstanding assignments. I fiercely battled my way through that semester dealing with the toll of the treatment as they came. My classmates, who had a solid foundation from the previous semester, built on knowledge with ease, while I struggled to catch up and grasp new concepts, determined not to miss any classes. They had no idea what I was going through and I could not muster the courage to say it then. Now, everyone knows, though it’s all over. Looking back, I wonder how things might have changed if I had spoken, for silence was my shield and helped in unique ways but it was also my prison.

The Mental Load

“Chemo brain” was real—and it was frustrating! It annoyingly slowed my thinking, forcing me to spend very long hours on my studies. Tasks that once took minutes now took hours. The nights were long, cold, and lonely with high stress. I was determined to maintain very high grades, let alone standing the risk of losing my scholarship if I fell below standard.

Beyond school and health, I was also emotionally distraught. As the eldest sibling and mother figure after our mum’s passing, I felt the weight of my sisters’ worry.  I was constantly thinking about them knowing how distressed they were back home in Ghana, about what I was going through. I also continually thought about my husband, who was also back home and was highly troubled. He had come to pay me a visit a few weeks after I started chemotherapy but had returned home because he needed to go back to work. The distance between us ached like another wound and the unknown future haunted me. There was an option to defer my studies for up to a year. Pausing meant no teaching as well, and I believed no stipend either. But I needed every dollar for rent, medical bills, and other living expenses. So deferring wasn’t a choice, though I remember one time I became so burdened that I started thinking about taking that option.

Teaching While in Treatment

To ease the strain, I switched from in-person to online teaching. At first, it was challenging—filming lectures and announcements, monitoring weekly discussion posts, navigating unfamiliar platforms. The absence of physical presence required more written engagements with students—meaning more time behind the computer, which made me unhappy initially. But eventually, I prevailed. I got help, and I learned. And behind the screen, a truth I never shared: If only my students knew…

That the wig I wore hid a bald head.

That my eyes had run dry from crying before the recording.

That my smile so steady on screen, masked deep pain.

That behind each recording was a weary heart.

That I taught through bone pain, through insomnia, through headaches, through prayers whispered between recordings.

If only they knew…

That showing up wasn’t dedication alone, it was survival.

Making it Through

Regardless of the raging storm, I made it through the second semester—no missed classes, no new outstanding assignments and all A’s. The previous backlog? I completed it after the semester ended.

In conclusion, this journey has been anything but easy and there isn’t enough space to talk about everything except perhaps to write a book. In my next blog, I’ll share some of the coping mechanisms and kind assistance that helped me navigate the challenges along the way.

Anastasia Abraham.

stacyyabram@gmail.com