Triumph Over Cancer: Aspen Heidekrueger's Inspiring Journey of Resilience and Advocacy

Amelia Old (Host): [00:00:38] Welcome to Voices of Inspiration. I'm your host, Amelia Old. Thank you for joining me today. If you are new here, I share stories of people in my everyday life and those I meet along the way. I think we all have a story to tell, and it's my desire to give as many people as I can that platform so that we can connect and inspire each other on a deeper level.

So, my husband and I have been involved with an [00:01:00] organization Cancer for College for many years. They provide college scholarships to cancer survivors, and we're extremely passionate about the organization and their mission. And in 2018, we raised money for them while hiking to Mount Everest base camp through a campaign called Hike for Hope.

Now this was our first major trek. Our first major hike, we'd never hiked anywhere before and so go big or go home. And through that, through that journey, there were a lot of challenges, both physically and mentally, and it was just an incredible journey and incredible experience. And we were able to set up the Old Family Scholarship after that journey.

 It is awarded to a student who not only has survived cancer, but also had to overcome incredible odds and obstacles in their path to college. And today's guest is the first ever recipient of our family scholarship, Aspen Heidikrueger. She's a 22 year-old cancer survivor who was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of [00:02:00] 13. She spent three years undergoing one of the most intensive chemotherapy regimens in existence. She's now cancer-free but struggles with long-term side effects from chemotherapy. Despite everything she has been through, she has become an avid speaker, blogger and advocate for young girls and adult cancer survivors.

She shares her experiences on her blog, Complicated Cancedr. Thank you for joining me today, Aspen, and being willing to share your journey with me and with my listeners. 

Aspen: [00:02:30] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.  

Amelia Old (Host): [00:02:34] Can you walk me through the beginning of your diagnosis and what led, what led to that first doctor's appointment?

Aspen: [00:02:42] Yeah. So, I was quite the athlete. I was playing soccer competitively at that time and we were in the middle of the season. So, during that time I started to have really bad headaches every day. And eventually I had really bad abdominal pain that joined those headaches. I [00:03:00] also got some pretty frequent nosebleeds.

Now I almost thought that I just had some kind of weird flu or something, but, it was on the soccer field. One of those days during a game that an opponent knocked me to the ground and I could not get up. And it wasn't just because she knocked the air out of me. There was something really wrong. I felt pain.

Like I'd never felt before. And so, after the refs helped me off the field and they took me out of the game, my mom took me to the hospital. So, we went to our local hospital and they did some tests and took some blood. And I didn't hear what the consensus was. They actually sent me down to a bigger hospital in a bigger city nearby.

They had told my mom what they suspected but didn't tell me they didn't want to worry me unless they knew for certain. So, I found out the next day, actually we spent the night in the hospital, and I remember the doctor coming in and sitting on my [00:04:00] bed and saying, Aspen, you have cancer leukemia. And I didn't even know what leukemia was at that point.

I knew cancer was dangerous and deadly sometimes, but nothing much past that. And that's kinda how it all started.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:04:17] because you were 13 at the time. What was going through your mind as a 13 year old? 

Aspen: [00:04:23] Yeah. So, it all kind of felt like a blur. To be honest, I kinda felt like in a state of shock, I really didn't understand what cancer even was at that point.

And as soon as they began my treatment, there wasn't much more thinking that I was doing it kind of all just started going really downhill really quickly. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:04:43] How did your family react to the news? 

Aspen: [00:04:46] So I don't think my mom even told my siblings for the first week. The rest of my family was kind of there.

And in the know, a few of them were at the hospital with me when I was diagnosed, they had heard the news [00:05:00] and were there to support me in the initial moments. But I think it was just such a big shock for everybody. We had always struggled with health as kids, me and my siblings, but nothing like that. So.

It was just going to be such a big lifestyle change and they didn't know how my body was going to handle the treatment. I'd always been kind of sensitive to chemicals, being around strong smells and petrochemicals and gas stations and stuff like that. So, they were really worried about how the treatment was going to go.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:05:29] I've read a lot on your blog, Complicated Cancer, and you write about your entire experience, which I highly recommend everyone take time to read it. You are truly an incredible writer. But there's a part that you say, “I don't remember receiving my first dose of chemo, but I remember the moments following. I went into what my doctors described as a state of drug induced psychosis. My brain felt like it was on fire and I began panicking. Crying and screaming bloody murder. I believed it was a nightmare fighting [00:06:00] for my life against some invisible enemy. I actually bit nurses that tried to restrain me. That is the last thing I remember before falling into a coma.”

Can you talk a little bit about what happened after this? 

Aspen: [00:06:13] Yeah. So, all of that basically was just the precursor for how chemo was going to impact my body. The people that I know of who also went into a coma upon first doses of chemotherapy, never woke up. They passed away when that happened, but somehow, I did wake up and I'm not sure how.

But I remember waking up in that bed and everything was changed. My body was in so much pain. I kind of describe it to people as feeling like I got hit by a bus as if all the bones in my body were broken. And then also, like there were really bad, burns all over all my skin. So, pain that I had never even fathomed from head to toe.

[00:07:00] And I couldn't feel my hands or my feet. Neuropathy had already set in. It was one of the side effects from the chemo. I had a terrible headache. I was too nauseous to even think about food. And I also couldn't move during that week that I was in that coma, initially, the steroids and high dose chemo that they continued to pump into me during that time had already wreaked havoc on my muscles and they deteriorated really quickly.

So, all of that pain and all of those other symptoms and not even being able to move out of my own bed was kind of my new reality that I woke up to. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:07:35] Can you, because you did go through a really intense process of chemotherapy. Can you talk to me more about that and walk me through? 

Aspen: [00:07:43] Yeah, of course. So acute lymphoblastic leukemia is typically a childhood disease.

Meaning kids under 10 are usually the patients that get. That kind of leukemia because I was 13, I was considered a high-risk patient. [00:08:00] And that also meant that I would receive twice as much chemotherapy as the kids who were under 10 for that same treatment regimen. So, I was getting twice as much chemotherapy as the younger kids.

And also, I was already very sensitive to those kinds of chemicals. So, it was just like the perfect storm for the worst combination. And I ended up having a lot of side effects that most patients, patients usually do not have. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:08:25] What was the timeframe of this as you were going through it?

Aspen: [00:08:28] So, the entire treatment in duration ended up being about three years in length for girls with that diagnosis. The treatment is usually two and a half years. And for boys it's three and a half years, mine was almost three years long just because we did have to take some very small breaks and my treatment got extended out a little bit longer.

So that whole first year, I was kind of experiencing those side effects that I just described with the pain and immobility, not being able to eat, [00:09:00] not being able to feel my hands or my feet. So, I was very bedridden and very sick during that time. The doctors, even when I woke up from that coma, their prognosis was that I was going to die from the cancer or the chemo, whichever one got to me first.

So somehow, I held on and that whole first year was as nightmarish as it sounds. I basically stayed home and only ever left to go get more chemo and I couldn't move on my own. So, everyone was either carrying me or wheeling me in a wheelchair and it was just kind of a nightmare. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:09:34] Because you were so young at the time. And maybe didn't understand at the beginning, due to your age, what were your friends like? 

Aspen: [00:09:47] Yeah, so unfortunately at that time, what happened to me is very common for a lot of other people, which is I was young enough and my friend group was young enough that [00:10:00] no one really knew how to handle it.

So, all of the friends that I had made in school. They all sent an initial polite, like I'm here for you. I'm so sorry. And then no one reached out to me again, after that point, it was just kind of radio silence, everyone kind of ducked out there was just. Nothing that they could really do, but they didn't really try either.

There's just so much uncertainty revolving around cancer. In general, people don't know how to react to it. They don't know how to support someone who's going through it. And it's not necessarily their fault. It's just a gray area, but I definitely lost my friends during that time. But it happens a lot. Unfortunately. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:10:42] Do you think that there is something that we, as parents could do more of to teach our children in case their friends or classmates go through some of the similar experiences?

Aspen: [00:10:53]  I absolutely do. And that's one of my goals as a cancer survivor to just try to educate [00:11:00] people on that.

Honestly, the most bare minimum advice I would give is just remember that you don't have to fix things and that there's not just this complicated process, that at the bare minimum, just letting that person who's going through something know that you're there for them consistently and that you care and offering to do what you can.

Even if you can't do anything, just being a constant presence that doesn't leave and that's not intimidated by what's happening. Just continuing to care about that person, despite what's going on is the biggest thing anyone can do. Just being there, even if you're not really doing much. That's the biggest thing.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:11:43] You also on your blog, talk a lot about chemotherapy leading to an eating disorder. 

Aspen: [00:11:50] So that one was very unexpected. I was, once again, I never really knew much about eating disorders. I really didn't even know what they were until I [00:12:00] found myself need deep into one. Basically, the last year of my chemotherapy regimen included high doses of a steroid called prednisone and on high doses, a lot of people gain weight really rapidly, and usually it's a very fair amount of weight.

So. My life was already really out of control and I was pretty miserable and couldn't do any of the things I wanted to so lack of control. And then I gained so much weight on those steroids, but no one told me that weight gain was a side effect of those steroids. And so, I just saw myself gaining all this weight and I started to really hate how I looked alongside everything else in my life that I was despising at that time.

And so, all I knew about. Body image was if you eat less and exercise more than you're supposed to lose weight. Right. Simple as that. So that's all I knew. And I went with it and I started to eat less and less, even though I was still barely eating during that [00:13:00] time. And so, I ate less and I started to run more, especially when my chemo treatment ended.

And I ended up getting down to a point where I was running 10 miles a day and only eating an Apple and weighing about 80 pounds. And that was the point where my doctors finally confronted me and told me I had an eating disorder and it had gotten so out of hand, no one had communicated anything with me.

And at that point I was so miserable with my life that even though I knew I was kind of starving myself, I really didn't care. It felt fitting. And it was my one thing I could control. And like I said, I just couldn't stop until it was too late. Kind of thing. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:13:45] In the midst of all of this, you had another challenge that you also had to deal with while you were battling, your own obstacles and your mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Aspen: [00:13:57] Yes. Talk about the perfect storm, [00:14:00] right? It was the last six months of my chemo treatment. When my mom, who was my sole caregiver and my full-time nurse and constant companion was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, she had to begin her own six months of chemotherapy alongside me and life just got a little more nightmarish after that.

My house already felt kind of like its own personal hospital. I would just be here most of the time and have an IV pole and all these meds and all these different medical things, contraptions and band-aids, and Tegaderms all around. And it felt like a sick house already. And then my mom got diagnosed and we spent most of our time here, both recouping after chemotherapy sessions and both just being really sick.

Her treatment didn't go super well either. She had a lot of pretty bad side effects. Not quite to the extent of mine, but they did have to end her treatment a [00:15:00] little bit early. Thankfully she did finish it up and she is all in the clear and has been for about six years now. That's good to 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:15:08] hear on your last day of your chemo treatments, I read a little bit about this as you took your last dose of chemo. Can you explain how you were feeling in that moment?

Aspen: [00:15:20]  Yeah. So, from what you know, and just hearing me describes how some of those years went, you can probably imagine why. So, when I had that last dose of chemo, I wish I could say that I felt relief or happiness or triumph, but that's not the truth. I actually felt completely numb.

I had been very, very broken by cancer and the chemotherapy, it had beaten me into dust until there was nothing that was left. And I had been in shock and in survival mode for so long that I just felt absolutely nothing. And the only [00:16:00] thing I really remember thinking was that I wish I had died. I wished that just because what I went through, all of that suffering and.

Hey, and it just wasn't worth it. At that point, I forgot what it felt like to even be happy. I was just used to sickness and suffering. I didn't want anything in the future. I just wished none of it had happened and I didn't think anything was ever going to be worth it. So, I thought it would be so much easier if I had just slipped away while I was in that coma. And that was the overwhelming sense I had. Yeah. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:16:35] You write about cancer patients being high risk for anxiety and depression and PTSD? So, you were right in the midst of that yourself. 

Aspen: [00:16:45] Yes, I definitely was. As soon as I was coming off my chemo treatment, it's like my brain flipped the switch that it had turned off.

When everything was getting really bad, I went into survival mode and was mostly just focused on surviving day to day [00:17:00] from a completely physical aspect. But when things got a little bit better and I finished my treatment, it's like my emotions got switched back on. And so, I started to feel the emotional and mental weight of everything I had just been through and everything that I had lost.

So, I had pretty bad anxiety, depression, and PTSD. And I was still working on through that eating disorder as well, just a big accumulation of everything. And I didn't even understand I had any of those problems until they were really bad as well. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:17:31] How did you work through those? 

Aspen: [00:17:34] So it was quite the combination of at first, just recognizing what was wrong and understanding what was wrong.

I had to start working with therapists and someone who specialized in eating disorders as well. The first step was definitely acknowledging everything that had happened and what was wrong with me mentally, I had to understand that I was depressed, that I was anxious, that I had PTSD and learn about all of those things [00:18:00] and just start to adjust to a life where mentally, I felt like everything was so wrong all at the time.

And it was once again a thing I didn't know if it would ever end. I didn't really remember what it felt like to be okay. Mentally, either. It was just my new reality. So, it definitely brought on some very, very challenging times because when you're struggling a lot mentally, especially with really bad PTSD or anxiety, no matter what you're doing or where you are or what your life looks like, if it's that bad in your head, it's going to feel that bad all the time.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:18:36] What have been some of the physical challenges with life after cancer? 

Aspen: [00:18:41] Essentially, as you can imagine, chemotherapy did quite the number on my body. I on treatment, I had almost all the side effects and it just took a toll. So, when I finished up my treatment, My body was pretty much in the place that if we did not start working on [00:19:00] some of the problems caused by chemo, I probably wouldn't have survived the next year or two.

My heart was in a bad place, like physically, my other major organs, like my liver and my kidneys were both doing really bad. The chemo had taken a big hit to my respiratory system, my nervous system, just a little bit of everything. So , we had some pretty big issues. We had to start working with several doctors and there were a lot more hospital visits.

There was a couple of emergency abdominal surgeries and. A lot of sick days, a lot of more sick days, which was definitely devastating in its own, right? Like you beat cancer and you go through hell and then you come out on the other side to see that it's not even over, you have new battles to fight mentally, physically the whole shebang.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:19:52] You and I met through Cancer for College. Can you tell me how you learned about them and talk about what they have done [00:20:00] for you? 

Aspen: [00:20:01] I learned about Cancer for College when I was trying to start my own college career because of all of my chemo treatment and the fact that my mom was a single mother who didn't, wasn't able to work for several years while I was sick, we did not have the ability to help me go to college.

And I did not have much money to my own name. So, I started to look into scholarships and the ones I was most likely to get seemed like cancer scholarships that made me unique and made me stand out. So, I honestly, it was just luck that I stumbled upon Cancer for College, because they've been such a great family to me, but I did just find them on a random online Google search.

And thank God that I did. They have helped me so much in pursuing my college goals. I probably would not have been able to even think about going to college without their support. So, it's made a really big difference in my life and allowed me several opportunities to just get out into [00:21:00] the world and start living like a normal college student should.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:21:03] You're really busy with school and your blog and you have a really super cool volunteering job. Can you, first of all, just tell everyone what, because that's so cool .

Aspen: [00:21:14] is a highlight of my life. I work at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife center. It's very close to my house and there we rescue and also shelter.

Foxes coyotes and 14 different wolves. So, there we give tours and also take care of all of the animals. We're certified by the AZA, the association of zoos and aquariums. So, we hold our animals to the highest standard of care. And it is the coolest thing to go in every day and see wolves first thing in the morning, or go into their enclosures and get a sloppy Wolf kiss to start my day.

And it's just such a great place to be. And it's a great cause. And I love giving tours and educating people about the wildlife there. It feels so good to [00:22:00] be part of something like that. I think 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:22:01] that's so cool. So, what's your plan moving forward after school? 

Aspen: [00:22:06] Yeah, my plan moving forward largely revolves around continuing to be an advocate for cancer and cancer survivors.

I want to spread as much awareness as possible and do whatever I can to support and encourage those cancer warriors. And those who are recovering from cancer, the survivors there is such a big. Bridge that needs to be built between those who are struggling with cancer and struggling to recoup afterwards, and people who are untouched by cancer.

The people who have not had cancer have such a big potential to help the people who are struggling with it. And they just don't know how to make those steps. And I kind of want to do my part to educate people as well as support the cancer survivors. So. Honestly, if I have to sum it up, I just want to do my part to use what I went through and all of my [00:23:00] experiences to make a difference.

I want to make what I went through count, and I don't want any of the kids who get cancer to feel as alone or disconnected as I was. And I want them to know that the things they feel mentally and emotionally are normal. I want them to feel less alone. I plan to continue to write on my blog and get that up and going and work on all other social media platforms. And also, I am hoping to in the next few years, start writing a book that could also help cancer survivors and normal people alike. I am very passionate about writing and I feel like that's a gift I could also use.

I think it would also be ideal to end up on a Ted talk someday. I would love to have that kind of exposure and just be able to speak from my heart about the things that I've been through and use it to benefit everybody. If I can. So 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:23:50] if you're listening and can make that happen,

your blog, complicated [00:24:00] cancer is filled with your experiences and advice and your really beautiful photos because you're a photographer as well. Where can our listeners find you?

Aspen: [00:24:07] Yes. So, if you are interested in reading more about my cancer experiences in my life, now, my blog complicated cancer.com is a great resource.

I am also on various social media platforms. I just recently started sharing my cancer story and more advice relating to cancer on Tik TOK as well in a video format, because that is a Very large appeal nowadays. 

Amelia Old (Host): [00:24:34] And you can also see videos of the wolves there. 

Aspen: [00:24:37] You can see videos of the wolves and cancer, what could go wrong.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:24:42] And I will also link to that in the notes of this episode at VoicesofInspirationPodcast.com. And if you would like to donate to Cancer for College, I will also include a link there. Aspen, do you have a favorite quote or words of wisdom that you would like to leave behind? 

Aspen: [00:24:58] I definitely do. [00:25:00] I mean, it's always hard because I have so many favorite quotes, but one of the ones, one of the quotes that speaks to me the most is by Juliette Lewis.

It is the bravest thing I ever did was continuing to live my life when I wanted to die. So many people reach that point in life. That point where pain is just so big. And so, and escapable that there seems to be only one way out and to get to that point, to have life be so painful that you don't even know how to continue on and choose to keep fighting the same fight day after day, and just keep breathing when nothing is in your favor, seems like the purest form of strength anyone could ever have.

I felt like this was me so many times and each time I fought to keep living, despite the suffering, I didn't even know why I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just fought blindly desperately hopelessly. So that maybe someday I would see that light and looking back on my life. That is the [00:26:00] strongest I ever was.

Amelia Old (Host): [00:26:01] Hmm. That give me goosebumps. Thank you, Aspen for joining us and sharing your story. We're so happy that you're part of our family. We are grateful to Cancer for College for introducing us.  Thank you to our listeners. There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, and I'm so grateful that you have chosen to join us.

My name is Amelia, and I am your host of Voices of Inspiration. Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours?