When you graduate high school, you and your friends often still keep tabs on the people from your graduation class for years to come.

We text each other when we see someone got married, someone moved abroad, when someone has a baby, etc.

You see who the first people are to start a family, the first jobs people accept.

I earned the “first to get cancer” title.

It was my choice to post about it and make it public knowledge, but it still feels super weird knowing people are talking about you. That people are texting their friends screenshots of my post, asking each other if they’ve heard about “Laura Tovey getting cancer”, showing each other pictures of my scar.

My family began getting texts from people saying their kid saw my post on Facebook and wanted to see how I was doing. People who ran into my mom at the grocery store apologized to her, saying they heard the news.

It spreads like wildfire! Friends of friends of friends suddenly knew about this awful thing that was going on in my life.

I can’t help but wish it were about something else. That I was getting talked about because I just started my own business, or family, and was traveling overseas.

I’ve had to get used to people that I haven’t seen in forever bringing it up.

The first time I ran into a high-school friend post-treatment, I remember feeling such a strong wave of emotion when we started talking about it.

Throughout this whole cancer experience, I had only been around my immediate people. They knew everything and were with me through everything, so it didn’t feel much different.

But this was the first person outside that immediate circle that I had seen since.

They were so kind and supportive and I genuinely appreciated them asking how I was doing, but I struggled with feelings of shame. They knew I was “diseased” and “sickly”. I hated that people had to walk around egg-shells with me. I felt so gross, as if cancer made me ugly on the outside like it was doing to my insides.

Despite looking the same, I felt so ashamed of my malignant body and defective organs.

It struck a chord inside that I am different. That everyone who sees me from now on (at least for awhile) will look at me knowing I had cancer. That I was “sick”.

It’s just not the thing I want to come to mind when people think of me, or talk about me.

That being said, everyone has something going on in their lives hidden beneath the facade of social media. I hope that in me sharing my story, others feel comfortable in sharing theirs as well.