While many Pace seniors will be rejoicing in the glory of higher-educational freedom on May 23, senior Brenna Crowe will be wrapping up personal celebrations as this year’s commencement ceremony is scheduled to occur two days after the one year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis. Crowe is currently in remission from stage four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a slow spreading cancer of the blood that targets the spleen. She publicly shared her story with the Pace community for the first time when she gave the Survivor Speech at this year’s sixth annual Relay for Life on Friday, April 25.

“It was so surreal—I’ve never been to Relay until I gave that speech,” said Crowe, who transferred into Pace her sophomore year from Framingham State University. “I got to tell exactly what happened and didn’t have to make up a story. Right after I walked off the stage people came up to me in the bathroom crying, and in the survivor room, people were saying how inspirational I was. I was glad to have been able to touch people. I didn’t think I’d get that kind of response.”

As Crowe’s peers were praying for an interview at their dream jobs last semester, she was praying that she would make it out of chemotherapy alive, and with a full head of hair.

“That’s the biggest thing, every single person that’s gotten the same chemo as I did lost all their hair by the second treatment,” said Crowe, who made use of every hair-retention remedy from silk sheets to baby shampoo in hopes of keeping her long, brown locks. “That’s literally all I prayed for. I was like, ‘I’ll make it through chemo, but I won’t have my hair.’ My priorities are not in line.”

Crowe has managed to retain some of her hair which appears to be a miracle to doctors. She insists that the hardest part of recovery is coping with her new look.

“I have to go out to Paulie’s [bar] and my wig will start to fall off if someone hugs me or bumps into me. It’s like, what am I supposed to say? I feel the need to explain myself, like to someone that doesn’t know me, how do I even say that I’m wearing a wig?” said Crowe, who is a communications major and criminal justice minor.

With support from her friends, however, Crowe I settling into her short hair and her new perspective on life.

“Overall [Crowe] kept such a positive attitude,” said senior applied psychology major Vanessa Paganelli, who accompanied Crowe to Boston for some chemotherapy treatments an on a recent trip to Cancun. “Every time I caller her, she always had something positive to say, never dwelling on what was happening inside of her body and she would be like, ‘so I have new ideas for my Cancer Diaries.’”

“The Cancer Diaries” is Crowe’s YouTube series that documents her journey with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The videos were inspired by those of others which consoled her last May.

“When I was first diagnosed, I literally thought I would be dead,” said Crowe in an interview with The Pace Chronicle last September. “I would stay up all night crying and watching other people’s YouTube videos.”

Crowe introduced her audience to her loved ones as the cameras followed her to hospital visits and family celebrations. The series gave a private and introspective look into Crowe’s fight as she disclosed personal doubts and put her changing body on display.

In the eighth episode of The Cancer Diaries, Crowe bravely removed her wig to reveal her post-chemotherapy hair “only because I wish that somebody took their wig off so that I could see what their hair looked like,” she said in the episode.

Aside from the physical changes such as alleged weight gain and hair loss, the chemotherapy affected Crowe cognitively as well.

“I have this thing called ‘chemo brain,’ I forget everything,” said Crowe, who says that she sometimes forgets where her wig is while it is on her head. “The doctors say it usually takes two years for it to stop.”

Crowe, who claims she has always been whimsical and spontaneous, has gained a new appreciation for every passing minute.

“People take life so serious; you will have responsibilities like school and a job but I don’t want to look back on my life when I’m 90 years old like ‘damn it, I wish I did that,’” said Crowe, who plans on traveling to Los Angeles following graduation.

Despite the hard evidence that indicates a history of cancer and visual recordings of her speech at Relay, which Crowe described as being crazy and emotional, she still finds it difficult to believe that she was ever affected by Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

“I can’t wait until December when I can say that I had cancer and now I’m fine,” said Crowe in an interview with The Pace Chronicle last September.

Venit, vidit, vicit.