Cancer Gets in the Way of Adulting in Many Ways

I’m almost three years out from being diagnosed and treated for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and I’m learning from experience that cancer never quite goes away. Both physically and emotionally I am living with the residual side effects of my treatment, and it is rough. Cancer has changed my new reality and rocked my world in many ways, and it has made me make adjustments not only to my life but to my life goals and future dreams.

I once dreamed of becoming a financial journalist. As long as I remember myself knowing how to read, I’ve loved studying data and analyzing numbers. I don’t remember the first time I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, but in the late 1990s I remember reading a profile about Jeff Bezos in that newspaper shortly after the Amazon IPO and immediately wanting to own Amazon stock. I know first-hand how information about business can help generate wealth and transform lives.

Decades later after getting BAs in Economics and Mathematics I went to Journalism School and got an MA in business journalism from one of the best programs in the country. I moved to New York City, and I’ve written for Reuters and LinkedIn and edited for Wall Street ratings agencies. I’ve always wanted to write an article that gets published in the Wall Street Journal, but after cancer that dream has been put aside.

In March 2022, I got the news from my oncologist that the strange growth I was feeling on my neck was Stage II Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I had to immediately change my life and do almost six months of ABVD liquid chemotherapy treatment.

My ABVD treatment contained Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine and Dacarbazine– liquid drugs that were infused in my body through a port installed on my chest. It would take a week to recover from the treatment that was administered every two weeks. As soon as I would start feeling better and my mood would improve, I would get another treatment putting me in the same state of constant pain and the cycle seemed like it would never stop. I would need to take Zofran, a drug that prevented nausea and vomiting up to four times a day just to digest my food. The first few weeks of treatment, my body could only digest soup. Solid foods did not go down well.

AVBD causes neuropathy and I would have serious pains in my fingertips, up and down my spine and on my feet from my soles to the tips of my toes. The sensation made my nerve endings feel like they were shot. Years after treatment, the pain has not fully gone away. When I get a recurrence of the pain it can trigger flashbacks, and I am reminded of being back in the infusion room. Cancer treatment may have saved my life, but it also sucked the life I had out of me. It weakened me physically and gave my body new pains that I have not stopped having to cope with.

Although I worked through cancer treatment, I had to stop working a year later because of the side effects of my treatment. I tried resuming my work copy editing for a Wall Street ratings agency, but it is very difficult to concentrate when I have so much pain and there is a lot of work-related stress that is hard to take in addition to living with the long-term pain in my body. Taking a break from work has impacted my finances and family life.

I’ve been grateful to find resources that have helped me through all the difficulties of life with cancer related pain. First of all, there is nothing wrong with asking for and receiving help. The State of New York provides minimal unemployment insurance assistance that has been a lifeline for me and helped me take breaks from working without completely hurting my finances. Also, because I am a compulsive saver and investor, I’ve generated enough passive alpha to not worry so much about being unemployed during a bull market.

Another source of help has been The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I recently found them, and I wish I found their co-payment assistance program earlier. Their program helps with the costs of regular doctor’s visits as well as insurance premiums.

Cancer may have impacted me in profound ways, but I am not letting the bad experience keep me from living the full life I want to live. I am making the best of my experience, and I appreciate smaller things in life. Just opening up my eyes in the morning and seeing the Coney Island Wonder Wheel from my bedroom window every day makes me happy.

I have revised my life goals to just be alive to see my seven-year-old son grow up. My son will be 18 in 2035, and I will be totally satisfied with my life if I just get the chance to be alive to see my son graduate from high school in June 2035. After that, I hope to be alive to see him graduate from college. I don’t need to have any other personal or professional goals. While the dream of becoming a Wall Street Journal reporter is deferred for now, it isn’t gone. I’m sure the day will come when I’ll get my chance to tell business stories.