I found out I had cancer alone in a foreign emergency room. Here’s the back story: my doctors had been trying to figure out a handful of symptoms (night sweats, extremely low iron levels, fatigue, hair thinning, and overall feeling that something was wrong) for the six months prior. I even took myself to a hematologist oncologist with 40 years of experience to rule out blood cancer, one month before I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and she looked me in the eye and told me she had very low suspicion we were dealing with a malignancy. I felt like I was going crazy and nobody was listening to me that something was very wrong.
Fast forward, the moment I touched down in Iceland in April 2025, I unlocked a new symptom: I couldn’t breathe. By the end of my week in Iceland, I couldn’t walk from the bed to the bathroom in my hotel room without having to stop to catch my breath, so my last night there, I went to the emergency room in Reykjavík. Within 10 minutes of walking into the ER, I was taken for an X-ray, and shortly after, I was taken to CT. I was told I had a massive pleural effusion that was compressing my heart and had caused my left lung to collapse entirely. The day shift doctor came into my room that morning and asked me if I wanted someone on the phone for a difficult conversation. I found out alone in a foreign emergency room that I likely had cancer. I needed a chest tube immediately, and I wouldn’t be making my flight home later that night.
Over the next three days in the Icelandic hospital, I met some of the most amazing providers who supported me better than I could have ever asked. They drained my chest and got me to a place that they felt relatively comfortable sending me home, and I left for the airport immediately upon chest tube removal. I was sent with a copy of my scans and a letter from my doctor there explaining the care they had given and his recommendations: I needed a PET scan and biopsy as soon as I reached U.S. soil.
Problem is, I was not only in denial, but I was also traumatized by the last week of my life, so I spent some time decompressing once I got back to the states. A week later, I packed a bag and showed up to the Penn ER, knowing it was going to be a few weeks before I got to go back home. Over the next 2.5 weeks at Penn, the NICU nurse from the hospital across the street (me) became a patient for the first time.
On April 24, 2025, I was officially diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. My world stopped spinning.
Over that 2.5 week hospitalization, I had a biopsy, I had multiple chest tubes, I endured an extremely painful lung surgery, I passed out in the hospital shower due to pain and complications, and my throat closed up, and an airway emergency was called while getting my first round of chemo and immunotherapy. I’m not sure how much more traumatizing it could have gotten for me.
Over the next six months, I went through 12 rounds of treatment while documenting my experiences on TikTok. I didn’t realize how much I was craving community until I found it. The cancer world on social media has been so supportive and reassuring over the past year and a half of my life, and I’m forever grateful for the friendships I’ve made. As terrible as cancer is, it has brought me some of the most amazing people! Earlier this year, I even got to partner with Subaru and Blood Cancer United for the Subaru Loves to Care campaign, which is so personal to me and genuinely a dream come true. Cancer advocacy has become such a passion of mine, and I will never pass up the opportunity to help others. I can’t say enough positive things about how talking through all of this on a public platform has changed my whole experience. Cancer has a way of being lonely, and this has helped me feel so much less alone.
On December 19, 2025, my scans confirmed that I was officially in remission, and this year I celebrated my 31st birthday — a birthday that at one point I wasn’t entirely sure I’d see.
Since treatment has ended, I’ve been working on reconnecting with myself and getting my strength and endurance back. It’s been a lot harder than I expected, but every day I get a little closer to feeling like me again, though some days, admittedly, I’m not sure who I am anymore. I’m in therapy, I’m accepting help, and I’m taking it all day by day. Although I’ll never be the same woman that I was in the before, I’m working towards finding what “normal” means for me now, and I’m starting to look forward to what the future holds.
Casey
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL)
