In 2012, fresh out of a life-saving stem cell transplant, Blood Cancer United (formerly LLS) granted me travel vouchers to use from my apartment to Memorial Sloan Kettering so that I would have a sterile, clean, and safe car to travel in to and from doctor's appointments during the crucial 100 days after my stem cell transplant. Before I could even fathom turning my cancer experience into a min-career, I was already being steered — very literally — in the direction of Blood Cancer United.
My name is Edward. I am a 14-year rare non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) survivor. I am the author of the book Cancer, Musical Theatre, & Other Chronic Illnesses, which is in the process of being filmed as a short film and hopefully a musical TV series called SICKENING. I am also the creator and executive producer of Back to Normal: A Cancer Survivor Documentary, which won Best Documentary Short at the London Independent Film Awards and Best Story at the Toronto / Los Angeles Documentary Short Film Festival. I was also inspired by my work with Blood Cancer United Visionaries of the Year to found the only film festival of its kind that focuses on creators impacted by cancer, The Remission Film Festival, which premiered in April 2026 and helped raise approximately $25K for cancer research with Blood Cancer United.
I mention all of that to say that if you told me 14 years ago that I would have changed my entire life to lead with the conversation of cancer, I would have thought you were nuts. When I was first deemed cancer-free, I wanted nothing to do with cancer. I barely told anyone I had it in the first place, and then when it was over, and I finally did tell everyone, but I brushed it off as if it were nothing. I wanted it to feel like nothing. I tried to convince myself it was nothing. But if you can't tell from the above accolades, it was not nothing.
Over the years, I have done what any ambitious Millennial would do: turn to the internet and start talking. What I have found in flapping my gums in person and online about cancer is that my experience with cancer, no matter how ridiculous I thought my circumstances were, rang a familiarity bell with so many other cancer patients and survivors across the globe. From my first day in the hospital, surprise surgery to have a port-a-cath installed that no one told me I was having, to my five-year appointment where I cried in my oncologist's face because I had no idea that after that appointment I was no longer going to be coming to see her. The break-up during chemo, the parasite I got from stupidly swimming in the ocean with no immune-system, the friends I lost when I told them I had cancer, the friends I gained along the way, the corners of cancer outside of what we all know or assume from film and television that most are unsure they can or should talk about or are too afraid or ashamed to talk about; I am more than happy to be the clown that bares and talks about it all.
My comment section on TikTok is full of those going through various stages of cancer and survivorship telling me that I was the first person they've heard articulate what their brain was doing in a way that was relatable to them; all people of all ages raising their hand and saying, "That was me also!"
That hand raise is why I wrote my book. That hand raise is why I produced my documentary, because that was me also, but no one was there to tell me, It's okay."
Edward
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)
