After a year of misdiagnoses, I was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) on Valentine's Day 2007 when I was 22 years old. I had to take medical leave from my senior year of college to move home with my parents to undergo treatment in Albany, New York. After seven months of chemo, I was in remission and have been since!
When I was still home in Saratoga Springs, I went to a Team In Training (TNT) event hoping to meet other cancer survivors in January 2008. To my surprise, there were no other survivors at the event, but everyone there was running in honor of a loved one. As someone who had never voluntarily done any exercise in my life, I was shocked and extremely moved that people would be out running at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday in January in upstate New York when they were NOT survivors! Needless to say, I signed up for an event that day, and six months later, I ran my first race, the Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon in San Diego. Fast forward to 2015, and I ran the NYC Marathon for TNT as well.
I've now been in remission for 17 years, have run three marathons and two ultramarathons, hiked some of the world's tallest mountains, mountain biked in Nepal, lived in New Orleans and New York City, completed undergrad and grad school and worked for over a decade for the Ford Foundation and Amalgamated Foundation before starting my own social justice consulting firm earlier this year. I have traveled the world and now live in Boulder, Colorado.
I am extremely grateful to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) for their role in my treatment and recovery.
Jacqueline
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL)
