Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL)

In November of 2021, I found a lump on my neck that lead me to my primary care doctor's walk-in clinic due to the amount of growth I had seen over a few weeks. I believed it to be related to thyroid or my previous diagnosis of lupus of the skin, which I later found out I did not actually have.

It was 2020, and besides the obvious chaos in the world, at that time my life was going great. My business was thriving, I had just gotten engaged, and my fiancée and I were beginning to talk about starting a family. I was at what felt like the peak of my life. Everything was going my way, or so I thought.

My journey with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) began in the summer of 2020. My 17-year-old, two-sport, athlete son, Jimmy, came to me complaining that he had pulled a muscle in his neck lifting weights for football and baseball.

I was diagnosed with stage IVB Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) about a week after my 30th birthday in 2018. I was a new mom to an 8-month-old baby and had been experiencing several symptoms of Lymphomas the months after having my son, but I assumed they were from having a child and would never thought in a million years that it was cancer.

I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) in February 2022. I'm an avid skateboarder, artist, and assistant chef. All this past year, I underwent chemotherapy every two weeks, and one year later, I am now cancer-free.

In early May 2022, I was experiencing a lingering chronic cough that occurred 24/7 ― nonstop coughing, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath. Coughing fits would be so unbearable. The harder I coughed, most times I would end up vomiting.

Last spring, I was a normal college junior. I had just returned from spring break in the Caribbean with my best friends, and my biggest problem was party planning my 21st birthday that was coming up.

We all have some absolutely remarkable story to tell in one way or another. The vital task we all have is to appreciate it, embrace it, and articulate it in a way somebody will relate to.