Good Morning John, In the last few monthsI have learned
a lot about cancer, and about myself,
and about like what it means to be a living mortal animal.
Of the two of us, you’re definitely the one who has
traditionally thought more about death. I think about death,
but in fun little silly ways. I’m not actually wrestling with the implications.
But untreated Hodgkin lymphoma has, like, a 90% chance of killing you
within five years, and it has like a 10% chance of killing you
if you do treat it. My doctor,
who all day long sees people who have cancer, most of them worse than mine,
thinks these numbers sound great. But I go to the grocery store
and mostly see people who don’t have cancer and so the numbers sound terrible.
Like nobody does things intentionally with like a 10% chance of death,
even if they’re very fun.
Now after I got staged, and we knew it was only in one part of my body,
it was more like a 5% chance that I would be dead in five years,
which is better.
I told that to a friend of mine
who plays a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and he said, “Hank, that’s like a DC2
saving throw.” And, I was like
“WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO ME? YOU’VE SEEN ME ROLL SO MANY ONES”
But also, in Dungeons and Dragons, you roll a constitution saving throw
to find out if you will be affected by a disease or poison,
and then you are either affected, or you are not.
That’s not what life’s like.
This week, my doctor told me that I am in complete remission
from my cancer.
Which, you might be thinking gosh,
that happened fast. Hodgkin Lymphoma,
when it responds to treatment, tends to respond really well.
It worked really well in my case. It worked about as good as it does?
I’ll show you pictures. Here’s my scan before.
Which I don’t love looking at. This is a PET scan which shows glucose uptakes.
You see my brain is eatin’ a lot of glucose. It’s getting filtered out
by my kidney at the bottom. And in my armpit you see this big black mass
of cancer that’s just consuming a lot of glucose
cause it’s dividing really fast cause it’s cancer.
And after chemo
BOOM like mostly gone.
Now they call this a Deauville 2 there’s still a little bit of
increased activity in the lymph nodes,
but that basically is clinically not cancer anymore.
And then, we hit that same area with a bunch of radiation
to get rid of any individual tiny little cells that are still hanging out in there.
Now this has gone pretty much as good as possible for me.
I didn’t experience any of the most dangerous side effects
from the chemo.
I didn’t have to do very much chemo. It was in a really good spot for radiation,
which meant we could do the radiation, which meant we could do less less chemo.
And most importantly, my cancer was susceptible to the treatment.
Sometimes it just isn’t. And we’re not even sure why.
But also, cancer treatment’s no joke.
And I’ve got stuff I’m gonna be living with
for a long time. Maybe for the rest of my life.
I’ve got pain from the radiation and from the surgery over here.
I can’t really lay on my left side. Maybe someday I will be able to again.
Because of the chemotherapy my chances of heart and lung disease
are significantly elevated for the rest of my life.
My chances of getting leukemia
are significantly elevated for the rest of my life.
My chances of other kinds of cancer, just cancer in general, are all increased.
Both because of all the treatments and the scans, but also because
I got cancer once, and you just are more
likely to get cancer again once you’ve had cancer.
And then most importantly, like the highest risk is relapse.
So they say is where I’m at right now is remission and when you’re in remission
you can relapse.
For me, there’s like a 10% chance of that happening in the next five years
and if that happens,
that’s something that we’re gonna have to take on.
And as you might expect all of that comes with
another side effect, permanent anxiety.
Like, I don’t–maybe some people can avoid that,
but I don’t think that’s gonna be me.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
They’re wrong. So I had a DC2 savings throw.
I roll my dice, looks like I most definitely didn’t roll a 1.
I couldn’t see ‘em for a long time, which was annoying.
Probably I rolled like above a ten,
but this isn’t a binary thing. It’s a process.
I get to roll a die again every day for the rest of my life.
And I don’t get to see what I rolled, fun!
When I posted that I was in remission a lot of people, and this is very kind,
said Hank Green beat cancer.
And I’ve been thinking about that and feeling a lot of different ways about it.
Like, one way, that people help me understand is like look,
I did the things I was supposed to do and it was hard.
And that should be celebrated. And I agree, like,
in that way, I beat cancer.
Like I did the stuff. I took care of myself.
I even at times was able to get up and out of bed and do things that I love.
All that was very hard. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done?
And it wasn’t even, compared to a lot of other people go through,
that hard. But it sucks.
But the truth resists simplicity. I had somebody ask after I Posted about this.
They’re like “I’m confused, is there any cancer inside of you now”.
And it was like– “I’m also confused.” Like, we don't’ know whether or not
there’s still cancer inside of me. We don’t know if there is
whether my immune system will take care of it on its own,
or if I will relapse and I will have to do more treatment.
Hodgkin's Lymphoma is one of the cancers
where doctors will say that you can move past remission into “cure”.
Though even after you are cured your chances of recurrence remain
much higher than the regular population.
Like, the difference between relapse when you get cancer again
while you’re in “remission” and “recurrence” where
you get cancer again after you’ve been “cured”
isn’t like a functional difference in what the cancer is doing.
It’s like a statistical thing that we decide
based on how unlikely it is for the cancer to come back after certain periods of time.
And I kinda wish I didn’t know that. I kinda wished I just thought,
oh, if you’re cured then it won’t come back.
But it might still come back after you’ve been cured.
You remain at a much higher chance of getting that same cancer again.
Even if it’s been 10 years, or 20 years.
It’s just much much lower than it was in the first two or five years.
It’s messy. It’s medicine,
it’s bodies, and look!
If it comes back in 10 or 20 years for me. That would actually probably be great,
because my guess is we’ll have even better treatments.
Different cancers are very different from each other.
I feel very grateful that probably, I have had a very short if
unpleasant experience with this cancer.
But also, I’m still in the process. I’m still in the journey.
My relationship with my body is changed forever.
It’s just never gonna be the– I’m never gonna feel the same as I did.
Right now I guess I just want to be happy. I want to be happy that i”m through treatment.
I want to be happy that I did it. I want to be happy that I probably won’t
get lymphoma again. It feels amazing to be feeling better.
And even on some days, occasionally almost normal.
Whatever that is. John, I’ll see you on Tuesday.