Clinical psychologist: A Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis as a young adult changed my life

I’ve wanted to be a psychologist ever since I was in high school. But I steered away from oncology at first because I thought it would be too emotionally difficult to work with cancer patients.

Then, I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma when I was 21. That experience completely reshaped my life.

Cancer made me reconsider my specialty

After I became a cancer patient, I realized that oncology was definitely the area I wanted to focus on. It didn’t seem as daunting once I’d been through cancer treatment personally.

After all, I knew exactly what it was like to lose your hair and your appetite. I could relate to looking in the mirror and not recognizing your own reflection. I also understood how disconcerting it was to realize that total strangers could deduce something very private about you just by wearing a head scarf out in public.

All of that made oncology a natural fit for me. But it also helped me in another way.

I started working as a clinical psychologist at UT MD Anderson in 2013, when I was just 30. Most of my patients were older than me. Some were openly skeptical that I could help them. They’d look at me during our first session and get an expression on their faces that clearly said, “You are so young. How could you possibly understand?”

After I shared a bit of my history, though, they were more willing to trust me. Just knowing that I’d once been a cancer patient, too, gave me credibility with them that I wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Survivorship has helped me identify new opportunities

Over the years, my experience as a survivor has taught me some other things, too.

One is that a cancer diagnosis can feel isolating at any age. When I was diagnosed back in 2004, I was the youngest person by decades in many Dallas-area waiting rooms. It was hard to relate to the other people there. Even though we were all technically cancer survivors, they were mostly in their 60s and 70s. So, we were at completely different stages of life. I was dealing with finishing college, dating and preserving my fertility, while they were concerned with retirement and estate planning.

Today, I’m noticing a gap in the support space for middle-aged patients. We’ve got support programs for the 65-and-up crowd down pat. And UT MD Anderson has developed a fabulous Adolescent & Young Adult Program for patients ages 15-39. But there’s still kind of a void for the sandwich generation — that is, people in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s.

These patients tend to face similar concerns — such as aging parents, childcare issues, career worries and sexual health challenges — so finding support for them is important, too. That’s why I’m in the process of developing a group right now for these patients. With more and more young people being diagnosed with cancer, it’s going to become even more relevant as time goes on. So, I consider it the next frontier.