After her father’s Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, Stephanie still never thought her persistent cough was anything more than allergies or asthma. But after her cough progressed and she couldn’t do or say anything without coughing, she finally decided to go to urgent care.

As doctors cleared fluid from her lungs, they found a mass in her chest. She was then diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma only two years after her dad’s diagnosis.

She voices how she processed her diagnosis, how she advocated for her health, and how her father’s diagnosis impacted her cancer journey.

Initial symptoms

I didn’t really have any symptoms other than a persistent cough. I pinpoint this back to a day in February [when] I might have had a food allergy mixed in with some dust contact shortly after. I guess my immune system might have been down and couldn’t fight whatever was coming into my body at that point.

I did a teledoc appointment that weekend. My face was very swollen and I was prescribed some prednisone. A few weeks later, I still didn’t feel very well. I still had itchy lungs.

I went to the doctor in person. They prescribed allergy medication. It was winter in New Jersey. I already have food allergies [and] eczema and so I said, “Okay, add it to the list.”

I noticed shortness of breath in April 2021. I was actually supposed to get married [that month]. My husband, then fiancé, [and I] were in Newport, Rhode Island, for our would-be wedding date and we were walking around. Our hotel was over a little bridge that had an incline.

I noticed that I was getting out of breath and we were just walking around, not even having anything to drink. It was just a nice day and I was very out of breath. I had to stay in the hotel room more than we’d liked.

May 2021 was when my symptom progressed. I started to have a cough and more asthma allergy-like symptoms where I definitely was more short of breath. I went to the doctor and they said, “It’s probably asthma. I’m going to give you two inhalers.” One was albuterol and something called Qvar, which was a little bit more intense. I said, “Okay, this was probably coming.”

Pre-diagnosis

Going to urgent care

First, I went to urgent care where I demanded an X-ray. They said, “You might have COVID.” I knew I didn’t. I asked for a chest X-ray.

Before I even put my clothes back on, they said, “You have something that’s called a pleural effusion or an empyema and you need to go to the emergency room right away.”

This was a different medical group than where I ended up getting all my treatments. They said, “Go to this hospital. We’ll call you in.”

I said, “If this [has] anything to do with my lungs, my dad already has a pulmonologist that’s at a different hospital network. We know people there. I’m going to this emergency room instead.”

They called the hospital that I wanted to go to. You need to advocate for where you want to go [and] what you want to do because it is all about you at that point.

They told me I had about a liter of fluid in my right lung that needed to be taken out. They couldn’t do it that day, but they would be able to do it the next day. Not only was this my first trip to the hospital, [but I’m also] now automatically staying [the] night.

I was admitted on a Monday. They didn’t know it was cancer until Friday. There’s so much fluid in my lung that they first thought pneumonia or pleural effusion and they need to get that out. Once they cleared out the lung, that’s when they did the CT scan and saw the mass in my chest.

They didn’t tell me until Friday. They were just concerned about what was happening in the lung and how to treat it. I don’t know if they didn’t care to look at it. I don’t want to make it sound like the doctors were being careless, reckless, or anything like that, but I think they were just addressing that issue first.

Rolling into the OR, they said, “Oh, by the way, can you sign here? Because we’re also going to biopsy this mass in your chest.” All I remember thinking was, Interesting. My dad had a mass in his chest, but at that point, I still didn’t think it could ever be lymphoma. I said, “Oh, that’s interesting,” and the next thing I know, [I’m] getting a mask on me and going to sleep.

Getting back from the OR 

I wake up. They cleared out my lung, but there was still a lot of infection in there. While they were in there, they took [a] biopsy of the chest and the lung as well.

I get rolled into the surgical ICU for recovery. This is pandemic time so we only had two visitors at a time. A couple of minutes later, my mom, dad, and fiancé came in. I thought, “Interesting. We have three guests. How did we do this? This is very nice.” If my sister was there, that would have been the goal but, obviously, we can’t push it.

I had my important people there and I was asking my fiancé because he was sitting right next to me. I asked, “ Did they say anything? They mentioned a mass [in] my chest. Did they mention anything about it? I don’t know what that is.” He just shook his head and said,, “I don’t know about that.”

I have a popsicle in my mouth because I had a sore throat from the anesthesia. I’m licking away and I said, “Okay, well, this is it, guys. I’m going to be here for a couple of days, go home, and we’ll all laugh about this later.”

Reaction to the cancer diagnosis

I still think it’s absolutely bizarre. We’ll never understand. I’m not sure when I’m going to say, “I just had stage 4 cancer and my dad had it, too, all within five years.”

I was very calm. I don’t think it actually hit me until someone mentioned family planning. That was hard to understand, especially as I’m trying to get married and I have someone who is looking to me to start a whole life together. I thought,“Well, this might get cut short.” But otherwise, I was calm.

I like to deal with things as they come. I accept it and say, “Okay, what are we going to do about this?” I do that in my work. I’m learning in my life, too. That’s not to say I don’t have anxieties or stresses about it, but I do think I remain calm under these pressures.

You never want to see that look on both my parent’s faces. You never want to be the cause of their worries. I think that that happens naturally when you become a parent, I’m sure. But to this degree, I don’t think you ever want that.

My mom’s got her way of reacting [to] things. But I know with her, I was in good hands. We knew what we were going to do. It was going to get done.

With my dad, [it] was hard to look at him, and over the course of the next couple of months, too, because he knew what I was about to go through more or less. You don’t want that for anybody.

He said, “If I could trade places with you, I would ten times over,” and you just don’t want to hear that. I don’t want him to go through it again, too.

Treatment

Starting treatment after cancer diagnosis

It was about a month afterward. I got the confirmed diagnosis a few days after I was released from the hospital. I got [a] phone call from the surgeon.

I called my mom right away and said, “Okay, it is lymphoma.” There was a case where it could have been some lung disorder or disease that would still be treated with chemo, but it wasn’t cancer, so that was also a blessing in disguise. We said, “Well, we know lymphoma so we’ll take it.”

My mom immediately called the cancer center and said, “We officially have the diagnosis.” The surgeon was about to call the cancer center as well.

The cancer center called me back and said, “Our oncologist has an appointment open [in] 45 minutes. Can you go?” My mom’s at work, I’m at my house, and the cancer center was about 25 minutes away. I said, “I don’t know if we can get there. Let me call you back.”

I called my mom. I said, “She’s available in 45 minutes, but you’re at work, Mom.” My mom said, “No, we’re going. I’m dropping everything.” She had an amazing boss at the time who was so understanding and knew everything about my dad’s history. Anytime anything happened, she would just say, “I have to go,” and he said, “Okay.” That’s it, no questions asked.