Listening to Childhood and Young Adult Cancer Survivors: Samuel Degen – ‘The diagnosis made me furious’

My name is Samuel and I was diagnosed with a Hodgkins lymphoma at age 19.

Looking back, at this point, it would have been invaluable to have anyone take the time, listen and explain the psychological impact of cancer, or any kind of resource to understand this, really. Be it an app, a platform to connect with survivors, or any other source of information.

Instead, the diagnosis made me furious. I was attending university, studying business at the time and all I wanted to do was party, quickly get my degree and go earn lots of money. Instead I was forced to undergo surgery and months of chemo and radio therapy. It made me sick, I lost my short-term memory and all my physical energy.

Truth being told I was also extremely scared and depressed. But I wouldn’t admit that to myself or anyone else. Nobody asked about it either. So I decided to be angry, ignore it and drink and do coke to a point where I no longer felt scared or frustrated.

This went on for a couple of months until I reached a tipping point and could no longer handle my self-denial. At first I tried to kill myself. That didn’t work – thankfully. So I had to face my reality. I could no longer attend university because my memory was screwed. Also I realized studying business and being surrounded by rich idiots full of themselves was nothing I wanted to waste my time with. So I ended up working for an advertising agency I had done an internship at before.

Although I did go through and another 10 years of depression, denial and substance abuse, until I finally got treated for my mental issues I did manage to have a rather interesting career in advertising.

Today I am managing partner of an agency, I have been entirely sober for 9 years and most importantly I am a husband and father of a wonderful little boy.

So, no matter how fucked up things seem, my lesson is: There is help and nobody should be afraid or too proud to ask for help. There is plenty of good waiting. Or so, I guess.