Photo: Hank Green
A 15-yearYouTube veteranwith over 3 million subscribers is giving his fans a new type of update.
In a13-minute videouploaded on Friday on the platform,Hank Greenspoke candidly with his fans to announce his Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis, a blood cancer.
“So there have been a bunch of times over the last few weeks where this has become more and more real. This is the big one,” Green, 43, began.
“I noticed that my lymph nodes were big. I talked to my doctor. She said, ‘It’s probably nothing. We’ll send you in for an ultrasound.’ I got an ultrasound, and the tech in the ultrasound room was like, ‘I’m going to go get a doctor.’ That’s not what you want to have happened,” he continued.
According to the YouTuber, he was immediately scheduled for a biopsy, which revealed the cancer diagnosis.
“When you’re in the American health care system, you don’t expect things to move quick,” he added. “That’s not what it does. That’s not what it looks like. When it starts to get a little efficient, it’s actually quite disconcerting.”
Some symptoms of lymphoma may include painless swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck, armpits, or groin, fatigue, fever, night sweats, shortness of breath, weight loss, and itchy skin, according to theMayo Clinic. The lymph system plays a crucial part in the immune response, distributing white blood cells that fight infection to various parts of the body.
While Green added that he’s “not really looking forward” to starting chemotherapy, he is expected to start the treatment “very soon” and is thankful to have a strong support system around him.
“All of the time that I have spent investing in friendships, and even when they have been hard, to try and keep them strong, and even when I have been busy, to try and spend time with them, has been joyful in the moment and wise in the long term,” he explained. “I’ve really needed friends in the last few weeks, and I’ve been very grateful to have them.”
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“Even though I don’t feel bad at all right now except for some soreness because of the biopsy and maybe because my lymph nodes are big. I don’t feel any symptoms of this. I feel fine. I don’t even really feel fatigued,” expressed Green.
“I feel stress symptoms,” he joked.
The author has been active onYouTubesince 2007. He runs his social media channels and hosts podcasts with his brother John Green, author of"The Fault in Our Stars."
source: people.com
