Good morning, John.

So there have been a bunch of times over the last few weeks when this has become more and more real. This is the big one though. 

So I noticed that my lymph nodes were big. I talked to my doctor, she said, "Oh, it's probably nothing, we'll send you in for an ultrasound." Got an ultrasound. The tech in the ultrasound room was like, "I'm gonna go get a doctor." 

That's not what you want to have happen. She was great (the tech), and so was the doctor. And they were like, "this looks like it could be suspicious for lymphoma, and we'll get you in for a biopsy." 

And then I took the order for the surgery and the paperwork down to the surgery office, and I gave it to the woman in the window, and she was like, "ooh, hand delivery!"

And I was like, "well yeah, surgery's tomorrow." And she's like, "oh, procrastinator!" And I was like, "well no, it just got scheduled just now." And then her eyes changed. 

It's like when you're in the American healthcare system, you don't expect things to move quick. Like, that's not what it does, that's not what it looks like. And then when it starts to get a little bit efficient, it's actually quite disconcerting. I've seen that so many times and it doesn't look like that, what's happening right now? It's like seeing a horse that has hands. That's very upsetting! Like, it's good, I'm glad that everyone's taking things seriously right now, but holy-

So her eyes changed, and it's like seeing a flight attendant on a plane that's in the air running down the aisle, like that can't be good. Either somebody or everybody's having a very bad day. Because I don't know all the noises a plane makes, and I don't know all the ways that the healthcare system works. But you do, and you look like something is weird.

I already knew it was weird though. Everybody has been great and very supportive, but biopsy- good news and bad news. One, it's cancer. It's called lymphoma, it's a cancer of the lymphatic system.

And good news, it's something called Hodgkin's lymphoma. It's one of the most treatable cancers. It responds very well to treatment, the goal is cure, the procedure to get there is fairly well known, if unpleasant. 

I have a friend, amazingly enough, who has been through a diagnosis and treatment and remission, and is 10 years post with Hodgkin's lymphoma. It's been really nice to have that in my back pocket for texting and being like, "is this normal?" and "am I panicking?" and "please tell me I'm gonna be okay." 

But the treatment is a fairly well-established system of chemotherapies. Which I'm going to start very soon. Not looking really forward to it, but I'm looking forward to starting on the path. 

Yeah, prognosis is very good for people with Hodgkin's lymphoma. It seems likely that we caught mine early. I'm still waiting on a scan to sort of confirm that.

But even when it's not super early, even when it's in multiple parts of the body, Hodgkin's is super treatable. Like solid mass tumors like lung cancer, prostate cancer- to figure out how to live somewhere else in the body is a really big leap for them. It means that they've changed, and they've evolved, and they've got a bunch of new strategies for survival, which is why metastasis and solid cancers are a really big deal.

This is a blood cancer, so it's a cancer of the immune cells, the lymphocytes. So they are already all over the body. Other parts of the body are like, "heyo, you're fine here." Whereas like, prostate cells in the lungs would normally get attacked, and so prostate cancer cells in the lungs means that they've developed a whole set of new strategies. Lymphoma cells don't have to do that, so it doesn't mean something super bad if lymphoma has spread. It's worse, for clarity. But it's not the same giant gap between stage I and stage IV with lymphoma as it is with solid mass tumors. Anyway.

I have a bunch of risk factors for lymphoma including medications I've taken, including the fact that I have an autoimmune disease, including the fact that I had mono when I was a kid, all these are risk factors.

So it's something that I was looking out for. And have been aware of. I'm glad everybody took it seriously, and we got a diagnosis pretty quick.

I said this to you already, John, and I said, "you know, this is the best time so far in human history to get lymphoma." Which is a very Hank Green thought, and then you gave me a very John Green thought, and said, "well, a year from now would have been better."

So I'm going to talk about this in a weird way now, and I don't want you to think that I'm not processing this in a deeper sort of more emotional way, or with regards to my personal life. It's just that I don't really want to do that here right now, because it's really heavy to talk about the diagnosis from those perspectives.

But I do feel comfortable and ready to talk publicly about it in terms of my work, whatever that is. Which is important, you know, like one of the things that I've noticed about this is that there are practicalities. And this is also true of any big unpleasantness in a life. That there's logistics to take care of. 

And so I've been dealing with a lot of logistics, like who do you tell, how do you tell them. What are we going to do about different things that I'm working on.

So I talked to a few friends who have been through various different cancers and cancer treatments, and one of the things that they all said is, "this is your job now. Do this one day at a time. Don't have obligations. You can have things that you can do if you want to that day."

And it's good to have those things, because depression and anxiety are a big part of this. And I'm not a person who has struggled a lot with that, but I have seen first-hand now how intricately linked those things can be. And the call of "just lay in bed and feel bad" is very strong.

And 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. It's hard to tell- I feel stressed, is my main symptom. 

But the moment I start chemo I'm going to feel a lot of symptoms from that. And they're like, "that's going to be- just dealing with that is going to be a lot, and you're not going to be good at stuff. You're not going to be good at stuff, like don't expect to be able to do your life."

So basically what that means is like- what am I going to make? I don't know. Am I going to make Vlogbrothers videos? Am I going to make Dear Hank and John? Am I going to make SciShow? Am I going to make Tangents? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Playing it by ear. I know that I'm going to feel like garbage. Like it's going to be really unpleasant. You know, chemo is intentionally poisoning your body so that the super hungry cells get poisoned more and die. And that's how it works. And it works well. But you've got to put a lot of poison in you. 

One of the lovely things about, you know, my experience of my colleagues and this community- nobody's going to expect me to do anything. Nobody's going to be expecting things from me.

Now I do operate off of obligation, and so I do want some reasons to get out of bed. And I'm going to try and set some of those up for me. But I'm much more worried about me putting too much pressure on me to do things or worry about things, and so that's going to be something that I have to get better at. 

You can see this probably more in my actions than my words, but I'm a very driven person. And I take obligations- like I hold them very seriously, and they weigh on me a lot and cause a lot of stress when there's space between what I feel I should get done and what I feel capable- what I am capable of doing. 

And so that's one of my big worries, I'm just saying it out loud for myself mostly. But also to say I hope you are down with me making stuff when I feel like it because I love it, and I need to be doing things when I feel up for it. And also I know that you'll be fine with me taking breaks. 

And this could be- I have no idea. It's not going to be less than four months of chemo.

Another thing I'm worried about that's not a big deal, and I know it's silly, but I'm wrestling with the reality that this is now part of how people are going to imagine me. It's an identity that I'm having thrust upon me. Which happens to people all the time, and is totally a thing that I will get over. But I do just kind of want to say it out loud. 

Like that I want to be fun-goofy-science guy, not struggling-with-anxiety-cancer guy. And, you know, you can be both. So I think I just have to let that go.

Because it's just one more thing that I'm not in control of right now, which is a lot of things. Like there are things that you have absolute control over (very few), and then there's a spectrum all the way to "you have no control." But now there's just this big set of my life that I have no control over, and I'm struggling with that. That's hard. That's like a thing to grieve. 

And my last lesson, since I have you here, is that all of the time I have ever spent investing in friendships, even when they have been hard to try to 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. I've been- I've really needed friends in the last few weeks, and I've felt very grateful to have them. 

I felt very lucky to have great friends and family around to joke with and hang with and support me, and give me the good vibes, you know? 

And now, I have requests, if you can believe it. My requests are: one, I do not need healthcare advice. I'm being very well taken care of. I know that there are a lot of different ways and a lot of different things that are very helpful to a lot of different people. I have that, and people suggesting things to me in my world of friends and acquaintances. This is too big of a group for that. I think I would be overwhelmed.

And more broadly, "here are non-mainstream ways to deal with cancer and to fight cancer itself"- I find that to of course be well-meaning, but confusing and distracting and not for me. 

Second. I'm not really a "let's fight this thing together!" kind of guy. I think that the prognosis for illness is mostly down to good science, good healthcare, good outlook, good attitude, and chance. Like too much of it, much more than we would like to think, comes down to chance.

And I just feel very grateful to all the people who have spent their careers studying disease and cancer and lymphoma and Hodgkin's specifically. Which, if you can believe this, was originally thought to be a form of tuberculosis when it was first discovered in the early 1900s. It's not, but they thought it was. So it all comes back, everything is tuberculosis, John!

All this is to say, I don't need there to be a big thing about it. I just want y'all to know where I'm at, and what's going on. Now at the same time, I do understand that people are going to want to do something. And I have requests. I do have things that I would like from you.

Here are two things you can do. First, if you haven't, you can sign up for our newsletter. I think, knowing me, I'm still going to find joy in creating and communicating with people if I can. 

And the easiest, lowest-lift way of doing that is probably going to be writing something down and putting it in a newsletter. And so if I still want that, but I'm not feeling up to making videos and podcasts, that would be a nice thing to be able to have. So you can sign up for that, it's the top thing in the description. And I'd appreciate that.

Second. If you could give me ideas for movies and TV shows and video games that are not heavy at all, like no emotion. I go watch the Dungeons and Dragons movie, because I think that's going to be a fun time, and not all of the themes were restful for me, I have to say. So really dumb things that will not make you cry. Could not make anyone cry. Because I've been told that I'm going to have some time to consume media, and I desperately need to be distracted.

As you can tell, I'm fine, but I'm not fine. And it sucks. Like I know that this sucks most for me. But I also know that it sucks for everybody in this community. So I feel like apologizing, but that would be stupid. So I'm not going to, but I think you know what I mean. I just want to recognize that it sucks.

So thanks. I hope this isn't my last Vlogbrothers video for four months or whatever. If it is, it is, I don't want to put pressure on me. John will probably take some time off, because it's just probably a little weird to post just him on the channel. But we'll play it by ear, we'll figure it out as we go. One day at a time. And I continue to be extraordinarily grateful for so many of the things in my life including this. 

And John, I'll see you on Tuesday.