Hank Green announces his cancer diagnosis in the most Hank way possible and its oddly comforting
We are all wishing him well.
Hank Green reveals cancer diagnosis
There are some things in life that you simply can't prepare for. You know they exist and there's a possibility it could happen to you or someone you love but experiencing it is terrifyingly outside of the imagination. Cancer is a big one that touches nearly everyone in some way, yet it's a hard diagnosis to swallow.
Hank Green, most famed for his co-hosting duties on Mental Floss and Vlogbrothers where he co-hosts with his older brother, John Green. Recently Green announced on the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel that he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma after noticing swollen lymph nodes under his arm and near his chest. Thankfully, his doctor decided to do a precautionary ultrasound, which prompted the biopsy and subsequent diagnosis.
Green is known for his witty humorous delivery of facts. The truth is, he's so known for his intellect and delivery that he's had to tell people to stop tagging him under actual rocket scientists and doctors explanatory videos. So it's no surprise to the people who have followed him for years that he delivered the news of his diagnosis in a very Hank Green cerebral way.
It was Green's encounter with the woman who schedules biopsies that set his alarm bells off. The scheduler joked about the YouTube personality hand delivering the referral due to his procrastination to schedule the surgery.
"No, the surgery is tomorrow, and she was like, 'oh procrastinator,' and I was like, no it just got scheduled just now," Green recalled.
He said immediately her eyes changed and things moved very efficiently, which he joked that having experienced the American health care system, efficiency is scary. Which tracks. When appointments and doctors start moving quickly and communicating effectively with each other and the patient, that's usually a sign that there's something seriously wrong. It shouldn't be, but it's sort of how we have come to know the American health care system to be.
While this is extremely upsetting news for the author, it wouldn't be Hank Green without dropping easily digestible information on the type of cancer he has and a piece of medical trivia. Green explained that the cancer he is diagnosed with responds well to treatment and has a high rate of survival. He went into the chemo process and what to expect as well as laying out statistics.
"I just feel very grateful to all of the people who have spent their careers studying disease, and cancer and lymphoma and Hodgkin's specifically," Green says before excitedly continuing. "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."
Green closes the video by asking people to leave him movie, television show and video game recommendations that are up lifting. We're all wishing Green well and if you have any recommendations he can watch during his treatments, leave them under the original video linked below.