Doctors repeatedly dismissed my nagging cough and fatigue as asthma… in fact they were the first signs of a cancer that hits so many young people like me
When Lauren Speelman first developed a tickly cough, she thought little of it. Like most people with such an everyday symptom, she assumed it was nothing more than a minor irritation.
But when it still hadn’t gone away a month later, she decided to see a doctor – just to be sure.
It was 2020, and Lauren, then a 20-year-old freshman, was reassured it was probably a lingering effect of Covid. She also mentioned the constant fatigue that had begun to trouble her, but was told that was likely down to the demands of student life.
Give it a few more weeks, doctors said. These things take time to improve.
But weeks turned into months. Then months turned into nearly two years.
The cough never went away. Instead, Lauren began waking in the middle of the night drenched in sweat.
On Thanksgiving 2021, her mother took her to the ER. Doctors diagnosed asthma and prescribed antibiotics and an inhaler. When chest pain was added to her growing list of symptoms, she returned again. And then again.
Each visit brought a different explanation. Stronger asthma medication. Bronchitis. Perhaps she’d developed pneumonia.
Lauren Speelman, now 26, is pictured above before her battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma
She was only diagnosed after finding she could not walk five minutes without being left feeling as though she was unable to breathe
Finally, Lauren became so short of breath she could no longer manage the five-minute walk to class. She called her mother in floods of tears, who insisted she return to the hospital and demand more answers.
This time, doctors agreed to run a battery of tests.
The results revealed the real cause of her worsening symptoms: stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.
‘When they called me to tell me the results, I was staring at a Christmas tree,’ she said. ‘The worst part was, at one point I’d asked one of the doctors if it could be cancer, and they’d looked me dead in the eye and said no.’
Hodgkin’s lymphoma is one of the most treatable forms of cancer, particularly when it is caught early. But as with most cancers, the chances of successful treatment fall once the disease has spread.
It develops in the lymphatic system – a network of tiny vessels and nodes that extends throughout the body, carrying lymph, a clear fluid rich in infection-fighting white blood cells.
The disease begins when B-cells, which help the body fight infection, become abnormal and multiply uncontrollably, causing cancerous cells to build up in the body’s tissues.
Almost 9,000 Americans are diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma each year and about 1,000 die from the disease. Although relatively rare overall, it is one of the most common cancers diagnosed in people in their 20s, for reasons that are not fully understood.
Speelman continued her studies during treatment, and graduated in May 2023. Two months later, she was also told that she was cancer free
Although Hodgkin’s lymphoma is relatively rare overall, it is one of the most common cancers diagnosed in people in their 20s and early 30s.
Unlike many other cancers, it has long had a distinctive age pattern, with cases peaking in young adulthood rather than old age.
While Hodgkin’s lymphoma itself has not seen the same increase in younger patients as some other cancers, researchers have identified worrying rises in several other blood cancers affecting younger adults, including some forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia.
Scientists are still trying to understand why more young people are developing these diseases, with obesity, environmental exposures, changes to the immune system and alterations to the gut microbiome all under investigation.
Patients diagnosed in the earliest stages of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, before the disease has spread, have a five-year survival rate of around 95 percent.
One of the earliest warning signs is a painless, swollen lymph node, which may appear as a lump in the neck, armpit or groin.
Because the disease often starts in lymph nodes deep inside the chest, it can also cause a persistent cough or shortness of breath if enlarged nodes press on the airways or lungs.
A few days after Christmas, Lauren began chemotherapy.
The treatment took a devastating toll on her body, leaving her so weak that she spent much of it in a wheelchair. She also lost all of her hair.
But she refused to let cancer derail her plans. In May 2023, she graduated from college while continuing to apply for sales jobs.
Then, two months later, she received the news she had been waiting for: she was cancer-free.
‘I was so ecstatic when I got the news,’ Lauren said. ‘But I was still so exhausted from the chemotherapy.
‘Then, 48 hours later, I moved to Arizona to start my new job in sales.’
During her recovery, Lauren gradually rebuilt her strength, first challenging herself to walk a little farther each day before eventually taking up running.
‘I didn’t run at all before, and now it’s brought me this new joy,’ she said.
‘I want people to know that although cancer can do terrible things, you can come back from it.’
On November 1, Lauren will be running the New York City marathon to raise money for cancer charity, First Descents.
