thomas ohashi / blog

Five years

Wednesday, March 6th, 2025

I was going to write a longer post about this but after several paragraphs I had barely scratched the surface and honestly I’m not sure I really want to relive that much of the experience anyway, so here’s an abridged version:

• In the summer of 2019 I was diagnosed with cancer in my lung via a routine x-ray as part of an annual health exam while living in Japan. I had no other symptoms
• The initial diagnosis was lung cancer but a biopsy ultimately proved it to be Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a much more treatable disease
• After some deliberation my partner and I decided to return to the US to undergo treatment, which was only possible thanks to the Oregon Health Plan
• I started treatment at OHSU in the fall and my last chemotherapy infusion was on Valentine’s Day (February 14th) in 2020
• On March 6th, 2020 I was told I was officially “in remission”
• I now have been in remission for five years

To put it simply, it was very hard. It is still hard sometimes and it probably always will be. Since I never had any symptoms to begin with it has been difficult to fully believe that I am “cured”, which isn’t really what remission means anyway. There’s just no evidence of disease left.

Whenever I have a new mystery symptom my first thought is inevitably “is this cancer”? Nevertheless, five years is a statistically meaningful milestone, and I have already lived much longer than I thought I was going to per my initial, fortunately inaccurate diagnosis. I am so, so grateful to be alive.

Thank you to the nurses, doctors, and other medical staff who treated me, to my friends, family, and coworkers who supported me, and of course to Medicaid for allowing me to go through treatment at home.

I wouldn't be here without you.