The Bittersweet Blessings of Being a Young Adult Cancer Survivor

Danielle Ripley-Burgess is a two-time colon cancer survivor first diagnosed at age 17. Check out Danielle’s blogs here!

For 24 years, I’ve called myself a cancer survivor. I’m 41 years old now, which means this has been my gig for the past two decades. Connecting with others in the cancer community, working on my mental health and growing spiritually have been essential to finding acceptance about the direction of my life. I’m not here to support toxic positivity because sometimes you need to be mad, negative and angry, blurting out all sorts of expletives while sitting alone in your car. But oftentimes on the other side of vent sessions comes perspective. For me, that has meant finding the blessings of being diagnosed with cancer so young.

I was a junior in high school when I first received my diagnosis. It certainly brought unique challenges, as you’d expect from any type of cancer entering a teenager’s world. But I was at a point in my life where I was asking “What’s next?” in terms of life path and career goals. Thanks to cancer, I had clarity going into college. I knew I wanted to go into communications and work for a cancer nonprofit one day. Little did I know that just as I was graduating college, Fight CRC was getting founded. As fate would have it, I’d one day join the team.

Also, I was dating a guy at the time of my diagnosis who decided to stick around and marry me. In May, we will celebrate 20 years of marriage. Again: cancer sucked, but what a gift and blessing to find my spouse so early in life. There are a wagon of other reasons and ways I’ve found blessings in light of cancer, from the adoptions of my kids to once-in-a-lifetime experiences and opportunities. Way before cancer, when I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Let’s just say cancer survivorship gives me a lot of content.

I mentioned I’m not into toxic positivity, so I will share the other side to these blessings. Being a young patient with cancer means facing unique aspects of living with cancer. Family planning is the most obvious, and my treatment did impact our path to parenthood. As I wrote about our journey in foster care last month, becoming a mom has not been easy. Infertility is one of the hardest side effects of cancer treatment, in my opinion. Relationships, careers and money are all obvious aspects of a young person’s life that cancer disrupts. There’s been many nights where I wanted to throw myself a pity party because my life didn’t follow the same path as people on Instagram and TikTok.

You know what’s also tough? Saying goodbye to doctors who saved your life because they retired. Watching your favorite nurses take new jobs. Getting notified that the clinic you enjoy walking into where everyone knows your name is merging with a bigger health system, and you now have to wear a hospital wristband just to get labs drawn. You lose that “Cheers” experience. There’s a lot of micro-losses that come with surviving cancer at a young age, and they come in waves.

Over the past few months, I’ve noticed that media outlets seem to be really interested in young people getting cancer. Perhaps it's Princess Kate’s experience, or maybe there’s a newfound interest in statistics. From articles on CNN and NPR to the recent cover of Time magazine, it seems like everyone is talking about young adults with cancer. And I’m glad, because it’s a real problem.

Not only are rates of colorectal cancer going up in young adults (which is breaking the ‘old man’s disease' stereotype), but cancer rates in young people are increasing across multiple cancer types all over the world. I’m glad our stories are getting covered, our faces plastered all over the internet. We need the attention and the support. We also need continued research funding to discover why this is happening. (Believe it or not, contrary to what the comment sections on Facebook posts about this say, it’s not as simple as pointing to the foods we eat or our stress levels, although more research will tell us if and how that’s at play.)

But as this discussion stirs up, both within survivor circles and in the mainstream, it’s important to remember that adolescent and young adult cancer is unique. We need to be cared for in special ways. Surviving young adult cancer will bring the lowest of lows, but it can also lead to the highest of highs. If I had to use one word to sum up the experience, it would be this: bittersweet.

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