Lily's journey of determination
In April 2025, Lily had just finished her first year at university. A passionate and hard-working student nurse, she was looking forward to the next stage of her training. She had no idea she was about to experience healthcare through the eyes of a patient.
By then, the sports-loving 19-year-old had been dealing with unexplained symptoms for almost a year.
“Around June 2024, I started feeling really tired every day,” Lily recalls.
A visit to her GP revealed low iron levels, and she began taking supplements. But the fatigue continued, and other symptoms soon followed.
“I started losing quite a lot of weight,” she says. “I was wheezing and coughing every day, but I thought maybe I was just getting asthma.”
Night sweats and recurring sinus infections followed, but each issue seemed easy to explain away.
It wasn’t until Lily went for an unrelated scan that the real cause of her symptoms became clear. “In April, I was at the hospital getting a scan on my brain,” she says. “While the X-ray was above me, they saw a mass next to my heart. It was pressing on my windpipe.”
Lily was admitted to hospital, where an oncologist explained that she suspected lymphoma. A biopsy was taken, and Lily was sent home to await a PET scan the following week.
Determined not to jump to conclusions, she tried to stay positive while waiting for answers. But just a few days after the scan, everything changed.
While out for a walk, Lily received a call from her oncologist asking her to come in for an appointment the following morning.
“I asked if she could just tell me the results over the phone,” Lily says. “So she did – she said it was Hodgkin lymphoma.”
The diagnosis was difficult to process.
“It was weird,” she says. “I knew I had cancer, but it didn’t seem like it was happening to me.”
The news came just before Lily's nursing placement was due to begin. Rather than putting her life on hold immediately, she was able to complete the placement while waiting for treatment to start.
“It was a good distraction,” she says. “It kept me busy.”
Soon after, she had a port inserted, underwent treatment to preserve her fertility, and began eight rounds of chemotherapy on a fortnightly cycle.
“I felt tired and quite nauseous for the first day or two after each round,” Lily recalls. “By the fifth or sixth round, I started vomiting.”
Despite the side effects, Lily was determined to keep living life as normally as possible. “I was still doing everything,” she says. “I was working, going to nursing school and going to the gym.”
Then one Tuesday morning, she woke up struggling to breathe. With classes she didn't want to miss, Lily pushed through and carried on with her day, even working that evening.
“I was still short of breath, and I was getting sharp chest pain,” she says. “I probably should have done something about it then, but I was worried that I’d go in and it would be nothing.”
By the time she attended her next chemotherapy appointment on Thursday, she was feeling awful. A chest X-ray revealed pneumonia, and she was admitted overnight before being sent home on antibiotics.
“Then the next day, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, so I called, and they told me to come in again. They wanted to keep me in for the night, but I wanted to go home because I had an exam the next day.”
Hospital staff encouraged her to stay, reassuring her that she could leave temporarily to sit the exam.
“I stayed the night at the hospital and left at 8.30 in the morning to sit my exam, which was just across the road, and then I came back. It was so weird – I was sitting in my exam with my hospital bracelet still on under my hoodie.”
While balancing cancer treatment with study wasn't easy, Lily found comfort in some unexpected places. One of the highlights of her chemotherapy appointments was the friendships she formed with other patients.
“When I went for chemo, I’d always sit next to this lady in her 70s,” Lily recalls. “We were on La-Z-Boy chairs, and it just felt like we were at the nail salon getting manicures or something, talking and laughing the whole time. It was really nice. I would look forward to it.”
Lily also found support through Kate from Blood Cancer NZ, who provided information about her diagnosis and connected her with other people affected by blood cancer through support groups and the Young Adults closed Facebook group.
“It was so nice to talk to people who were going through something similar,” she says, “because none of my friends could relate.”
Today, Lily is cancer-free. She still has a chest X-ray every three months to keep an eye on things, but so far, every result has been positive.
As she works towards completing nursing school, Lily hopes to get a job in oncology, supporting others through the challenges of cancer treatment. Having experienced life as both a patient and a future healthcare professional, she knows just how much compassionate care matters.
“In a way, I’m grateful that it happened, because I learnt a lot from it,” she says. “It’s made me appreciate life more.”
