A young Irish woman who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has spoken out about how she had never heard of the condition before her own diagnosis.
Alannah Russell was just 20 years of age when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
.The Limerick native told our sister magazine, Chic, how there were some “stepping stones to finally get my diagnosis”.
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She recalled: “Back in January of last year, I was complaining of a pain in my armpit. I just found it very odd considering it’s not as if I could hurt my armpit or hit it off something or run into something with my armpit — it’s such a weird place to get a direct pain.
"I had pain there, but I just put it down to — I’m a normal college student, I had a college bag and I carried heavy books and laptops and whatever. And I put it down to that. I also worked in a bar part-time, so I would be pulling heavy barrels and carrying heavy boxes.
“I just put the pain down to kind of every day life that I’d normally do. I thought it was a pulled muscle, so I put Deep Heat on it.
“After a couple of weeks, when it just wouldn’t subside, I was like, ‘oh my god, what’s wrong here now?’ I went to the doctors and they basically couldn’t figure out what was causing the pain under my arm.
“I found that peculiar because, I don’t know — you go to the doctor and you expect it to be like, ‘OK, yeah, here’s what wrong’. But they were like, ‘oh, I’m not too sure’.
“Every time I went to the doctor, I’d meet an on-call doctor. It wouldn’t be my regular doctor as she’d be out. I’d have to re-tell my story again — and then I’d get confused and I’d leave parts out. It was just very frustrating.”
Around that time, the now-21-year-old “started to get other symptoms” — including a rash, which began right above her ankle.
Alannah continued: “This little bit of a rash started at the bottom of my calf, right above my ankle. And it was terribly itchy. And unfortunately for me, there was an outburst of scabies that had happened in my college and I’d recently stayed at my friend’s apartment.
“I was just being diagnosed with scabies instantly and getting the treatment. And if you do the treatment correctly, it should go away. And if you take the correct precautions towards it, it should go away — but this was not going away.
"It’s a very contagious thing as well, scabies. And nobody around me was getting this. It just kept getting worse, it was starting to spread all over my body. But the doctors kept saying, ‘yeah, I think it was scabies’ and I went to a dermatologist and they said, ‘yeah, I think it’s scabies’. It was not scabies.
“Hodgkin’s Lymphoma comes with a rash. That was one of my first symptoms, and I just want to be so clear on that for other people who may have symptoms — it was one of my first. It does come with a rash and it could be put down to something else.”
Alannah recalled how she was “shocked” to be continuously told it was scabies.
She said: “Even the dermatologist said it was scabies — and I was like, ‘I’ve done at least five treatments and it’s not going away. And it’s this highly contagious thing and nobody else has it, I don’t think it’s that.
“They wouldn’t listen to me and it was like I was just talking to myself. I was just getting so frustrated with it all.
“I know I’m not a doctor with a degree or anything, but I know my own body.”
Alannah explained that the rash was “the worst part” of the symptoms she had — which also included night sweats and rapid weight loss.
She said: “I was just kind of ignoring bleeding red flags. And now looking back, there’s alarms going off there right in front of me — and I couldn’t see them. A guilt does come along with it, but a guilt to me is quite normal. You can’t really be mad at yourself in the long run over these things.
“I had no idea what Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was before I got it. I was staring at the doctor who diagnosed me and I had to turn around and bluntly be like, ‘so, it’s cancer?’ And she nodded her head — I just had no idea.
“After all of those trips to my GP where I still wasn’t being diagnosed with anything — they were diagnosing me with this, that and the other — I eventually went to a hospital.
“My grandmother got fed up — I came to her crying one day, because I knew something was terribly wrong and I was so frustrated. And I came to her crying and she was just like, ‘look, we’ll go back to the doctors’ — and bless her, she marched in like, ‘this girl needs to see someone above, she needs to go to a hospital’.
“They referred me to the hospital. I went to St. John’s Hospital in Limerick, where I went for a medical assessment. They checked me head-to-toe, they were very good — I gave every sample that you could imagine.”
Alannah explained that due to Covid reasons, she was by herself when she was at the hospital.
It was then that the doctor came in and told her they wanted her to go for a CT scan because of suspected leukaemia and Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
She recalled: “I just said, ‘yeah, OK, no problem’ with a smile on my face. He left and I sat there and then the realisation hit me. I knew what leukaemia was but I did not know what Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was.
“But it was like, ‘oh, they’re testing me for cancer’ — and they’re not going to test me for cancer if they don’t think I have cancer.
“I was just sat there with the realisation that, yeah, I have cancer. I was alone. I couldn’t be texting my family saying things like, ‘ah, I think I have cancer’ — that would just worry them.
“It was a really scary moment. That first day — I’d no biopsy done at that stage. My biopsy came about two weeks later, just to confirm it was what it was. But it was Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.”
Alannah told how soon after her diagnosis, the idea of IVF was brought up to her, as the chemotherapy could interfere with her fertility.
She said: “I’d never thought about children in my whole life. I’m only 21. I was like, ‘really?’ And the doctor said, obviously the chemotherapy interferes with your fertility, and (going for the IVF) was to preserve your fertility.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t really want to’ — but they were like, ‘look, how would a 30-year-old Alannah feel that she preserved her eggs and she was glad to do so?’ And I thought, OK, fine.
“They had no clinics close to me, so I had to go all the way up to Dublin. To be honest, I was so sick that I could barely walk to the bathroom in my house at the time.
“Every second day, I was going (to the clinic). And about halfway, I had to ring them and be like, ‘look, I can’t keep going up to Dublin’.
“They said I could go to Cork as well. So every second day, I was going Dublin or Cork, Dublin or Cork. I was very ill, and I was fed up — but I got on with it.
“I had to inject myself with the hormones and stuff — I was terrified of needles in the beginning, but I’m definitely not now. I’ve had enough of them.
“But in the beginning, I was terrified of needles, terrified of the whole situation — the thing was so daunting.
“I was there trying to inject myself with something, and this whole ordeal for this fertility thing — and in the end, I got a phone call from the clinic on my way home and she was like, ‘I’m so sorry, they’re getting smaller’.
"That’s apparently not supposed to happen. Basically, they were like, ‘we might have to start again — but only if you want to’.”
Alannah said she told them she wanted to start her treatment.
She said: "My nurses and doctors said that because of my age they could give me this implant thing that could help me and that my fertility should be OK. But if it’s not, that’s fine as well.”
Alannah received 12 rounds of ABVD chemotherapy, which she “responded very well” to — and is awaiting her next scan in June.
She explained: “I’m doing great now. I finished treatment on the 20th of January after 12 rounds of chemo — and I’ve been doing great since then.
“I literally have no complaints. And that’s what I’d say to a lot of people when they ask, ‘oh, how are you feeling?’ — I’ve had no complaints, even during treatment.
“I responded to treatment very, very well and I’m so fortunate to have responded to it well.”
For her 21st birthday last November, Alannah decided she was going to set up a fundraiser on social media. And although she said she “didn’t even think I’d get €10” at first, she ended up raising a whole lot more.
She recalled: “My 21st birthday was at the start of November and I was on Facebook one night, and that notification came up going, ‘do you want to set up a fundraiser?’ And I thought, ‘yeah, of course I’m gonna fundraise!’
“I scrolled down to the Irish Cancer Society and I picked that. They had contacted me previously to avail of their services — and I thought, ‘yeah, I’m going to pick them’. I picked them, posted it and went to bed.
"The next morning, I checked it and I had like €100. I thought, ‘oh my god — I didn’t even think I’d get €10’.
“I was watching it slowly top up. I think I originally had the fundraiser down to a maximum of €200. And then as I was getting closer, I was like, ‘look, they don’t have to donate, but if they want to’ — and I just kept topping it up.
“That was a week before my birthday. And by my actual birthday, I raised €1,100. It was finished then and I was really, really happy with that. It was like the cherry on top of my whole day.
“And then I met with Mary from the Irish Cancer Society. She came out to my house and she was so, so lovely — I’m just very happy, having done that. And that definitely won’t be the last time I work with the Irish Cancer Society.”
Alannah also shared her advice for anyone who might suspect something is wrong — encouraging them to go get checked out.
She said: “To anyone who’s scared that there’s something wrong and they don’t know what it is — go and get checked properly. What’s €50 to a lifetime of bills from the hospital, even if it’s just that they say, ‘yeah, you’re fine, why are you worrying so much’?
“I’d rather that a million times than to go through what I’ve gone through — and even at that, I’ve had such an easy route compared to other people.
“But it’s not all that scary in the end. For me, I learned that I cannot control and I cannot be upset over the things happening to me now — they’re probably inevitable, so there’s no point in being upset.
"I’ve always said that what’s happening to me physically, I cannot control. But the only thing I can control is my mind and my mindset, my mentality — and I truly do believe that my mentality of keeping positive, that that’s really brought me over the finish line.”
- The Irish Cancer Society’s Daffodil Day, the day we take back from cancer, takes place on March 24 , 2023. To get involved, make a donation or for more information, visit cancer.ie/daffodilday
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