Woman Fired After Cancer Relapse Gets Real About How Hard Cancer Can Be With Bluntly Humorous Art

In October 2018 Gomez, 30,  was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma stage two. She underwent 12 chemotherapy treatments and was told she was in remission, so went back to work. Five months later,  in October 2019,  she found out that she had relapsed. Her employer of seven years didn't offer support as they had the first time, but rather attempted to fire her.

"It's like once I got cast back into the world of the sick, they no longer had a use for me anymore because now it’s been two times and who I am is not important anymore," Gomez tells SurvivorNet.

Related: 7 Sneaky Symptoms of Hodgkin Lymphoma: Doctor Told One Teen Her Itchy Rash Later Diagnosed at Stage 4 Was 'Nothing to Worry About'

She took time to process it, and she took it as a sign.  She restarted her YouTube channel to tell her story and started creating art.

"Cancer has taught me a lot of things, but what it has taught me the most is that what you make might sound cliche, but you do have to take every day and every moment for yourself in a way, because, you know, you give so much of yourself out there into the world, especially when you have cancer, a lot of your life is dictated," Gomez tells SurvivorNet. "It’s what time do you get to this appointment? You have the surgery on this day, you have this chemo. And when I got done with it, my husband and I kind of sat down and was like, what do you want now? And I said, 'I want to follow my passions in life, which happened to be helping people being creative.'"

 

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