‘It Felt Surreal’: A Cancer Diagnosis at 26

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Business News, Daily News, News

4.2 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Meilin Keen was diagnosed with stomach cancer at 26. She’s part of a growing demographic of people who are getting cancer diagnoses before the age of 50. And doctors don’t know why. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what we know so far. Further Reading: -Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled. -Many Cancers Are on the Rise in the U.S., Even as Overall Deaths Fall. -Uterine Cancer Was Easy to Treat. Now It’s Killing More Women Than Ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	May Keene is in her 20's. She lives in New York and likes the outdoors, reading books, and her cat. She's a tuxedo her name is Pudge and she'll be three
0:16.1	in March. Are you a cat person? Yes huge cat person huge cat person huge cat and
0:20.7	book person. Not a dog person. I'm not anti-dog, but I'm more pro-cat.
0:28.3	Last spring, May graduated from law school and immediately started studying for the bar. But a few weeks
0:36.7	later she didn't feel quite right. I was just feeling super ill and I thought it was because I was just feeling super ill and I thought it was because I wasn't eating correctly
0:45.8	I was just drinking coffee I had problems with heartburn previously so I was just
0:50.9	like oh I'm just so stressed like of course this is a stressful time.
0:56.3	May was feeling dizzy. She started to throw up blood and her roommate called an ambulance.
1:03.8	What was going through your mind at that time?
1:07.8	I just thought it was really bad GI issues, so was like oh there's just ulcers are going to give
1:16.2	me some high strength like anti-acids or something I'll be out here in no time. But instead she was admitted to the ICU. I was like, oh frick, these are my days off of
1:29.2	bar prep, but how am I gonna make up for these days. Like, I got to get back home.
1:35.0	May's mom flew in to be with her.
1:38.0	After a few days, May got some bad news from her doctor.
1:48.1	And then she said it and I think I was like what? Because she kind of said it in like doctor terms but I also heard like cancer in there so I was like oh I don't think it clicked in my
1:58.6	head so I had to like it was like disbelief Yeah pretty much and my mom actually started
2:04.2	crying before me and when I looked over and saw her crying that's what made me cry and
2:09.1	I had to like confirm with the doctor so I have stomach cancer and she was like yes.
2:15.7	At the age of 26 May's dreams of her future were immediately upended. And she's not alone. More and more people
2:27.0	are getting diagnosed with cancer in their 20s and 30s. And doctors don't know why.
2:34.0	Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business and power.
2:41.0	I'm Kate Leimbaw.
	...

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