Hank Green, a novelist and longtime host of quirky YouTube educational videos, announced Friday that he was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer.
“Good news and bad news. One, it’s cancer,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel Vlogbrothers. “The good news is, it’s something called Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” he said. “It’s one of the most curable cancers. is one of the It responds very well to treatment.”
Mr. Green first started Vlogbrothers in 2007 with his older brother, John Green, who is a best-selling author of young adult novels including “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Paper Towns.”
Hank Green’s first novel, “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing,” was a best seller inspired by achieving Internet fame and experiencing anxiety and awkwardness.
In a 2018 interview, he said, “In many ways it comes from my personal experience of what success feels like.” “There’s a very strange feeling of being bigger in people’s heads than you realize.”
Over the past decade, the Green brothers have built an online video empire with more than 10 YouTube channels such as “SciShow” and “Crash Course,” each with over 20 million subscribers and even millions of views. .
Hank Green, who is no stranger to explaining scientific matters to his followers, said he first suspected something might be wrong when his armpit became unusually swollen. Then, she noticed that her lymph nodes were enlarged.
He went to the doctor for a scan, ultrasound and later a biopsy. They knew he had risk factors for lymphoma including an autoimmune disease and had mono, or infectious mononucleosis, as a child.
He said he wasn’t sure how his treatment would affect the making of the video, but he was confident his online community would understand.
On TikTok, where Mr Green has 7.5 million followers, he speculates he may spend more time writing his newsletter, “Nerdfighteria”, depending on how he’s feeling throughout the process .
“I know I’m going to feel like garbage,” he said. “It’s going to be really unpleasant.”
Mr Green said he started his first round of chemotherapy on Friday, which will continue for at least four months.
He recalled in the video a conversation he had with his brother, John, who told him he thought “this is the best time ever in human history to get lymphoma.”
“And you gave me a very John Green idea: ‘Well, a year from now would have been better,'” he recalled with a laugh.
The brothers also co-founded VidCon, an Internet culture convention hosted annually in Anaheim, California.
VidCon said on Instagram that Hank Green will not be attending next month’s convention.
“To our co-founder, go-to science guy, and the only person on the internet who understands where all the candle wax goes: We’re sending all that love to the VidCon community and beyond,” it said in a statement.
Fans of Mr Green shared messages of support on Friday in his videos and comments on social media, including photos of the Pelicans. very specific request,
For now, Mr Green said his main symptom is stress, as he fears the cancer diagnosis threatens to hijack his identity.
“I want to be having fun, goofy science guy,” he said, “not struggling with anxiety, Cancer guy.”