as Yakuza: Like a Dragon launched, I went into surgery. The team cheered me on, and I cheered them on. The surgery was a success, but after testing the cancer, the oncotype score had come in higher than expected and I had to immediately start chemo. My husband and I had to decide within three days whether we could accept not having children due to treatment complications. In this short span of time, I made a lot of really hard life changing decisions. Ultimately, I wanted to reduce the chance of recurrence, so on December 25th, 2020 (yep - on Christmas), I began chemo. I shaved my head and ultimately lost all my hair, and I lost my sense of taste. I had muscle cramps and neuropathy on my hands and feet. I wasn’t nauseous or losing weight. On the contrary, I gained a lot of weight from steroids. I was told that most of the side effects would be temporary. A few weeks after completing chemo, we jumped right into radiation. Treatment lasted a year with months of physical
therapy without much of a break. The long-term invisible ailments - the ones that movies omit - were the most challenging. During core treatment, I had visual indicators from my ailment. People empathised that I had gone through a physically traumatic experience by just looking at me. But once I was done with the core treatment, and my hair regrew, naturally everyone, including myself, thought life would be back to normal and I would be able to slide right in like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately, that’s not how my story goes. I still had five years of endocrine therapy left and the “temporary” side effects didn’t all go away. I have
permanent neuropathy, and have experienced vision deterioration, speech impairment, constant aches and pain and induced menopause, which caused additional ailments. Chemo brain is real. My veins were burnt to a crisp with only one working vein on my right wrist to pull blood. I couldn’t even play games that I enjoyed before treatment without feeling tiredness, pain, or nausea. Mentally, this launched me into a deep insecurity and fear of returning to work - the work I loved. I have been doing this job for 20 years, so it should be like muscle memory, right? I should have been able to hit the ground running as I returned to work. A mere month back into my job, it became clear: my stamina had diminished, and my body was deteriorating quickly. Despite this, cancer gave me a new perspective. I’ve
always been an optimist so I knew everything would work out, but I had to forge my new narrative because the world wouldn’t stop for me. I learned that if I don’t take care of myself, nothing matters. Despite how much I love my family and how much I love my job, NONE OF THIS MATTERS if the cancer comes back. I also recognised that I had not recovered fully from the mental trauma. I needed more time to heal. So, I made another extremely hard decision - I chose to leave my dream job, stepping away from a leadership role to prioritise my recovery. The gaming industry moves at a breakneck speed and I knew I couldn’t be an effective leader to a team at the time. So, I passed the baton over and cheered the team on as a fan. I had to take the time I needed to discover my new norm. Joining an amazing team at 2K, I focused on the
nuances of more executional work and met a fantastic supervisor who taught me how to lead with empathy. The role even gave me a chance to learn new things as I had been removed from executional work for some time by then and so I got back into a rhythm. Before I had decided to join 2K, I had a few other options and you’d be surprised by how many interviewers told me how my frequent doctor’s appointments may need to be scaled back and I knew immediately that they were not a fit. We as an industry can do better than that. Mark Hoppas of Blink 182 spoke candidly about his
return to work after stage 4 lymphoma and how he had to re-learn how to play the bass and retrain his vocal cords
December/January 2024 MCV/DEVELOP | 23
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