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Mike Lang

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Age: Mike 27
Diagnosis: Hodgkins Lyphoma
Age at Diagnosis: 25
Hometown: Calgary, AB
Producer of Wrong Way to Hope

Biography :

May 15, 2008. I went to the doctor thinking that I had asthma, only to find out that there was actually a softball-sized tumor in the middle of my chest causing my breathing issues. Four days later I found out that I had numerous other tumors of varying sizes all over my body. A week after that I started chemotherapy. The diagnosis was obviously quite unexpected. I was 25 years old, married five months, living the life I always dreamed of and in just seven days I lost my job, moved back in with my parents, put my career on hold and found myself sitting in a chemotherapy waiting room full of people at least 30 years older then me. That is one hell of a change in life direction.

For the first three months of treatments I did not want to acknowledge that cancer had any impact on my life. I just tried to pretend like it was not happening when obviously my life was very, very different. Refusing to engage with the experience made me miserable because the whole ordeal felt so purposeless; cancer was wasting what was supposed to be the prime of my life. My biggest challenge was dealing with these feelings of purposelessness and I soon realized that although cancer might not kill me physically, it could destroy me emotionally and spiritually if I let the bitterness that I felt for having to deal with cancer at 25 take hold of my heart.

So with the goal of finding purpose in my suffering, I thought up a way to use my skills and abilities to better the lives of my YA survivor peers. A year and three months later, after undergoing six months of chemotherapy, one and a half months of radiation treatments and countless hours of dreaming and organizing, myself and seven other YA cancer survivors from across Canada started out on a journey of a lifetime with the goal of raising awareness of the specific issues and challenges facing young adults with cancer.

To me, this film is redemption. It has brought abundant good out of a painful journey that almost destroyed me. Now everywhere I turn I can’t help but see meaning and purpose as I continue to reach out to other young adults with cancer. Like the lives of so many young adult cancer survivors I meet, this film is drenched in suffering, brokenness, redemption and hope. Enjoy the journey.