‘I’m back to normal, just with shorter hair’ - Leinster wing Vanessa Hullon battles back from Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Vanessa Hullon plays some form of rugby multiple times a week, whether that be international tag rugby, Leinster at provincial level, rugby union with Old Belvedere or rugby league with Exiles. So when she played an AIL semi-final against Blackrock in April 2022 and thought, “this is not fun. This hurts so much. I’m going back to soccer,” it was another sign that something was off.

She hadn’t played well, felt exhausted and she could see where she “should have been on the pitch but couldn’t physically get there, it was weird.”

She’d felt a lump on her neck before the game, but hadn’t thought much of it, and was more concerned initially about losing the game.

Afterwards, Hullon, a product manager in a tech company, “wasn’t comfortable, I was reaching for my inhaler and it wasn’t giving me relief.” She put it down to maybe having long Covid, and after drinks that night, noticed the lump had grown. “It was huge, it was so bizarre.”

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The next morning, she attended her GP, where things quickly escalated, and she was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital that night. Hullon was lucky as one of the doctors on roster, Lucy Gibbons, was one of Leinster’s doctors, so she had the benefit of a friendly face. Gibbons told Hullon to come in, “and I asked ‘will I bring Clo?’ – her longterm girlfriend Clodagh Dunne – “and the look on her face… she said ‘yes’.”

The scan showed a lump around the collarbone, then it went down further.

“The consultant on call that weekend said, ‘If you could try and put your head in the sand and not think about it,’ which I did, I’m great at that. Clodagh was at home googling everything, figuring out what it was, contacting people, and I was like, ‘la, la, la’.”

As the days went on and tests were conducted, it was clearly less likely to be an infection, as initially thought, but Hullon remained stubbornly oblivious. “I think they thought I would just cop on.”

She was in a ward with a woman who was “riddled, cancer here, there and everywhere. Sure, what am I doing sitting opposite her when I’ve an infection or something?” she thought. “Clodagh was just like, ‘yep’.”

After the biopsy she was sent home. Thanks to Dunne’s research, they’d figured it’d either be Hodgkin’s Lymphoma or something worse. There was some relief when it turned out their first guess was correct.

“It turns out it was a mass in the chest. Hodgkin’s lymphoma, it’s cancer of the lymph nodes, but it started – I think – in the chest and then went up to the neck. So I could have had it for maybe the month or two previous in the chest.”

Her athlete’s mentality then kicked into gear. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

The answer was six months of chemotherapy treatment, a scan after about two months to check progress, “and radiation if needed.”

Every second Friday, Hullon would go to St Vincent’s Hospital for her treatment from about 8am until lunchtime. “It was like preparing for a match or something, let’s get preseason over with or whatever it is. I was counting down the sessions.”

The physical impact hit hard – the hair loss, the temporary menopause, but above of all, the fatigue.

Hair loss was forewarned, but instead of waiting for it to fall out in clumps – “which would’ve been kind of disturbing and also really annoying to clean up” – Hullon donated it to the Rapunzel foundation, “while it was still healthy and before it went to crap. It was actually a really nice experience because it was turning it into something positive and it was under my control, it was my choice.”

It did eventually start falling out, and “it got to the stage where it was very, very thin. It was bothering me. You could see bald patches and stuff that just made you look sick. I thought you’d get away with it. When I look back at pictures now, I’m like, ‘Jesus, I looked so ill.’”

When diagnosed, doctors ask about fertility – do you want your eggs frozen? “There was another option, which was to take these injections that would induce menopause temporarily, just during treatment,” says Hullon.

She took it, figuring that if her fertility was impacted that she had a girlfriend. “Two ovens, two sets of eggs,” she jokes.

The injection approach is often used for endometriosis or dealing with fibroids, where it essentially switches off your ovaries and they are then somewhat protected from the effects of chemotherapy. “I went for the injections, so they were about once a month. They were horrible – having chemo plus the menopause was not a vibe.”

“We had a fan, as you get the hot flushes. I am glad I did [the injections] because it gives you the best chance. My cycles are back now.”

Usually active and athletic, the fatigue was a massive disruption, nevertheless Hullon stuck to the team’s usual routine: training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, gym on Mondays. But now she was a spectator.

“It was frustrating to not be able to play, but I was so tired that I just appreciated being able to go training and they were all so great about it as well.”

“I’d bring a camping chair to sit and watch. Sometimes I’d walk around and shadow the coaches or try and listen, but I wasn’t even there mentally. It meant I could see the gals and have a bit of structure again and get a bit of fresh air.”

“I still felt part of the team and then, say they’d do a gym on a Monday, I’d go and, depending on how I felt, I might just sit there or I might do two pressups or squats. The strength and conditioning coach was super, I wanted to do some exercise so they’d give me things to do that were really basic, but making me feel good. It became a routine and I could see improvement. That was something I could control. Even if I was tired, I could still do maybe a squat or pushup or whatever. I wanted to still be moving.”

Hullon’s mindset was remarkably positive throughout her treatment, strengthened by her network of teammates, coaches, sisters, parents, friends and the women who provided literal support: Laura the reflexologist who helped with menopause symptoms, the haematology consultant Dr Claire Andrews, and the therapist from Arc cancer support.

The mental impact of having cancer is a lot to deal with though. “I found if I was positive about it like, ‘okay here we go, another session done out of 12′, then the day was that bit easier. A few times I was absolutely exhausted going in and my mental state was more negative, like ‘this is going to be horrible, I hate going through this’ and when I was thinking and feeling like that, the day went by more slowly and I generally felt worse, more nauseous et cetera.”

“I tried to stay as positive as I could, and I’m glad I did, but it was probably only when I was on the other side of it that I thought back, [and realised] ‘that was horrendous’.”

From the moment she finished treatment, she had a goal in mind: get back on the pitch. “The first time I was back on the tag pitch I hadn’t a breeze cognitively. I dunno how many times I was offside.”

Rather than getting overwhelmed by how far behind she felt, the question became: “What is my goal for next week? It was like, right, my goal is to not give away any offside penalties.”

“I gave myself smaller, more attainable goals, that was a very important thing as well.”

These small weekly goals led to Hullon getting a bronze medal for the mixed senior Irish team in the Tag Rugby World Cup, held in Limerick in August. “Without having that goal, I definitely wouldn’t have recovered as quickly.”

A year in remission, normal service has resumed, with rugby back to being “so, so much fun”, back to work with more perspective on life and what to worry about and what not to worry about. “I realised how lucky I was with my diagnosis when I got it, and my treatment plan – and I’m very thankful for that. I finally feel like I’m mentally back where I was, which is awesome.”

“It kind of seems like I’m back to normal. Just with shorter hair”.