Min Jin Lee

So I gave blood because my friend was doing a blood drive and I wanted to do a favor.

Like I'm very good at saying yes.

I'm terrible at saying no.

And then I got that letter and I didn't know what that meant.

I knew it was something bad, but then it turned out that I had the sort of latent carrier status.

And then when I went to college, I was okay.

And then I think my sophomore year, I got incredibly sick.

So my latent, my carrier status became active.

And then I was almost incapacitated.

Yeah.

Your doctor told you that you would get cancer in your 20s or 30s.

Instead, when you were 30, you had liver cirrhosis and you received interferon and were able to get better.

But was there any time while you were sick, whether it be at Yale or after, before you were treated with interferon that you thought you might not survive?

Well, I thought all along that I wouldn't survive because when Dr. Adrian Rubin of Yale New Haven Hospital said to me that you will likely get liver cancer in your 20s or 30s, and he made it seem very, he was very calm when he said this.

And I was by myself because my parents couldn't go to the doctor with me because they were working.

And I remember telling my dean about it afterwards.

And then she went with me for the next appointment because she was concerned.

Wow, that's really kind of her.

Dean Joyce Baker, she was incredibly kind.

So when I went to the doctor and I heard this news, I remember thinking, oh, okay.