'I had to freeze my eggs at 15 because of cancer'

Ellen Deegan was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 15. Before undergoing treatment, she attended a fertility clinic to have her eggs frozen, a children's service funded by the Irish Cancer Society 

Ellen Deegan, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 15. Picture: Alf Harvey.

Ellen Deegan, from Stradbally, Co Laois, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma on March 14, 2021. She was 15 years old.

“I was oblivious to anything to do with cancer,” she says. “Before I got diagnosed, the only sense I had that something might be wrong was I was really tired all the time. But I put that down to being a teenager. Then, one night, I went to bed and woke up the next day with a lump on the side of my neck.”