Owen K.C. Stephens

Cancer and Career (Patreon)

Published:

2024-04-11 23:33:49

Imported:

2026-10

Tags:

Blog My Cancer freelancing retrospective

Content

The doctor's best estimate is that in mid 2014, I developed cancer. We didn't catch it (despite testing for it) until early 2023.

For nine years I faced growing fatigue, waning focus, and exponentially growing inability to do as much as I had the year before.

Of course, I moved to Seattle in early 2014 to work for Paizo Inc. I was, at the time, already a developer for Green Ronin Publishing, publisher for Rogue Genius Games, blogger, and a freelance writer, developer, and consultant. I often worked 80-to-100-hour weeks. People told me it was impossible to maintain. I felt it wasn't. I'd already done it for a decade at that point.

And, for a few more years, I maintained it. From 2015 forward it got harder and harder, and I grew more and more frustrated, but I did it. I even added work for other companies. I brought late publishing lines back on schedule. I helped friends with disasters on their hands. I contributed to award-winning products. I put out Anachronistic Adventures and the Feat Reference Document. I helped create Starfinder.

All the while, the cancer grew, sapped my strength and focus, and made absolutely everything in my life -- professional and personal -- much more difficult. I thought it was burnout. And, yes, I may well have hit burnout. But I was also being slowly killed by a monster born of my own flesh.

I began to get sick more and more often. Hospitalized with staph infections. Pneumonia every couple of years. Flu every few months, Con crud after every convention. No doctor could tell me why. I was not diabetic. My weight was going down. I was exercising more, eating better, and getting weaker, and sicker, and less reliable.

People kept telling me and telling me I was taking on too much. That I just wasn't 35 anymore. I knew something was wrong, but I did not know what. I came to believe it was either my environment, something in the Pacific Northwest, or my job, that was draining me. I did not want to believe either, as I loved both, but what more was there to blame> So, in 2019, I left Paizo and the work I loved there, and my wife and I moved to Indiana for what looked like an opportunity to have great careers doing less work.

That... did not work out as planned.

So when those jobs dried up mere months after moving, I decided to launch an ambitious subscription plan for 2020.

That... did not work out as planned. I still owe people a ton of that material, 4 years later. At least it wasn't a Kickstarter.

Then we had to move back to Oklahoma mid 2020, during the pandemic. Here, at least, was my original support base. My close family. My dear friends of decades. And once I was here, I got sicker, and sicker. More infections. More pneumonia. More fatigue. More depression. I was, in fact, ready to give up.

When I was hospitalized early last year, my life was in danger. Then, a month later, we got the diagnosis. Cancer. A tumor finally big enough to localize. I've been fighting it ever since.

If we'd caught it a decade ago, maybe things would have been different. Fewer people let down. More opportunities taken. Less beloved jobs let and friends moved away from. But I can't change any of that.

In roughly 3 months, I'll get to find out if the tumor is dead now. If so, another 3 months after that I'll likely be fully recovered, though 'll be monitoring for a return of the tumor (or new cancer, caused by the radiation to kill this one).

If not, my list of options grows thin.

I'm not sure where I will go, from here. I don't have the reputation I used to, or the opportunities I once did. Full-time ttRPG jobs with benefits are incredibly rare. I lost 1 in 2001, and walked away from another in 2019. Even regular gigs with contracts and monthly paychecks are rare, and I've screwed up 3 of those in just the past 3 years. No reason to think anyone will give me a shot at those rare positions again.

Also, the tabletop industry is changing fast, and right now I simply lack the exergy to keep up. In three or six months, who knows what it'll be like, or how I'll find a place in it again. And with the cost of chemo, radiation, MRIs, ultrasounds, CAT scans, scopes, probes, and the machine that goes "ping" I may be looking at debt for decades to come.

But I will be here, fighting when I must, creating what I can, advising if I'm asked and able, regardless. It might not be the path I'd prefer, and I may need to sit at regular intervals along the way, but I'll keep walking it as long as I'm able.

-Owen

Support: If you want to help with medical costs, there are lots of options, including a ton of products friends and colleagues have put together to help me when you buy them. If not, I get it, I promise. Even just liking and sharing my blog posts and social media posts, sending me good vibes, funny memes, and distracting pictures, and wishing me well is a huge help, and greatly appreciated.

GoFundMe -Ever bit helps.

https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

Ko-Fi - If you prefer it to GFM, or want to set up regular donations.

https://ko-fi.com/owenkcstephens

Patreon - Being a subscriber is great. Becoming a paid subscriber is awesome.

https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

Charity Bundle (through April Only) -- $1,100+ worth of game material for $30

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/owen-kc-stephens-is-rad-bundle

Charity Product -- Like A Boss - A Book of Boss Encounters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/433500/like-a-boss-a-book-of-boss-encounters

Charity Product -- The Traveler's Guide to the Darklands

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/455409/the-traveler-s-guide-to-the-darklands