About Us

Hi, I'm Kay. When I was 24, I was diagnosed with late-stage Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and underwent 6 rounds of intensive chemotherapy. Cancer is always othering, but even more so as a young adult. Besides the amazing rare few who had already been through something similar, I just didn't find most people knew how to react or what to do with me. Going around in public was anxiety-inducing — would people see what was going on? Would they think I had cancer, or something else? Was I got to get lots of looks and questions? And worst of all, would they only see my cancer, and nothing else?

I often wished I could walk around with a sign that could indicate both that I had cancer and that I was a human being underneath that. Something that could acknowledge my experience with this deadly disease while still centering me, the person, and not my cancer. I also wanted to play with some of the absurdities that come with treatment that I had no idea about before I was diagnosed — like, what do you mean all my bodily excretions will be toxic for a week after my treatment? What do you mean I'll start shedding my skin like a lizard, get roid rage, and hate the taste of water? 

I couldn't find any t-shirts or other items that I felt struck the right balance between naming what was going on and not inciting my own pity, or that didn't cost an arm and a leg to ship to Canada between the exchange rates and shipping fees. That's ones of the reasons why it was so important to me for all my products to be designed and printed local to the customer — shirts shipped within Canada are printed in Canada, and shirts shipped within the US are printed in the US. I create each and every design myself, and they're printed on the apparel you choose by a local family-owned printing company. After completing my treatment, I set out to make shirts that I would have wanted to wear to my check-ups, chemo appointments, and while rotting on the couch; and now that I'm a survivor, ones that I wear out and around to subtly indicate my badass now-barely-grown-in buzzcut was a necessity and not a choice.

I hope you and your loved ones will never be in a position to relate to any of the designs you see here. But, if you do — welcome, buckle in, and know that you're not alone. And I hope that maybe, just maybe, something I've made might just make you smile during this dark time of your life.

- Kay | Founder, Owner, and Designer at Mhemotherapy