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by Sakura Minamida Harris, director of marketing at Monomi Park
In the movies, you see cancer patients go through chemotherapy and it’s portrayed as the worst thing that can be done to your body to survive. While I can attest that chemo was not fun, what the movies fail to depict is life after cancer. I too assumed that surgery, chemo, and radiation would just be a “moment in time” and if I survive, I can slip right back seamlessly into my beloved role as the Brand Director for Ryu Ga Gotoku at SEGA.
What I discovered was that my body, as I knew it, would never be the same. My life as a video game marketer would never be the same. This is my story. For twenty years, I have been a global marketer in the gaming industry and specialized in Japanese IPs like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. At the time of diagnosis, I was deeply invested in the growth of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. I poured everything I had into the Yakuza series for five years because I genuinely loved the game, but above all, I loved the people at the studio and my team. We were really getting into a rhythm and celebrating the exponential growth we drove since releasing Yakuza 0. The future was bright. We were ramping up for one of our biggest releases to date, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. However, on October 6th, 2020, just one month from launch, I was diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma at age 37. Everything came to a screeching halt.
The initial prognosis was positive. I was told that I caught the cancer early enough that, with surgery, I’d go back to being a badass game marketer by day, and a badass mom at night in no time. On November 10th, as Yakuza: Like a Dragon launched, I went into surgery. The team cheered me on, and I cheered them on. The surgery was a success, but after testing the cancer, the oncotype score had come in higher than expected and I had to immediately start chemo.
My husband and I had to decide within three days whether we could accept not having children due to treatment complications. In this short span of time, I made a lot of really hard life changing decisions. Ultimately, I wanted to reduce the chance of recurrence, so on December 25th, 2020 (yep – on Christmas), I began chemo. I shaved my head and ultimately lost all my hair, and I lost my sense of taste. I had muscle cramps and neuropathy on my hands and feet. I wasn’t nauseous or losing weight. On the contrary, I gained a lot of weight from steroids. I was told that most of the side effects would be temporary. A few weeks after completing chemo, we jumped right into radiation.
Treatment lasted a year with months of physical therapy without much of a break. The long-term invisible ailments – the ones that movies omit – were the most challenging. During core treatment, I had visual indicators from my ailment. People empathised that I had gone through a physically traumatic experience by just looking at me. But once I was done with the core treatment, and my hair regrew, naturally everyone, including myself, thought life would be back to normal and I would be able to slide right in like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately, that’s not how my story goes. I still had five years of endocrine therapy left and the “temporary” side effects didn’t all go away.
I have permanent neuropathy, and have experienced vision deterioration, speech impairment, constant aches and pain and induced menopause, which caused additional ailments. Chemo brain is real. My veins were burnt to a crisp with only one working vein on my right wrist to pull blood. I couldn’t even play games that I enjoyed before treatment without feeling tiredness, pain, or nausea. Mentally, this launched me into a deep insecurity and fear of returning to work – the work I loved. I have been doing this job for 20 years, so it should be like muscle memory, right? I should have been able to hit the ground running as I returned to work. A mere month back into my job, it became clear: my stamina had diminished, and my body was deteriorating quickly.
Despite this, cancer gave me a new perspective. I’ve always been an optimist so I knew everything would work out, but I had to forge my new narrative because the world wouldn’t stop for me. I learned that if I don’t take care of myself, nothing matters. Despite how much I love my family and how much I love my job, NONE OF THIS MATTERS if the cancer comes back. I also recognised that I had not recovered fully from the mental trauma. I needed more time to heal. So, I made another extremely hard decision – I chose to leave my dream job, stepping away from a leadership role to prioritise my recovery.
The gaming industry moves at a breakneck speed and I knew I couldn’t be an effective leader to a team at the time. So, I passed the baton over and cheered the team on as a fan. I had to take the time I needed to discover my new norm. Joining an amazing team at 2K, I focused on the nuances of more executional work and met a fantastic supervisor who taught me how to lead with empathy. The role even gave me a chance to learn new things as I had been removed from executional work for some time by then and so I got back into a rhythm. Before I had decided to join 2K, I had a few other options and you’d be surprised by how many interviewers told me how my frequent doctor’s appointments may need to be scaled back and I knew immediately that they were not a fit. We as an industry can do better than that.
Mark Hoppas of Blink 182 spoke candidly about his return to work after stage 4 lymphoma and how he had to re-learn how to play the bass and retrain his vocal cords because chemo had thrashed everything. He too couldn’t rely on muscle memory. He reminded me that I wasn’t alone, and it inspired me to speak up for those that may be suffering in silence.
Now, three years post-diagnosis, I was cancer-free but still experiencing side effects, which forced me to think about my future at 2K. I decided to make a career change, and this was another extremely hard decision because I had an amazingly supportive and fun team. I think about them every day. But the global business hours took a toll on my body as the team was based out of the UK. Although I was confident they would have extended every possible accommodation – just as SEGA had graciously done – I knew that the physical demands I was experiencing were beyond anyone’s control. It wouldn’t have been fair to expect them to shoulder the burden my health imposed. They deserved transparency and my body deserved the same honesty. Leaving was as sad as the day I left SEGA, yet I walked away being proud of myself, what I had learned, and the forever friends I’d made!
Cancer taught me that only I can forge my path and hopefully help others on the way. Daily tasks may be tougher, but I don’t want sympathy, I prefer understanding and balance, and communication that leads to mutually beneficial solutions. I decided to return to a leadership role as a director of marketing at Monomi Park, an environment where they encourage me to harness the new me. Monomi Park didn’t bat an eye when I told them my story, rather saw the strength in me and took a chance.
As I thought about a fresh start while walking down the pier, my phone rang from the studio with the news. Monomi Park has taught me to set new personal boundaries. Building a team from the ground up is hard work but rewarding. It allowed me to set fresh new values, goals, and instil empathy for my team and their life beyond work. I am hopeful that I can nurture future leaders to have more empathy and lead by example. They are now going to be part of my post cancer story and I am excited to see what the future holds for us together. Cancer gave me the strength to break out of my comfort zone and really live life to the fullest. Focus less on the pain and focus more on the fun! I travel a lot more now and cherish experiences with my family and friends. I may have bought too many LEGO sets and Pokémon cards as a coping mechanism, but I think I deserved it. Cancer has unexpectedly gifted me with a stronger sense of self and unwavering confidence in myself and my life choices.
My dad told me that he moved us to America from Japan so we could become whoever we wanted to be because he never liked conforming to the norm. He lived life the way he wanted to and was always an adventurer. I knew he always wanted that for me, so I made the jump and never turned back. Sometimes things didn’t go as planned but I am the happiest I have been in a long time.
“We’re all different. But there’s something kind of fantastic about that, isn’t there?” ~ Ms. Fox from Fantastic Mr. Fox
