I retired at 41 to focus on myself. Then, my toddler was diagnosed with cancer, and now I manage his treatment.

• I had always been interested in retiring early.
• I left my job in 2023, years after having my son and publishing my first book.
• Then, at age 3, my son was diagnosed with cancer.

As an elder millennial, I graduated into the 2008 job market armed with a master’s degree in creative writing and $20,000+ in student debt. It was a formative experience — that’s putting it mildly.

Though I was able to find a job in copywriting, I was laid off within six months, and for better or for worse, the fear induced by that layoff has stayed with me ever since. It also gave me a lasting interest in money and economics.

I also knew I wanted to retire early, and I worked toward that goal. In 2023, at the age of 41, I retired. And then, my son was diagnosed with cancer, which changed all my plans.

Writing about stocks taught me a lot

By 2010, I’d joined an online financial services company, where I wrote about stock market trends. Soon after joining the company, I grew interested in investing, at least enough to begin buying “FAANG” stocks in a regular brokerage account — small amounts at first, then larger ones as I learned the ropes and grew more comfortable.

“FAANG” refers to Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Like most people, I already knew those businesses. I used Facebook, owned Apple products, shopped on Amazon.com, subscribed to Netflix, and continually navigated to Google for research, so it seemed natural to buy shares. My investment thesis wasn’t sophisticated: they were rapidly growing companies in monopoly-adjacent positions. What’s not to like?

As their share prices rose, I kept buying more. (“Add to your winners” is an old saying in investing.) I also paid off my student debt. My parents had generously paid for my undergrad, but I’d borrowed around $20,000 for my master’s. The interest rate was low, yet I still wanted that obligation gone.

Around 2012, a colleague forwarded me an article about the FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early — movement. Suddenly, I had a name for what I was pursuing. I wasn’t interested in the extreme frugality of Mr. Money Mustache — a major figure in FIRE circles — I simply wanted to get to a place where downturns wouldn’t sink me, and my career fears were more emotional and existential than financial.

I wrote a book and had a baby

At the same time, I was writing creatively on the side, and my first book was published in 2021. By then, I had a full-time job, a baby boy, and a book to promote. The grind was endless, and burnout was inevitable. The enforced isolation of the pandemic didn’t help. I felt joyless, used up, and the opposite of creative.

When the opportunity came to leave my job in 2023, I took it. I planned to spend more time with my son, especially since our longtime nanny was leaving, and finally drill down on my second book. But just a year into my “retirement,” life took a devastating turn. At age 3, right out of the blue, my little boy was diagnosed with a gravely serious form of cancer.

Now, instead of pursuing my passions, I help manage his treatment — a grueling, yearlong regimen of chemotherapy that requires frequent hospitalizations. His immune system is severely compromised, so preschool and playdates are out of the question. Finding childcare is essentially impossible.

I’m basically on unpaid medical leave

Ironically, my early retirement has become a long, unpaid medical leave. I’ve barely cracked my second book. The days are a whirlwind of crises and appointments. I hate living this way myself, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to change it for my son. Now 4 years old, he should be running around a playground, perching on Santa’s knee, and playing with his cousins — not sitting through yet another painful, hourslong chemo infusion. If the treatment weren’t necessary to save his life, I’d bust us both out of the hospital, Bonnie and Clyde-style.

Of course, I never saw this coming, but I am deeply grateful to my younger self for planning on FIRE. Without that, I couldn’t focus on my son’s health now. It’s an incredible privilege, one I don’t take for granted. Far too many families are worrying about rent and groceries. At the same time, they’re caring for gravely ill children. It’s not right. I can confidently say that the stress is fully bad enough without money coming into it.

Perhaps even more ironically, I now dream of returning to work someday — to a “normal” life where I have the time and space to write again, and my son is healthy and happy.