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Erin Cummings: I have been a cancer survivor for most of my life

Erin Cummings/LinkedIn

Dec 24, 2024, 00:34

Erin Cummings: I have been a cancer survivor for most of my life

Erin Cummings, Founder and Executive Director of Hodgkin’s International, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“That Girl.

I’ve often tried to remember what I was like before I had cancer, but it’s getting harder now.

Maybe my memory is going. But if it is, it’s because I have grown old, and that’s something I never thought would happen.

The truth is, I’ve been a cancer survivor for most of my life- for 52 of the past 67 years. It’s pretty much all I know.

And, for the record, I don’t mind the word survivor.

It’s an apt term for all the reasons that I’m still here.

I do think about the girl that I was before cancer- before I learned life could turn on a dime, and for no reason.

That girl was guileless, intrepid, and hopelessly optimistic. She had great plans for the future. None of them included cancer.

Her body was still whole- no missing parts, no artificial replacements. The only scar she had was a small one, barely visible over her right eyebrow, from falling out of her highchair when she was two.

She had not acquired the zipper from her staging laparotomy, an impressive line resembling a tiny railroad track that ran from her sternum to below her navel.

Or the twin horizontal lines where her nipples used to be. She had yet to lose her hair, her fertility, her breasts, and, at times, her sense of self.

That girl had no idea that she would be tested, time and time again, and for decades. She also could not have known that the challenges of cancer would, ironically, miraculously, make her life richer.

I certainly don’t wish cancer or its aftermath on anyone. There are lessons that I would have preferred not to learn, at least not this way. But there is no doubt in my mind that, as a long-term survivor, I have gained far more than I have lost.

I want to give a shout out to the many survivors I have met over the years. You have inspired me more than you know. Most of all, you have reminded to keep That Girl in my heart.

Thank you.

Here are just a few: Stephanie Gayhart, Xenia Rybak, Samantha Siegel, Alique Topalian, Amanda R. Ferraro, Mark Haseloff, Anastasia Forrest, Rachel Gingold, Peter Wolf, Carmen Monge-Montero, Rick Czaplewski, Marielle Santos McLeod, Brett Wilson, Amber Spierer, Chloe Baldwin, Natasha Steele, Lou Lanza, Tricia Hernandez, Kimberly Richardson, Joe Bullock, Sheilagh Foley, Lisa D. T. Rice, Veronika Panagiotou, Sandra Fields, Cora Fahy, Tamron Little, Stacy Hurt, Kathy Washburn, Sharon Rivera Sanchez and Loretta Herring.”

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