About : Profiles

Meet Rod Johnson, 43-year-old Hodgkins lymphoma survivor
Married

Date of Diagnosis:
1986 (at age 23)

Treatment:
Chemotherapy, radiation therapy

Cancer was difficult because:
During my treatment, I was focused on one thing – getting well. When I finished treatment and was declared OK, I suddenly realized I didn’t know what I was going to do next.

Good things to come out of my illness:
It was the best experience of my life. The world stopped for me and I got a chance to figure out what I was doing. I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I have a limited number of days and I want to do what’s right and what’s important. I try to be the person who I want to be and who I would otherwise be afraid to be. When other people have an illness in their family, I’m helpful and a good listener.

Most important pieces of advice for someone diagnosed with cancer:
1) Get second opinions on everything
2) Take charge of your illness
3) When you get a cancer diagnosis, remember that the next morning, you will get up and live. You are not dead yet. You only have a disease that you have to deal with.

Why I joined MoveThroughCancer:
I’m so far out from my cancer experience that I’ve put the pieces of the puzzle together and can be beneficial to others. I joined as a MTC walk leader.

How MoveThroughCancer changed my life:
I get more out of this than anyone and I’ve progressed a lot from where I was before. I’ve never run 6.2 miles before in my life – the Texas Roundup was my first 10K. Others in the group are funny, they’re positive, and they’re not afraid of talking about their illnesses or showing their scars. Their attitude is, that while it was a scary thing, cancer does not rule their lives. It’s an amazing thing to be in a room of people who’ve had the exact same experience sitting in the doctor’s office, getting a diagnosis. They have similar attitudes as me – “I’ll beat it and if I don’t, I’m going to live until I’m dead.”