Lindsey Miller – “I am a liver”

If you don’t know who Lindsey Miller is, you’re missing an inspirational story from a bunch of angles.  

For starters, she describes herself in an Inspire interview in the following manner: “The most common words terms that are used to describe people who have or have had cancer are “patient” or “survivor.” You don’t hear as often of people having chronic cancer--at least, I don’t. I am both a patient and a survivor, but I don’t want to call myself a patient forever because that sounds exhausting. And I don’t necessary feel comfortable with the term “survivor” either. I have been through chemo and surgery, and while I’ve survived through them, there’s no end in sight, so I don’t attach the same meaning to saying that I’m a survivor. So I prefer to say I’m a “liver,” as I’m just living my life with disease.” (Her disease is neuroendocrine cancer.)

The interview is terrific. Here’s a link: http://www.inspire.com/groups/american-brain-tumor-association/journal/the-inspire-q-and-a-inspire-talks-with-lindsey-miller/?ref=as&asat=68908699

And, by the way, through social media she became well known as the young woman who made a video to ask actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on a date. She did so in late 2011 after seeing Gordon-Levitt in “50/50,” a movie about a young man with cancer. I also like the movie, although I didn't ask Joseph out on a date...I'm a happily married man. (I wrote about the movie in this blog posting: http://johnstumor.blogspot.com/2011/11/movie-5050-and-pre-operation-jitters.html) 

According to Inspire the 38-second YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa8X56fKzYQ - got over 400,000 views, surprising Miller, and thrusting her into a media spotlight. The unexpected wave of publicity has prompted Miller to take on a role to raise awareness about pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, and to speak out for people with rare diseases.

And, of course, The Huffington Post, wrote about the request: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/lindsey-miller-cancer-joseph-gordon-levitt_n_1095150.html