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
