Fowler Middle School teacher Susan McCormick sat in her sixth-grade classroom for the first time in a long time Friday, looking up at her whiteboard. Nearly all of her 120 students had made a pilgrimage to her whiteboard over the past few months to scribble notes in dry-erase marker saying they missed her, wishing her well, or writing in big blue letters “Go Dodgers” – one of her favorite baseball teams.
“These kids are my medicine,” McCormick sighed, looking up at what she calls her “wall of support” with a smile and wet eyes.
Her other medicine is chemotherapy and radiation to treat her two cancers doctors found last year. Diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer in October and then with pancreatic cancer just weeks later during a PET scan, McCormick has lost her hair, her physical strength and months of seeing her students – but refuses to lose her will to live.
“Currently, I’m a cancer patient, but you can refer to me as a cancer survivor,” McCormick said.
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