It seems as if Summer Hagy of Sartell was born to fit her first name, what with her cheerful, sunny-bright and optimistic disposition.
Hagy, a cancer survivor, is anything but a quitter. No autumn gloom for her, no wintry despair. Energetic and determined, she fought and she beat breast cancer.
At the recent Relay for Life cancer fundraiser in Sartell, Hagy took time to share her personal story with the Sartell Newsleader.
On June 26, 2014, just one day before she was set to go on an ocean cruise, a medical check-up found the cancer, which her husband had suspected. It was Stage 2A, a lower stage, but – as with any cancer – any stage is serious and frightening.
“I’d had a complete physical just six months before my diagnosis and nothing showed up at that time,” she said. “It’s a good thing my husband suspected it might be cancer.”
Hagy underwent 33 radiation treatments at the CentraCare Coborn Cancer Center in St. Cloud.
Although the breast cancer is gone, she is continuing occasional chemo treatments because she discovered she is genetically susceptible to cancer, the same kind of genetic predisposition faced by movie actress Angelina Jolie.
Like many other cancer survivors, Hagy, her husband, relatives and supporters did a lot of walking on the Sartell Middle School track during the all-night Relay for Life June 5-6. Their walking team is dubbed “Team Hagy.”
Hagy works at the American Heart Association as a youth-marketing coordinator. Her husband, Jeff Hagy, is a sales manager for Rasmussen College in St. Cloud.
Hagy’s advice for anyone diagnosed with cancer is this:
“Share your story with someone. Find someone good to share it with. Then get connected with a solid support network. In my case, I did a lot of blogging about my cancer and learning about it through blogs. I still do a lot of blogging and sharing my story helps a lot of others.”
Dalman was born and raised in South St. Cloud, graduated from St. Cloud Tech High School, then graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in English (emphasis on American and British literature) and mass communications (emphasis on print journalism). He studied in London, England for a year (1980-81) where he concentrated on British literature, political science, the history of Great Britain and wrote a book-length study of the British writer V.S. Naipaul. Dalman has been a reporter and weekly columnist for more than 30 years and worked for 16 of those years for the Alexandria Echo Press.