Cancer, Sailing & Living to the Limit
by Jennifer Hinkel
Sailing and Cancer are not words found often in the same sentence. In fact, my “cancer life” and my “sailing life” were so contradictory that they seemed to never overlap — hence the beauty of putting the two together and founding a competitive sailing program for cancer survivors.
I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma at 17. I’m lucky in that Hodgkins is considered more curable than many other malignancies, especially if it is diagnosed before it has spread to the bone marrow. My cancer was treated with surgery and six months of chemotherapy; I had to delay college by a year, which I now jokingly call my “gap year independent study in the oncology experience.” In reality, I spent a good part of that year in bed, clinging precariously to life, seriously underweight, completely bald, and vomiting frequently.
When I finished chemotherapy and was declared free of cancer…