Check out our interview with Ethan Zohn below to learn more about this partnership with the Lymphoma Research Foundation. Visit lymphoma.org to find out more about the Lymphoma Research Foundation, as well as make a donation. What has the past year been like for you, specifically dealing with the pandemic? You know, I’m not going to lie. The pandemic, as horrible as it was for the global population, was okay for my wife and me. We live in a little house in the middle of New Hampshire, so we weren’t seeing that many people. We were okay with the lockdown. To be honest, being in lockdown is incredibly similar to going through stem cell transplant. When you get through a stem cell transplant, you have a mandatory 100 days in isolation and a socially and physically isolated lifestyle for a couple of months after that. Throughout my cancer, I was in complete isolation for 260 days. So when the pandemic hit, I was like, “Hey, how long do you want to go?” And my wife’s like, “Oh, we can go a year.” I’m like, “I’m going to go a year, we’re going to stay alive, we’re going to get on the other side of this. And then we can reevaluate what our life looks like.” What has it been like to re-engage with the Survivor fan community after appearing on season 40? The Internet and social media weren’t around on Survivor when I was on the first time. Now that it is, it was a really awesome, welcoming, comforting opportunity. You had instant feedback from the fans. I could communicate with them via social media and Instagram and Facebook. I was selling “Old School Survivor” t-shirts and writing these little “Postcards from the Edge.” Lockdown was beginning right when season 40 was airing. So we were just watching the show and communicating with fans. Normally we’d actually have to go someplace to interact with fans, and now I could just do it for my home. It’s really awesome and fun. You were diagnosed with lymphoma at a fairly young age. How much did that change your outlook on the years you would hopefully have ahead of you? I got lymphoma at what I would say was a pretty comparatively young age. Lymphoma is the leading cause of blood cancer in adults and third amongst children. Every five minutes, someone is diagnosed with lymphoma; it’s about 101,000 people per year. I actually got diagnosed for the first time when I was 35 years old, which is a little bit late in theory. But it’s a whole host of different issues. When you are surviving pediatric cancer, you’ve got your parents, insurance; things are taken care of. If you’re an older adult, you’re pretty much set in your life. You’ve got a wife; you’ve maybe got kids. But when you’re a young adult, and then you survive cancer, you’ve got your whole life in front of you. You’re thinking about your fertility, money issues, finding a job, marriage, kids. There are so many things that a young adult cancer survivor has to face that are different than the other populations. For me, it’s always been really important to support young adult cancer and raise awareness about the challenges we have. And that’s why I’m so excited to join forces with the Lymphoma Research Foundation. As an ambassador, it’s my role to be a bit of an inspiration to other people facing the diagnosis. And also to let people know about all the incredible things the organization is doing. They’ve got support programs, they’ve got educational stuff. They’re doing incredible amounts of research. It’s a really rewarding opportunity. It’s obviously tough to go through cancer treatment, and it’s made that much harder by being in a pandemic. Do you have any precautions Luckily, I didn’t go through my lymphoma cancer diagnosis when a global pandemic was going on. However, I understand what it’s like. You need to take extra precautions, and you need to be present in every moment. There’s a fear that sets in as not only someone who’s going through a pandemic, but then you also got cancer on top of that, and blood cancer. It’s just a scary situation. And it’s a whole lot of stress on top of an entirely stressful situation. No one wants to go through a pandemic and have cancer at the same time. So the risks are there. And it’s unfortunate. I want this thing to be over already. Do you have any resources for anyone who wants to find out more about how to help the Lymphoma Research Foundation and cancer patients during the pandemic? First of all, the Lymphoma Research Foundation has an entire page about cancer patients, blood cancer patients, and COVID. So if anyone is looking for some information, definitely hit up the website at lymphoma.org. But I just highly suggest everyone gets vaccinated. Speak with your doctor first as well, but for me, I did choose to get vaccinated. Having that extra layer of protection for me, in addition to the masks and not seeing people, just adds a layer of confidence. How do you look upon the importance of cancer research today? The acceleration of vaccines in the past year has shown how much technology has recently advanced from a medical perspective. When I was 14 years old, cancer came into my home and took my dad away from me when a stage two colon-rectal diagnosis turned terminal. In the 20 years from my dad’s diagnosis to when I was diagnosed, so much incredible work has been done in cancer research. If my dad were diagnosed today, he’d still be alive, hands down. Now, obviously, we have different cancers. But growing up, my only connection to cancer was through my dad. So to me, cancer equaled death. When I was first diagnosed, I was totally flipping out and scared. And then I got better, and everything was good. But then I relapsed. And when I relapsed, that’s when [expletive] hit the fan. That’s when I was running out of options; I didn’t know what to do, where to look. I was praying, I was, you know, doing alternative therapies, I was just looking for some way to move forward in my cancer journey. Lucky for me, at that exact moment in time, this new smart, targeted therapy emerged on the market. It was available for a select group of people in my exact situation. I just think about this because some person was in the lab someplace studying this exact moment. This drug I was on was only used for people who failed an autologous stem cell transplant after chemotherapy and radiation. And this drug wasn’t even curative; it’s just to get me into remission again so I could get on to get a second stem cell transplant. That’s how specific and narrow and fragile that moment was for me. When I work with organizations like the Lymphoma Research Foundation, which is investing a significant amount of money in cancer research, especially blood cancer research, the work that these doctors are doing is saving the lives of real people like myself. If people donate to the Lymphoma Research Foundation, what exactly are they donating to? September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month. And earlier, it was World Lymphoma Day. So I’m obviously encouraging everyone to get involved if they have the means to make a donation. And if you’re wondering where your donations are going, it’s inside me. It’s swinging around the bodies of a lot of other people out there as well. A lot of people are hesitant about cancer research, saying it doesn’t do anything and you never see where it ends up. This is where it ends up. If you put a face to cancer research, I am a walking science experiment right now. There’s no way in hell I was supposed to be healthy enough even to play Survivor season 40 back in the day, so I’m a miracle. Has this past year, and September being Blood Cancer Awareness Month, allowed you to look back on your own journey in a different way? I was watching old clips of Winners at War, of course getting pumped up for Survivor. And I look back, and I can’t even believe it. Where I was in 2009 and where I am today, it’s a different person. It’s a different life. You’ve heard of survivor’s guilt. I’ve lost a lot of friends, too many. Losing them and thinking that they didn’t make it just motivates me to keep doing what I’m doing and to keep fighting for as long as I can. I obviously don’t know everyone who has died of lymphoma, but I know what they and their families went through. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure other people don’t have to go through the same crap that I went through—whether that’s being an ambassador, running a marathon, or showing up on Survivor. To share this story to share this message of hope and inspiration. One of my roles here is to provide inspiration to some other folks who are going through a similar thing right now. All of this shines a light on lymphoma and all the incredible, creative, innovative fundraising that they’re doing for lymphoma research. It makes the future brighter for all of us. On that note, what was your reaction to the way your time in Winners at War was received? I know there was an outpouring of support for you telling your story to a national audience. Luckily, I got out of the game unscathed in terms of doing something really bad to someone else, or backstabbing or lying or cheating. So in that sense, it was a good experience for me. Many people are reaching out to me because they saw me out there, and they or a family member had been through cancer. So it was a really rewarding experience. It made it worthwhile for me to go out there and talk about my story. People have reached out saying, “Because I saw you here or there, I went to see the doctor because I had the same symptoms. And I was diagnosed with lymphoma.” Playing some role and helping other people get diagnosed, or helping them manage their cancer care, makes it worthwhile to share the details of your life. The details of my life can help other people out there. Next, here’s everything to know about season 41 of Survivor.
