Kate McCormick
Family member
La Pine, OR
Biography
Kate is a long-time resident of La Pine, where she has lived for about 20 years. Deeply affected by cancer, Kate has lost several family members, including her cousin, aunts, and uncles, to different forms of the disease. Despite her own health challenges, she is a strong and compassionate person. She and her community remain actively involved in supporting local families facing cancer through fundraisers and partnerships with local organizations, reflecting her commitment to supporting others in their times of need and making a positive impact.
An introduction to kate
My name is Kate, and I'm from La Pine, Oregon. I've lived here for about 20 years, and cancer has affected my life tremendously. My cousin passed probably about 20 years ago from neuroblastoma. He fought for three years, and he passed at Doernbecher’s Hospital, which is very near and dear to me. I've had aunts and uncles pass away from breast cancer. My uncle, we just found out about five days ago that he has spindle cancer, and it's in his lungs and has spread to his brain and his intestines, so he doesn't have very much longer to live. It's a very rare cancer, and my mom has a 50% chance of having it and I have a 25. So it's near and dear to my heart, and I appreciate everything you guys are doing — riding across the United States for cancer. It's a beautiful thing to see, and I appreciate it a lot.
Cancer’s effects on family
It's been hard. I think the one thing you don’t know what to do is what to say. You never know what to say to someone, because there’s really nothing you can say that's going to make it better, except for time and knowledge and research. It's going to change the world when they find a cure for this. It's going to be amazing. But it's been, it's been hard, and with my uncle, he's—next to my father—he is the closest man I had growing up. So it's really hard to know that he's going through this and that it's not going to get any better.
Doernbecher’s hospital and local community
My cousin was there at Doernbecher’s. It’s a children's hospital for cancer, and so they were up at Doernbecher’s for years. He fought for probably four years. And we just had a local little boy, Ciara O'Day's little boy, just died a couple days ago from cancer. He was five. He was a local little boy here, the brightest spirit you would ever see in a child. And he fought — so incredibly difficult, so hard — and he lost his battle a few days ago. And I'm thankful he's no longer in pain. He's with the good Lord. But it's hard, it's hard, and we're doing a fundraiser here at the stand for him this week. So we're hoping to help out with his burial cost and everything. We do a lot for the families here in La Pine. If they've got anything going on, we like to donate food to them, or boxes or anything. So we try to help out where we can. We've done fundraisers with Legend Cider Company, which is an amazing cider company here in La Pine, Oregon, and they have been tremendous, doing a lot of fundraisers, and we've been helping them out and donating. So great.
LIFE OUTLOOK
I think my life, the perspective of my life, changed with my own things that I had going on. I have a brain shunt and prosthetic in my back, so I have a few things. I've never battled cancer, but I know if it ever came my way, I would fight like heck, just like all my family members have. To see how much they have fought is really beautiful to see.
“It’s going to change the world when they find a cure for this. It’s going to be amazing.”
A video of Kate’s conversation with the team can be found on our Portraits Project YouTube channel here.