First Published:
12:29 PM PDT, July 29, 2022
Imagine swiping to meet someone — not for a date, but to connect to another cancer patient.
Christina Merrill, the founder and CEO of the Bone Marrow & Cancer Foundation, came up with the idea for CancerBuddy, which is an app that pairs cancer patients with other patients, survivors and caregivers.
“I was on a dating app and I saw this incredibly functionality of how it matches people and thought, ‘I need to do this for the cancer community,’” she told Inside Edition. “It really helps patients who are so terribly isolated and alone during a very scary and frightening time to have that support of another person who has had the same experience.”
Ethan Zohn won season 3 of “Survivor,” but eight years later, at age 35, the otherwise healthy marathon runner was diagnosed with a rare form of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
He told Inside Edition that when he got the news of his diagnosis he was “incredibly scared, frustrated, confused and I thought I was going to die.”
“All I wanted to do is connect with other people that may be going through a similar thing at the same time, but I couldn’t,” he said.
Now, he is an ambassador for CancerBuddy.
“Due to HIPPA rules, if you’re sitting in a hospital going through cancer and there’s someone down the hall you could connect with, the nurses can’t tell you, so an app like CancerBuddy can connect you based on your likes, your geographical location, your cancer diagnosis, other interests. that’s, like, huge!” he explained.
