Agoura Hills Councilmember Linda Northrup Battles Cancer

AGOURA HILLS, CA — This Thanksgiving, Linda Northrup is feeling grateful.

“I wrote in my journal for my friends - as we come into this Thanksgiving, it’s becoming easier for me to embrace every little ordinary thing,” the recently reelected Agoura Hills councilmember said. “If you choose to, in this journey, you can really become not scared - no tomorrow is guaranteed, but it isn’t for any of us.”

The journey to which Northrup is referring is learning, at the onset of a reelection campaign and a crippling pandemic, that she has come down with an aggressive form of breast cancer. To make things harder yet, Northrup also learned that her brother-in-law Rick Nagasawa, who lived in Agoura Hills for a long time with her sister Deb and swore her in for her second term, has been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer.

“He has a short horizon, there’s just no two ways about it - Stage IV pancreatic cancer is something you fight, but it’s hard to beat,” Northrup said, though she noted that he has already lived past doctor’s expectations and credits that with faith and family, the same tools that are helping her. “We’re gonna say our goodbye’s over our iPhones because I’m immunocompromised, and he’s in Idaho.”

Northrup, who has served on the City Council since 2015, says has been buoyed by widespread community support and by continuing to perform her duties on the Council. Since her diagnosis, she has not missed a single meeting.

“I’m finding out I’m stronger than I ever knew, and part of the reason for that is the strength I get from my community,” she said. “The people are stepping up and helping when I need help.” Northrup says that she often finds surprises on her doorstep, like a loaf of freshly-baked sourdough bread, banana bread, or homemade get-well cards.

Northrup is sharing her story because she wants to encourage women to get mammograms, something she says saved her life. She kept delaying hers until she finally decided that even though they’re hardly pleasant, it wasn’t worth the risk of waiting.

“The type that I have is an invasive, aggressive cancer, and there’s really no question that if I hadn’t gone in for the mammogram, it would have continued to grow, and who knows when some portion of that cancer is gonna get out, get into your system and start forming cancers some place else,” she said. “Once it breaks through your body’s protective system and you get to Stage IV, you can still be treated, it doesn’t mean you’re dying tomorrow, but your time is really affected by how soon they catch you.”

After a series of tests and biopsies at Los Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Northrup said that she was “shell-shocked” once she got the final diagnosis in August, but resolved to fight it in any way she could, even if that meant beginning chemotherapy. “My doctor said we can kill this cancer but we’ll have to give you chemo, really aggressive chemo, and I think my doctor was really surprised when I said I welcome that - I welcome the chance that if you think there’s something we can do to kill this cancer - bring it on. Bring it on,” she said.

Northrup got the news just as a fall campaign for reelection to the Agoura Hills City Council was beginning. She still felt up to performing her duties, and after meeting with close family and friends, she decided that while she wouldn’t hide her diagnosis, she wouldn’t broadcast it either.

“Given the stage at which I was diagnosed and the prognosis, which is overwhelmingly for a full recovery, and the fact that I went in strong and healthy, and that even during treatment, I was not feeling impaired, other than saying to people, ‘Hey if you don’t think people with cancer should do things, don’t vote for me,’ I don’t really see how that serves to do anything other than stigmatize something that shouldn’t be stigmatized,” she said.

“If a candidate has high blood pressure that’s controlled with medication, they’re at risk for a lot of other things...at what point do we stigmatize every health condition and say we want people with no pre-existing health conditions when we all know that tomorrow, you could fall down and break a leg,” she continued. “I wasn’t trying to keep it hidden from anybody - lots and lots of people in this community knew, but I kind of wondered what’s the point other than saying, ‘Vote for me because you really like me and I did a great job for you and I have cancer, don’t kick me while I’m down,’ or saying, ‘Oh I have cancer so if you’re worried that I might not be able to serve, then by all means, don’t vote for me.’”

She eventually did go fully public when she heard the distressing statistics that breast cancers rates were down by 50 percent in 2020, and medical professionals were convinced that this was because many people were not getting diagnosed. On Oct. 27, she shared her story in a YouTube video made by Los Robles, and on Nov. 18, she wrote about it on her councilmember Facebook page. Northrup said that several people have told her they got a screening after hearing her story.

Northrup still says that she considers battling cancer her number one job, but has still been able to do most of what she used to, and when she can’t attend a meeting, she receives a briefing. She has still attended every Council meeting, and appreciates being treated normally. She recalled the story of a friend diagnosed with cancer who told her boss that the best way the company could help her was to let her do her job.

“I so got that,” Northrup said. “If I show up, treat me like I’m here to work.... And if I can’t, I’ll tell you. I’ve committed to my family that don’t interfere with job number one, which is beating cancer...I love that they’re letting me show up, treating me like they normally would, and we’re getting stuff done.”

Northrup said that this experience has reaffirmed the reasons why she wants to serve the city she’s called home for most of her life.

“By the time I got to the point where the election was gonna happen, I knew that serving this community that I was becoming even more connected with by the way in which I was being vulnerable, and the way in which people who knew me as a strong, capable person who doesn’t need anything - I’m out there taking care of everybody else, but the way people were stepping up and caring for me, I guess it just redoubled my commitment to do everything I can to support the things that I think are important for everyone in my community,” she said.

So this Thanksgiving, as Northrup zooms with her grandchildren and gifts pile up on her doorstep, she reflects on a journey that’s heightened every part of her experience. “It’s a real roller coaster ride - the tough times are some of the toughest times I’ve ever had to go through in my life, and the blessings are deeper and richer.”