Patriots Honor Cancer Survivor Theresa Huck In Pre-Game Tribute

On Sunday evening, the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons will be at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough in a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl. The field will be filled with some of the best players in the NFL.

In this sea of very large men – the average player on these teams on opening night was 6 feet 1 inch, 247 pounds, according to the league – the spotlight will be on a 58-year-old woman who is 5’3” and weighs considerably less.

Her name is Theresa Huck. She is a cancer survivor, and the day will belong to her.

Huck will be one of those being honored by the NFL and the American Cancer Society as part of their “Crucial Catch: Intercept Cancer” campaign promoting early detection and other risk reduction efforts.

“This is not about me,” she tells Patch. “This is about promoting early detection, letting people know that there are steps that they can take; letting them know that they are not alone.”

Huck has been the top volunteer fundraiser for the American Cancer Society of Greater Portland’s Relay for Life Campaign,” which stages walks between three and five miles that raise awareness and funds to fight breast cancer.

In January, 2011, Huck was at a wake for her cousin who had just died of brain cancer. Her doctor called her on her cell phone.

“I knew something was wrong,” she said. “Doctors had originally thought it was strep throat and I had just gone through my third round of antibiotics. No one needs three rounds of antibiotics to get rid of strep.

“On top of that, I was getting this swelling on one side of my neck and while I’d tried to hide it by keeping my head titled, people saw and made me go see a specialist.”

The doctor told her that she needed to come in.

“I thought what am I going to tell my mother?” Huck recalls. “You’ve just buried your nephew and I have some more bad news.

“I knew this was not good.”

It was cancer of the tonsils.

“Whoever heard of tonsil cancer?” she jokes now. “We don’t even have a good color. I think it’s maroon.”

Cancer awareness groups say that burgundy and white represents oral, head, and neck cancers.

Within one month, Huck hadhad her tonsils removed and was on a path that included chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

“It wasn’t the chemo that was tough,” she says. “It was the periods between treatments that were really hard.

“If running to the bathroom was an Olympic sport, I would have taken home the gold. I couldn’t keep anything down.”

Huck says that as tough as things got, only once did she consider whether the fight was worth it.

“I hadn’t eaten, I was depressed, I was weak,” she says. “We talked about a feeding tube but then decided it was not time, that I wasn’t ready for that step. And we managed to get me to eat.”

Huck says that if it wasn’t for her wife, she’s not sure she would have been able to make it through.

“Linda really got me through so many tough times,” she says of the woman she was finally able to marry in 2014 after many years together..

Huck says that through chemo and radiation, the hardest part was seeing people there on their own.

“It was so hard to show up and see people there without anyone else,” she says. “It would make me want to cry.

“I just couldn’t even imagine being in that position.”

One thing that Theresa could imagine was life after treatment.

“While sitting in treatment, you have lots of time to read,” she says. “And one day I started reading about Relay for Life where you walk around the track, raise money and raise awareness.

“I knew I couldn’t do it that year but promised that I would do it the next.”

After six months of treatment Huck was on her way. The next time the event came around, she was on board. And from that moment, she did everything she could to help people, help the organization.

“They know that they can count on me to do whatever they need,” she says.

“Whether it was show up to walk or wearing purple to help promote awareness, they know that they can call me.”

And with each day, she found herself getting stronger, better.

“After my last treatment, the doctor called me,” she remembers. “And I went in, he sits me down, looks me in the eyes and says, ‘You’re good to go.’ And they checked me every 30 days at first. Then every six months. Then once a year.

“It’s now been six and a half years and I’ve been clear.”

Huck, who has worked at Mercy Hospital in Portland, ME dealing with patients and insurance companies, has developed a keen awareness of the effects that illness has on people.

“It’s really hard,” she says. “I just don’t understand why we make it so hard on people at a time they are least able to deal with it. We should be saying to people that they should just worry about getting healthy.

“Instead we make them jump through hoop after hoop, often making it as hard for people as possible.”

It’s a situation that Huck fears will only get worse.

“There are so many people with cancer, survivors, people fighting lifelong battles,” she says, “These are people with pre-existing conditions. What will happen to them?

“Things are going to get very bad very quickly for them.”

Meanwhile, Huck’s journey has taken another twist.

Linda Dufour, her wife, recently retired after a career at the phone company.

“She never had a sick day, never missed a day of work,” Huck says. “Since then, she’s had a knee replaced, her hip replaced.

“And now she has cancer.”

Hodgkin’s lymphoma to be exact.

Linda will be at her side on Sunday in Foxborough.

“All those years that she took care of me, helping me through my tough times,” Huck says, her voice trailing off. “Now, it’s my turn to be there for her.

“And we will get through this together.”

Photo of Linda Dufour on the left and Theresa Huck on the right courtesy of Theresa Huck.