DOMINICK WHITTAKER FINDS PEACE IN THE FACE OF OVERWHELMING ODDS
Despite having multiple myeloma cancer, Dominick Whitaker continues to run for the Thousand Mile Club and participate in self-help classes.
Doctors diagnosed Whitaker with multiple myeloma in 2008 during his incarceration at California Men’s Colony. “I’ve been taking chemotherapy and radiation treatment for about fi ve years now and I’ve outlived my survival date,” Whitaker said. “The doctors told me two years ago that I would be dead, but I’m still here.”
Whitaker had a remission and is now going through his second relapse. “It came back and we are going to try a stem cell transplant,” said Whitaker.
“The doctors told me two years ago that I would be dead, but I’m still here”
He said he won’t let his medical problem slow him down. “I am going to keep doing what I was doing prior to when I was diagnosed,” he commented. “When I run, I try to run about fi ve miles at minimum.”
Whitaker’s advice for those diagnosed with cancer: “You can’t give up in your mind and you have to go out and exercise to build up your immune system to fi ght it off. It’s not the end of the world.”
He said his positive attitude “comes from my spirituality. I’m at peace with myself and I’m at peace with death.”
He also advises incarcerated cancer patients to get involved in programs such as “mindful meditation.”
Whitaker ran track and was a wrestler at Union Dale High School in New York.
He also played lacrosse at Syracuse. He recently graduated from the GRIP (Guiding Rage Into Power) program and currently participates in The Last Mile program.
