Erica Porter, also known as former WOW Champion Jungle Grrrl, candidly speaks about her battle with breast cancer.
Jungle Grrrl has been involved with WOW – Women’s of Wrestling over the years, but her cancer diagnosis forced her to step away from competition.
Speaking with Mike Johnson of PWInsider, Jungle Grrrl opened up about her battle with cancer.
“I was diagnosed in June of 2020, and I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, which is not curable, but it’s certainly treatable,” Porter said. “I have never waited in life for my hand to be forced into enjoying life and to really, there’s not a single one of us that is born with an expiration date on the bottom of our foot saying, okay, on this day you will expire. Every single day is a gift. And I have lived my life that way since I was a teenager, really.
“I did the things that I wanted to do. And I think it’s really important to control the aspects of your life that you can control. And I think that in doing that, then we never really fall victim to anything that happens in our lives. We make a decision that we are either going to be an individual that allows the world to impact them, or we are going to choose to impact the world. And so when I received the diagnosis, yes, it was overwhelming.”
Jungle Grrrl Talks The Ways Cancer Battle Has Changed Her Life
Jungle Grrrl continued by describing how this journey has changed aspects of her life. She described how she is on medication now, and she also detailed the emotional side of the battle. Jungle Grrrl explained how connecting with others is an important part of the process.
“Yes, it changed a lot of aspects of my life and mostly because now I was in and out of doctor’s offices have to do scans every three month,” Jungle Grrrl said. “I’m on medication now, which I never took even a vitamin before, but I’m on medication every single day. So that change is just a small piece of the inconvenience of it. But really in receiving that diagnosis, what I realized is that there’s really a gap in the medical system, and that is that the doctors treat the disease and they’re not really treating the whole person.
“What I found is that as an individual that’s receiving a diagnosis, you feel as though you are relinquishing all of your control to the medical community. It’s really important for especially someone like me who likes to be in total control, to have an aspect that is mine to control and movement. Self-care is every person’s to control. I mean, movement is powerful, and it’s not just the physical piece of it, but it’s really important what movement does for us emotionally and how it connects us to what is possible.”
Jungle Grrrl Continues To Persevere
Jungle Grrrl was also asked to describe how she is feeling today. She admitted that the process has come with its challenges, as she went through intensive chemotherapy and continues to take oral chemotherapy.
“It hasn’t come without its challenges. Obviously. When I was first diagnosed, my initial treatment was really aggressive to basically to help with the metastatic portion. So I had spread to my lungs and spread to my bones. So what that meant was intensive chemotherapy and then radiation for the bone metastasis that had happened. And so now I take an oral chemotherapy and I take it every single day. And so it has its challenges, challenges, and with it, there’s fatigue, but also that’s the portion of movement that’s really important. Even though it seems counterintuitive, the more you move, the better you feel and the less fatigued you actually are.”
Jungle Grrrl Continues To Persevere
Jungle Grrrl went on to state that trying to stay positive is daunting, but having support helps. She stated that with community and movement, she feels that anything is possible, and she continues to push forward.
“So trying to get out of that cycle, trying to remain positive and to recognize that there’s still so much that I can control, it’s a daunting process. It’s really important to have a great support network. I think that had I not had the community here in Endorphasm in the gym that I founded in Richmond, Virginia, and my husband and my son and my family, I think it would be a very difficult thing. But I’m also not the type of person that likes to sit back and feel sorry for myself. I like to move forward. And so I try not to live in this space of being a cancer patient. I like to talk about it in the way that it helps other individuals, but it, it’s a difficult process. And of course, things change physically, and I feel different. And there’s days that there are better days and days that are not great. But I push through and I persevere. And with community and with movement, I feel that all things are possible.”
WrestleZone sends Jungle Grrrl our best wishes as she continues her fight against cancer.
