The first time Eric McElroy knocked on Zach Jenkins’ door, Jenkins was not in the mood to chat.
Zach Jenkins, left, and Eric McElroy are cancer survivors who met at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago where they walked the halls together. Though their days of walking the halls are over, the friends continue to meet up to talk about their care and update each other on their lives.At age 25, he had recently been diagnosed with leukemia. While he was still absorbing this, he was on the 15th floor of a Northwestern Memorial Hospital building, preparing to undergo chemotherapy.
As a fitness coach when he was hospitalized, McElroy made sure to pace the hallways. He got out of his room as often as he felt able to; he was never in bed before 7 p.m. Throughout what often felt like parallel journeys — chemotherapy treatments, checkups, stem-cell transplants — McElroy and Jenkins shared conversations around treatment plans and commiseration around side effects.
After the appointment, McElroy met him outside on a sunny Streeterville corner. He too had received positive bloodwork results the day prior. He hopes to be in remission soon. Because McElroy lives in Manteno and Jenkins in Bloomington, they don’t often see each other and they try to meet up downtown surrounding appointments.
“I was still trying to process in my head what was going on and what I faced ahead,” Jenkins said. “At that point, I was really scared.” After that initial meeting on the 15th floor, McElroy started inviting Jenkins to walk the halls. Nurses and doctors would see them circling the halls at whatever pace was possible. They’d invite other patients to join what they called a “mobile support group.”Even after they were discharged, their legacy remains with the clickers nurses added to the walls to help patients track their steps.
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