“It gives me so much hope”: Local woman fighting cancer meets President Biden before “moonshot” speech

BOSTON (CBS) – As President Biden told a Boston audience about his “Cancer Moonshot” plans to cut cancer deaths in half in the next 25 years, Heather Walker was in the audience, having just met the President of the United States.

“Absolutely amazing,” she told WBZ. “The fact that he took the time to say hello and come in here…it was absolutely remarkable. It gives me so much hope.”

She feels that hope because she suffers with Stage Four glioblastoma, the same brain cancer that took President Biden’s son Beau.

“It’s been awful,” the mother of two daughters said. “I can’t see out of my right eye right now. It’s blurry. I’m constantly… I did a clinical trial and there were shots injected into my body all over, you know? That didn’t work.”

Walker had reached the pinnacle of her career when she got the diagnosis. “You know, I’m the vice president of the Boston Celtics,” she explained. “And I’ve been working hard my whole life waiting for that day when I could retire or do something other than work and I’ve got glioblastoma stage four that can kill me any minute.”

Despite the devastating cancer journey, Heather leads her life with positivity. She has a social media trend #MoveForHeather. She rode in the winter Pan Mass Challenge ride and raised over $300,000. She continues to inspire, living life for her husband Steven and daughters Taylor and Samantha. “I’m really hopeful that this is going to work, and we are going to be OK and I’m going to live you know?”

President Biden’s plan that he unveiled in Boston has a goal of cutting cancer deaths in half in the next 25 years through advanced research and increased communication among health professionals.

“I am very impressed with the detail and understanding what the problems are in cancer research,” Dana Farber researcher Dr. Lewis Cantley told WBZ. “I think this will be the biggest challenge for ARPA-H [the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health] is implementing a change in culture so that we share more information and share advances and everyone has access to the best technology.”

Heather Walker, too, hopes this initiative is successful: not only for her but for generations of cancer patients after. “Cancer doesn’t belong here anymore. It doesn’t. It needs to be cured. It’s ridiculous that it’s still here,” she said.