I was diagnosed with cancer during Donald Trump’s first term; I was 35. I spent six months navigating uncertainty, dread and relentless physical pain — chemotherapy, needles, exhaustion that words can’t capture.

While I sat in that infusion chair for eight hours a day, five days a week, two weeks at a time, guess who was always on the screens that weren’t monitoring my vitals? Donald Trump. During the worst chapter of my life, there he was.

I never liked him. As a child, I remember laughing with my dad at his ridiculous hair on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” I always thought he was a phony — a reality TV punchline. Sitting there with cancer, watching him spew cruelty, I began to associate him with the disease itself.

I’ve decided to take the necessary civic action of protesting. I can’t describe the belonging and hope I feel when I march. All of the local protests here in Blair County have been peaceful. The only people bringing threats of violence and intimidation are agitators — some armed, even at events where children are present. To those people: We are not afraid of you. Your guns don’t scare us. Violence won’t stop us from exercising our First Amendment rights.

Chemotherapy is painful, uncomfortable — but necessary. Protesting is the same.

As a cancer survivor, I’d also like to add that I find Trump’s recent comments about President Joe Biden’s diagnosis inexcusable. Cancer taught me that empathy matters. Community matters.

Jeremy Green

Duncansville