Being diagnosed with cancer is a challenging experience on its own, but when coupled with a pre-existing disability, it presents a unique set of obstacles and considerations. The intersection of these two health conditions can significantly impact treatment options, access to care, and overall quality of life.
In this presentation, Susan Magasi, PhD, FACRM delves into the complexities individuals face when navigating cancer treatment while managing a pre-existing disability, exploring both the practical challenges and the need for tailored support and resources. As an individual living with a neuromuscular disease, a full-time wheelchair user, Mindy Henderson, shares her knowledge and perspective of unique complications and factors to be considered before, during, and after treatment, when an individual with a primary disability receives a cancer diagnosis.
Mindy Henderson
Vice President, Disability Outreach & Empowerment
Muscular Dystrophy Association
On a mission to leave the world a little better than how she found it, Mindy strives to help create a world where inclusion is the norm, where people see possibilities instead of limitations, and where no challenge is too big to overcome.
Driven to build a world that welcomes and includes EVERYONE, Mindy is a powerful leader in disability/ability rights, with specific interests in accessible air travel, universal design, inclusive style and better representation for the disabled community in the media, and entertainment. A popular motivational speaker (giving her first speech at the age of four as the Texas State Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association), Mindy’s mission is to show up as an example of positivity, hope, bravery and possibilities, and to help individuals to own their adversity, to stop making excuses, to see their fullest potential and to give them the tools to reach for it.
Mindy is the Senior, Director, and Editor-In-Chief of the national Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Quest Media platform including the magazine, blog, and podcast. The Quest mission is to empower the neuromuscular disease community – and the broader community of individuals with disabilities – to live their lives to their fullest potential. Engaging thought leaders in conversations that matter and that move the community forward, content is intended to inform, educate, inspire and entertain.
Named a 2022 “Woman of Influence” by Success Magazine, Mindy is also the host of “The Truth About Things That Suck” podcast, guest contributor of “Morning Motivations” on CBS Austin’s “We Are Austin” lifestyle morning show and was recently named an “Austin Woman to Watch” by Austin Woman Magazine.
In the spirit of living a life without limits, despite her significant physical limitations, Mindy has also accomplished: • Multiple singing appearances on national television • A CD recorded with George Strait’s musicians accompanying her • A trip to one of the least wheelchair accessible countries on the planet, spending two weeks there, and visiting three different cities to adopt her daughter…after the government of that country told her that her disability made her unfit.
Mindy’s passion for making the impossible, possible, is contagious…and she’s not finished yet!
Susan Magasi, PhD, FACRM
Professor and Head of Occupational Therapy
University of Illinois Chicago
Susan Magasi is a professor and head of occupational therapy at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is passionate about issues of health and participation equity for people with disabilities. She works closely with the disability community using an equity-focused, community-based participatory approach to help understand and break down barriers to primary and cancer care for people with disabilities via peer support and self-management-based interventions. She is increasingly adapting these interventions for remote delivery via smartphone-based apps.
