Cancer Survivor Sammie Jo Porter Making Emotional Swim Across America Again

Samantha Johanna (Sammie Jo) Porter, now age 24, was only 11 years old when she woke up with a swollen eye, which most would think at that age, that she had gotten was something in her eye and it would be a relatively easy solution to solve.

However, after multiple doctor visits, a CT scan showed a pea-size hole in her left orbit and a diagnosis of Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH). LCH is a rare, cancer condition where immune cells build up and form tumors or damage tissue, bone and organs. Sammie Jo didn’t let this devastating diagnosis stop her. An avid swimmer and child athlete, Sammie Jo was successfully treated and kept swimming throughout her medical issues. In 2011, after emerging successfully from her treatment, she joined the cancer fundraising efforts with Swim Across America.

This year, Sammie Jo is once again participating with Swim Across America – in Atlanta for the September 23, 2023, Swim Across America Atlanta open water swim, held at the Lake Lanier Olympic Park in Gainesville, Georgia. This 11th annual Swim Across America Atlanta event benefits the Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where Sammie Jo works as a neonatal ICU nurse. Hundreds of swimmers and volunteers, as well as Master to Olympic swimmers participate in the annual event. Those interested in swimming, volunteering or donating can do so at swimacrossamerica.org/Atlanta. There are ½-mile, 1-mile and 3-mile swim lengths available, or those who prefer to participate virtually can do so through the Swim Across America My Way program.

“Through thick and thin, you just have to keep your head up,” noted Sammie Jo. “When I got my original diagnosis as a child, it was almost like a ray of sunshine in the dark tunnel because the doctors finally figured out what was wrong with me. But at the same time, I had to have major head surgery and that was scary.”

Sammie Jo ended up with an incision from ear-to-ear, had a layer of her skull shaved, which was then used to repair the hole in her orbit. She and her family lived in Texas at the time and her first Swim Across America event after her recovery was in Dallas.

“I got involved in Swim Across America a year after I fought bone cancer,” said Sammie Jo. “I grew up swimming competitively, so when I heard that this open water swim was taking place in Dallas, I thought it was the perfect fit. While in college at Mizzou, I also participated in the Swim Across America St. Louis event. I didn’t realize then that this organization, shortly after, would become my family and I wouldn’t change that for the world. I’m now so honored to be helping run the Junior Advisory Board for the  Atlanta swim and on the Swim Across America Associate National Board!”

In high school, Sammie Jo swam for Lakeside Aquatic Club and was the 2015-2016 Scholastic All-American. At the University of Missouri, she was on the swim team where she was a stand-out ranked swimmer in the 100 and 200 free and won multiple event titles and received an All-American honorable mention as a sophomore as part of the Missou 400 relay team at the NCAA Championships. Sammie Jo graduated in the spring of 2021 from the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing and happily accepted her dream job as a neonatal ICU nurse at Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Swim Across America Atlanta’s local beneficiary.

Upon arriving in Atlanta, Sammie Jo knew she wanted to continue swimming and volunteering with Swim Across America, so joining the Atlanta swim was a natural.“I was a recent college graduate working my first job and had a lot of energy and passion for helping raise awareness and funds to fight cancer,” noted Sammie Jo Porter. “I wanted to try to use my experience with swimming – and with cancer – to motivate other young swimmers to get involved.”

Sammie Jo dove right in and signed up to help spearhead the Swim Across America Atlanta Junior Advisory Board, where close to 20 middle and high school teens from throughout the Atlanta area work on specific fundraising programs for the swim, as well as swimming themselves. Sammie Jo also joined Swim Across America’s National Associate Board as a junior member.

Throughout the years, Sammie Jo Porter has raised more than $20,000 for crucial cancer research with Swim Across America. She has participated as a swimmer and volunteer at Swim Across America events in Dallas, Charlotte, Seattle St. Louis and Atlanta.

Established in 2013, Swim Across America Atlanta has raised more than $3 million for its local beneficiary the Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and each year welcomes more than 1,000 swimmers and volunteers to help make waves to fight cancer. The Atlanta swim is also known as the “Olympic swimmer super bowl,” as numerous Olympic swimmers, including Craig Beardsley, Carlton Bruner, Maritza Correia McClendon, Nei-Kuan Chia, Hali Flickinger, Missy Franklin, Geoff Gaberino, Andrew Gemmell, Doug Gjertsen, Bobby Hackett, McClain Hermes, Katie Hoff, Joe Hudepohl, Janel Jorgensen McArdle, Kristy Kowal, Kara Lynn Joyce, Steve Lundquist, Megan Neyer, Heather Petri, Ramon Valle, Neil Versfield, Shannon Vreeland, Daniel Waters, Amanda Weir, Ashley Whitney, Peter Wright, Eric Wunderlich, and Paige Zemina are often in attendance each year, along with Paralympic swimmers Mallory Weggemann, Hannah Aspden, and McClain Hermes.

Nationally, Swim Across America was founded in 1987 with its first open water event in Long Island Sound. Since that time, the nonprofit organization has raised more than $100 million to fight cancer. In its 36 years of making waves to fight cancer, more than 100,000 swimmers and 150 Olympians have swum the circumference of the earth three times, uniting a movement to fight cancer that has created a groundswell of support spanning all generations. Today, more than 24 communities hold open water swims and hundreds of charity pool swims each year, from Nantucket to under the Golden Gate Bridge, which support innovative cancer research, detection and patient programs.

Swim Across America’s funding of clinical trials for patients helped contribute to four FDA approved life-saving immunotherapy cancer treatments: Yervoy, Opdivo, Tecentriq and Keytruda. In June of last year, a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering was published in The New England Journal of Medicine that showed a 100 percent success rate in treating patients in a phase 2 clinical trial for advanced rectal cancer with dostarlimab, an immunotherapy treatment produced by GlaxoSmithKline. The clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering was funded by early-stage grant funding from Swim Across America. More than 60 scientific grants are funded each year and there are now ten dedicated Swim Across America Labs at major institutions including: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, John Hopkins Medicine Atlanta, Rush University Medical Center Chicago, Baylor Scott & White Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center in Dallas, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York, Infusion Center at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and San Francisco, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, The Swim Across America Pediatric Research Lab at Columbia University Medical Center New York, and The Swim Across America Laboratory at Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine.

To learn more about the Sammie Jo Porter, Swim Across America Atlanta Island open water swim on September 23, or register to swim, donate or be a land or water volunteer, visit swimacrossamerica.org/atlanta.

— The above press release was posted by Swimming World in conjunction with Swim Across America. For press releases and advertising inquiries please contact Advertising@SwimmingWorld.com.