Patient to Caregiver, Caregiver to Patient: One Couple’s Journey Through Multiple Cancer Diagnoses

Eric and Chrissy Soucy share a lot: two beautiful children, an affinity for golf, careers in real estate (Eric is a full-time realtor and Chrissy is a managing broker). They both love trying new food spots, taking trips to the beach, and indulging their diehard love of Boston sports.

They both happen, also, to be cancer survivors.

When Eric first went to the doctor about some pain he was feeling below the waist, it was dismissed as a symptom of getting older and something he “just had to deal with.” He did, until the summer of 2016 when he noticed a lump.

“I was like, ‘this doesn’t feel right,’ and I remember right away just feeling scared,” Eric recalls. A trip to the urologist quickly confirmed it: he had testicular cancer. Within three days, Eric had surgery to remove the mass, and with a fairly positive prognosis, he elected not to have chemotherapy.

Six months later, scans showed that the cancer had come back, this time in his lymph nodes. A quick surgery suddenly had become eight weeks of chemotherapy. Now faced with an extensive and rigorous treatment plan, the Soucys knew where they needed to be. “When you’re diagnosed with cancer, the first thing you think is, ‘We live this close to Dana-Farber. Why are we not going there?’” Chrissy says. “People fly in for this kind of treatment, and these are world-renowned doctors that we have at our fingertips, which is unreal.”

Living in Southern New Hampshire, Eric was able to receive his treatment close to home at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute – Merrimack Valley, one of Dana-Farber’s six outpatient facilities across New England. And although Eric was scared, having Chrissy by his side made all the difference.

“I’m not medically adept whatsoever, but Chrissy’s mom was a nurse, so she grew up with those medical terms as a second language,” Eric says. “So whenever we had doctor’s appointments or met with oncologists, I was just glazed over, and Chrissy was there taking notes and everything.”

For Chrissy, the role of caregiver was not one she took lightly. She went to every appointment, attended every meeting with Eric’s oncology team led by Pedro M. Sanz-Altamira, MD, PhD, and nursed Eric through an extremely grueling experience with chemotherapy.

“I spent every waking minute with him because if he didn’t make it, I wanted him to know I did everything I could,” Chrissy says. “And if he did make it, I wanted him to know I was there and that we were in this together.”

The Soucys believed their time in the treatment rooms of Dana-Farber was over, until 2023 when Chrissy noticed a lump of her own. A mammogram and follow-up ultrasound revealed she had breast cancer, specifically EP-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer, a diagnosis that came just 10 days before the Soucys’ daughter, Emma, was set to move into college for her freshman year.

“So that was, needless to say, not an easy transition,” Chrissy recalls. “Honestly, I’m glad she wasn’t here for it. She needed to be there, and we needed to be here. And we just kept telling her, ‘This is a speed bump, not a roadblock.’”

Under the care of Antonio Giordano, MD, PhD, Chrissy underwent a lumpectomy and 20 rounds of radiation, while also beginning a regiment of the immunotherapy drug Lupron, which stops the ovaries from producing estrogen in an effort to starve hormone-receptor-positive cancer cells.

The treatment was successful, but during a routine mammogram at Dana-Farber in 2025, a calcified lymph node and an ultrasound led Chrissy’s team to a startling discovery: the cancer had returned, this time in her lymph nodes only, and as EP-negative/HER2-positive breast cancer, the opposite of her original diagnosis.

“Well first, I was in shock,” Chrissy says, “and then I decided I was just going to live in a state of denial because I was leaving for Las Vegas for work the next day. I just didn’t want to tell anybody.”

With a long road of six rounds and four months of chemotherapy, monthly immunotherapy infusions, a double mastectomy this past February, and radiation beginning this month, it was Eric’s time to step in as caregiver. The role reversal was not lost on them.

“You know, during Eric’s cancer treatment, I learned how to be a caregiver and he learned how to be a patient,” Chrissy says, “So when it flipped, we were able to understand each other’s point of view.”

The family would argue that Chrissy is not a good patient, since she still prefers to do everything herself, and Eric would argue he has a lot to be desired as a caregiver, which the family, and especially Chrissy, would deny.

What they both would agree on, though, is that while they may lean on each other, it would be impossible for them to do it alone.

“We have an amazing village,” Chrissy says. “We’re so lucky to have so many people who are willing to lighten the load, let themselves into our house to do our laundry, make dinner, buy gift cards to restaurants, watch the kids, take them to practice, whatever.”

“When people offer help, your first inclination is to say, ‘No, we’re okay, we got it, thank you though,’” Eric adds. “But what we’ve learned is that it’s not just me and it’s not just her that go through it, it’s our family and friends, too. So when people are trying to bless you, who are we to not let them?”

They both recalled a particular example during Chrissy’s second diagnosis, when their group of friends set up a text schedule to send daily messages of love and encouragement to the whole family.

“Some of them were people from our past that we hadn’t spoken to in a long time, and it was just so cool to hear from them and know that we must have had enough of an impact in their life at some point that they wanted to be able to do that back,” Chrissy says.

Now that the most challenging part of treatment is over, the Soucys are able to reflect on the incredible care they’ve received from Dana-Farber.

“Dana-Farber really left a mark on me,” Eric says. “I just remember how kind and gracious the people were that worked there. You never felt like you were bothering them.”

“It’s just so powerful to be in a place that takes so much time and so much money and pours it into their patients,” Chrissy adds. “I was having a really hard time with one of my treatment drugs and my oncologist came back from a conference in Europe and had a whole new plan for us to try. How amazing is that to have doctors that care enough to continue to pour into their field in the ever-changing world of cancer?”

Beyond gratitude, Eric and Chrissy are focused on raising awareness and supporting the very research and treatment they benefitted from in any way they can.

“For me personally, it always goes back to this: if something that we went through is resonating with somebody who’s wondering if they should get checked because they feel something weird, do it,” Eric says. “No matter how innocuous or mundane it may feel, don’t overlook it.”

As far as giving back, they can’t stress enough that every little bit helps.

“I donate a small portion of every sale I make to Dana-Farber because of the support they’ve given the both of us over the years, but you don’t have to be directly affected by cancer to give to the Jimmy Fund, it’s an opportunity for everybody to give back, not only to our area, but to people from all over that come to this area to be treated.

It’s not the amount that’s given; it’s the heart behind it.”

Eric Soucy

Help create more survivor stories like Eric’s and Chrissy’s by supporting Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s lifesaving mission to provide compassionate patient care and groundbreaking cancer research for children and adults. 

Since 1948, the generosity of millions of people has helped the Jimmy Fund save countless lives and reduce the burden of cancer for patients and families worldwide through community-based fundraising events and other programs that solely and directly benefit Dana-Farber. Learn more about how you can get involved at JimmyFund.org, and follow the Jimmy Fund on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram: @TheJimmyFund.