“I thought I had COVID, but I had cancer”

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

When Dalton Cummins came in for an interview for a nursing position on the oncology unit at Riley Hospital for Children, the nursing team greeted him with hugs and jokes about his hair.

A bit unusual perhaps, but not in Cummins’ case. That’s because he was returning to the same hospital and the same unit where he was a patient just a few years earlier.

Cummins, a two-time cancer survivor, joined the nursing team on 5W in July and recently finished orientation. His preceptor was none other than Carol Hayden, his primary nurse during long stretches of his treatment.

“He was very, very sick,” Hayden recalled. “I remember several trips to the ICU when we really weren’t sure he was going to make it.”

Cummins was first diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in May of 2020, the early height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then 19 and in his first year of college, he was coughing a lot, and his manager at work encouraged him to get it checked out.

“I thought I had COVID, but I had cancer,” the now-24-year-old said. “It hit hard.”

It was because of COVID, however, that he went to the doctor and learned of his cancer diagnosis early enough for effective treatment.

“If it wasn’t for COVID, I wouldn’t have figured it out,” he said.

Cummins, who originally thought about becoming an athletic trainer before his sister steered him into nursing, underwent months of chemotherapy while keeping up with his classes.

“It was an interesting process because I was already going to be a nurse, and then I got first-hand experience,” he said. “I grew up pretty fast.”

The former Mooresville High School varsity basketball player was in otherwise good physical shape, and even though he was 19, his doctor advocated for him to receive his treatment at Riley.

In September of that year, he started the first round of another chemo regimen, but things did not go according to plan.

“I remember I went home on a Friday, and on Sunday, I didn’t tell my mom that I didn’t feel great because I’m a Ravens fan, and I wanted to watch the game so bad.”

The last thing he remembers about that day was going to the emergency department and ending up in the PICU at Riley, where he remained for the next 25 days.

Doctors said he had a 10% chance of survival.

But Cummins had more to do in this world, including using his experience to comfort and treat young patients facing their own cancer diagnosis.

After 3½ weeks in intensive care in the fall of 2020, Cummins was moved back to 5W.

“That first day, I was able to walk to the nurses’ station and back to my room,” he recalled. “The next day, I did a whole lap around the unit, and the third day, I did like 16 laps around the unit. Everyone was stunned that I recovered that fast.”

Unfortunately, after getting the all-clear signal from his oncologist that fall, it was just a few short months before he faced down cancer again. This time, it was Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Once again, he underwent chemotherapy, this time for about three months, before having a stem cell transplant in May of 2021. He followed that up with radiation for several weeks, then a year of maintenance chemo.

Cancer-free for three years now, Cummins is thrilled to be fulfilling his dream of working at Riley. Even walking the same halls or entering the same rooms he did as a patient doesn’t bother him, he said.

“I’ve never had flashbacks. I feel comfortable, and I know I have some way of connecting with every person on this unit.”

He is surrounded by nurses who saw him at his weakest but now get to cheer him on as a colleague.

“There are a lot of the same nurses here,” he said. “And I know if I need anything, anyone will help me.”

Hayden can’t help but be proud of her one-time patient, who towers over her 5-foot frame. Caring for him, she said, made her a better nurse due to all of the complications he had.

She cheered for him when he rang the bell to signify the end of his treatment, and when his mom reached out to see if he could shadow her on the hematology-oncology unit as an aspiring nurse, she naturally agreed.

“It was a humbling experience to be able to orient him as a nurse on our floor after seeing him at his worst and being able to teach him the ropes and push him through,” Hayden said.

“He interacts well with the patients. He can really relate to them. To come on our floor and take care of such a vulnerable population with his history is amazing.”

For her and for him, it’s kind of a full-circle moment. She still remembers when he was a patient who balked at taking his medicine. Now, he can encourage his own patients by sharing his story.

That’s exactly why Cummins knows he’s in the right place, he said.

“I want to use my experience for good.”

Photos submitted and by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org