DVC swimmer Lauren McCullough dies at 21

By John Hickey
jhickey@bayareanewsgroup.com

Lauren McCullough, the 21-year-old Diablo Valley College swimmer who brought the war against childhood cancer to a wide audience by chronicling her battle with the disease in a blog, died Monday in Roseville.

Her parents, Deanne and John McCullough, used the blog,www.thenotdyinggirl.com, to announce that McCullough passed away Monday morning at Kaiser Roseville.

Services are yet to be determined.

McCullough, the subject of a Bay Area News Group profile in December at http://tinyurl.com/l45dpzu , first was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a malignant cancer that attacks bone and soft tissue just after graduating Elk Grove High.

The disease went into remission for 13 months, during which McCullough, a wrestler and swimmer in high school, was able to spend a season swimming for DVC.

Once the disease returned, McCullough began writing about her experiences both living with cancer and living her life on her blog.

"I decided I want people to be aware, really aware, of early childhood cancer,'' she said at the time. "I'm making that the purpose of my being on this earth. People think `It will never happen to anyone I know.' I didn't know anyone who had until I got this the first time.''