Sara Rupnow, a City College student who battled cancer since the age of 16, died Dec. 14, 2009. She was 19.
Rupnow, who received an honorary degree from City College shortly after her death, died at home of complications from the cancer.
While a sophomore in high school, she was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, which affects the joints in the arms and legs causing large swelling and many of the health complications she experienced—including the amputation of her left leg.
Rupnow didn’t let the disease interfere with her life. She said being in school, interacting with others and feeling productive helped her continue pursuing life.
“When I feel like my life is so unfair and it sucks, I’m able to talk to people who are having a worse time than me and come back and feel like my life is not that bad,” said Rupnow in an interview with The Express, recorded six weeks before her death.
“Doing things day by day and focusing on what I want to do is much more productive instead of thinking of the scary things that happened or will happen to me.”
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“She always looked at her sickness in a positive way and that helped her grow as a young woman and also as a person,” said her father Steve. “It was an honor for us to be her parents. We learned so much from her and we will miss her dearly.”
“She would come to school no matter how bad she felt—to the extreme that her mother would bring her in a wheelchair,” said Anna Joy, City College honors English professor, who had Rupnow in her honors world literature course. “Other students can see how lucky they are to be here and attend because she wasn’t able to complete her education.”
Rupnow had hoped to transfer to UCLA to study fashion design and art. She was an active member in the community, the honors club, a member of Phi Theta Kappa, a powder puff football player, a junior counselor for a summer camp for children with cancer and an avid advocate and fundraiser for cancer research.
She was the oldest child of Carol and Steve Rupnow. Rupnow’s family believes she would want to be remembered for being joyful, but mature person despite her situations.
“I think she would like to be known as someone who was motivated no matter what kind of obstacles life was throwing at her, she was always up to the task,” her father Steve said. “She wanted to be treated as a young woman, to be treated like a regular person that had had some minor setbacks in life.”
Donations in memory can be made in lieu of flowers to Camp Okizu, 16 Digital Drive Ste. 130, Novato, Calif, or to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, 2800 Club Center Dr. in Sacramento. She is survived by parents Steve and Carol, sister Rebecca, grandparents Ray and Joan Rupnow, grandmother Kathleen Conley, her aunts, uncles and cousins.
