Erica Lafferty considers herself a tireless advocate, but lately she’s been tired – exhausted, even.
The daughter of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the principal killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Lafferty has devoted her life since the tragedy to fighting for change, frequently sharing her trauma and rarely turning down an interview request hoping she can play a part in reducing or eliminating gun violence in the U.S.
That public grief was on full display over the last year. First, her name topped the list of plaintiffs in the highly publicized defamation trial against right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose lies about the shooting, Lafferty says, led to threats against herself and her family. Then, months after the trial’s conclusion, Newtown marked the 10-year anniversary of the attack.
Exactly one week later, a routine medical exam revealed a new challenge: a diagnosis of stage 2 orbital lymphoma. A malignancy behind her left eye has spread to her lymph nodes.
“The hits just keep on coming,” Lafferty, 37, told Connecticut Public in a Zoom interview on Wednesday, the day before the start of intensive radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
“There's been no rest period, I'm just exhausted,” she said, noting she now requires a walker to get around and has moved her living quarters to the ground floor because of difficulty with stairs. “And I'm exhausted going into two really aggressive treatments that are going to further exhaust me.”
Because of the radiation, Lafferty says her treatments will require her to spend weeks totally isolated from her fiance, stepchildren and their five dogs.
“So I'm going to be at my sickest with no help whatsoever,” she said. “I did take a pretty aggressive approach on this because, quite frankly, I don’t want to die.”
What’s more, she says, is that her insurance doesn’t cover her treatment. Earlier this month, she launched a GoFundMe campaign.
“I’m literally crowdfunding for my life right now,” she said.
On Friday, the campaign surpassed its goal of $60,000, which Lafferty said her care providers gave as a “conservative” estimate for out-of-pocket medical costs. But that doesn’t include other expenses.
“I can't use a toothbrush more than once” because of the radiation treatment, Lafferty said. “I can't use a washcloth more than once. I have to throw away bed sheets. I have to, you know, get new pillows. So there's like all of these things that, like, even if I had this [health savings account] with a ton of money in it, that wouldn't be covered.”
While the cancer itself is a heavy burden, Lafferty said, it’s experiencing the financial vagaries of the American health care system firsthand – and knowing she, in a grim way, is privileged to have a platform – that’s activated her advocate instincts.
“What happens to people who don't have name recognition?” Lafferty said. “What if I wasn't the Sandy Hook principal's daughter? What if I couldn't call people and have a story written about me? What if nobody wanted to talk to me on the radio? What happens to them?
“December 14th of 2012, I learned that I was an advocate. And I think my cancer diagnosis gave me a whole new world of things to fight for.”
