Nobody’s more excited than Ethan Zohn, 46, for the tonight’s season kickoff of ‘Survivor: Winners at War.’ “I remember dreaming and praying that I'd be alive long enough to play Survivor again,” says Zohn, a two-time cancer survivor, in a recent interview with KCTV5, in Fairway, Kansas. Zohn was 27 when he won "Survivor: Africa” and a $1 million prize.
Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: An Early Symptom
Some eight years later, he was training for the New York City Marathon when he experienced, he told SurvivorNet, "debilitatingly itchy skin." He went to his doctor, and soon learned he had an early symptom of Hodgkin's lymphoma.”
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Zohn went through chemotherapy, radiation and two stem cell transplants. Ultimately, he says, it was an experimental drug that saved his life. But the anxiety of not knowing if or when his cancer will return soon became an ongoing challenge.
Eventually, he tried medical cannabis, which helped tremendously. “Post-cancer, it really helps me with my anxiety. The cancer stuff is always in the back of mind, and the cannabis kind of helped free me from that so I could start feeling like myself and living without so many fears.”
Preparing for ‘Winners at War’
“When I got that call, I was excited about the opportunity — but a little bit nervous because of all the health challenges that I’ve been through,” he says, describing a feeling that’s familiar to members of the SurvivorNet community. “For me to get back to a place where I’m mentally, physically, spiritually ready to go out and play this show — was just a blessing.”
Zohn prepared for months for the new show, which filmed in Fiji, he told KCTV5. “I watched every single episode…I was training, biking, puzzles, reading personality books. I was doing everything in my power [to train].”
This season, the competition comes with a record-breaking $2 million prize. What would he do with the winnings? “I’m a charity guy,” says Zahn who noted that he might use “some” of the prize-money to build an addition onto his house, “for the cats.”
In the end, he notes, “Survivor is a game of relationships; it's how you work with other people, how you interact…that determines how well…you'll do in this game. When it comes down to it, in the end, people want to vote for someone they like.”
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