A well-earned badge of honor

A Tampa police officer beats cancer, completes college and realizes his dream of being in law enforcement.

By JULIANNE WU

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 21, 2000

LARGO -- John Manning has been a police officer with the Tampa Police Department for about two months. He graduated from the Florida Police Corps in Jacksonville, which is part of the U.S. Justice Department's Police Corps program, in September.

But the six months of rigorous training were not the biggest obstacle Manning, 23, has had to overcome. He also is a cancer survivor.

"It feels great to be a police officer," said Manning, who lives in Largo. "I feel like I've accomplished my life's dream."

After Manning graduated from Seminole High School, where he was a champion swimmer, cancer was diagnosed in him.

While he was at a swim meet that summer, one of his teammates noticed an unusual mole on his back. It turned out to be a fast-acting melanoma.

The American Cancer Society describes melanoma as skin cancer that generally occur as a result of being in the sun too much. If caught in time, they can be treated and are curable.

After a biopsy, doctors made a wide excision to remove Manning's cancerous mole and tissue around it. Manning was 18.

"My philosophy was just cut it out and get on with my life," said Manning, who had received a swimming scholarship to the University of Massachusetts. "The doctors thought, as I did, they had gotten it all." he said. "And I didn't need any medicine at that point."

After his operation, Manning began his swimming career at Massachusetts, even placing in the top eight swimmers in all New England colleges and universities in the 200-yard freestyle. He also continued his legal and criminology studies.

Eight months later, however, he discovered a lump the size of a large marble under his left arm. He was devastated.

"I looked in the mirror and was pretty disappointed. I certainly didn't need that," he said.

The cancer had returned and it had spread to his lymph nodes.

In the summer of 1996, Manning returned to the Seminole home of his parents, Diana and Walter Manning, and had additional surgery at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. The doctors removed all the lymph nodes from under his left arm, several from under his right arm and some from his groin.

Manning also started taking a medication called Intron A, which he had to take every other day for a year, often making him sick. Despite the setback, Manning returned to Massachusetts as a sophomore in the fall of 1996, determined not to let the cancer slow him down.

In 1997, he transferred to the University of South Florida in Tampa to be closer to home and because he received a scholarship from the Florida division of the American Cancer Society. Under that program, youths diagnosed with cancer before they turn 21 can apply for scholarships to state colleges or universities, generally good for about $2,000 a year plus book allowances.

Manning graduated last December from USF with a degree in criminology and was accepted by the Florida Police Corps.

He continues to visit his doctors regularly but is not on any medication.

When he is off duty from the Tampa Police Department, Manning still volunteers with the Pinellas County Chapter of the Cancer Society.

"From the first time I went to a Cancer Society event, I knew I wanted to give something back for all the ways the society has helped me," Manning said.

For several years, he has served as honorary chairman for several of the society's Relay for Life fund-raising events. Also, he was a camp counselor at Reaching Out to Cancer Kids camp near Orlando for several summers and served as the chairman for a party for about 350 children with cancer last Christmas in St. Petersburg.

Manning also is a volunteer swimming coach at The Long Center in Clearwater and has taken on a new job: raising a puppy for Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc. of Palmetto.

"I want to show people that cancer is not the end of the road," he said. "Those battling the disease can and should go on. They can still accomplish their dreams."

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