Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me.

Jim Valvano made remarks like this during his final public appearances after he disclosed that he had metastatic adenocarcinoma. The sentiment aligns with his widely covered 1993 period of advocacy and fundraising for cancer research, culminating in his nationally televised speech at the ESPY Awards in which he emphasized living fully despite illness. In interviews and public comments around that time, he often addressed how people treated him differently once they knew he was sick, and he pushed back against being defined by the diagnosis—insisting his daily outlook and identity remained essentially the same even as his health declined.

The quote insists on continuity of self in the face of a life-altering diagnosis. Valvano acknowledges the public fact of his cancer, but rejects the idea that illness must reorganize one’s entire inner life or daily meaning. The line also critiques the social script that surrounds serious disease—how others’ questions and expectations can pressure the sick person to perform either tragedy or inspiration. Valvano’s emphasis that “nothing is changed for me” is less denial than defiance: a claim to agency, normalcy, and dignity, and a reminder that a person’s values and way of living can remain intact even when circumstances become extreme.