Greg Donahue shares a true story of athletic ambition, a cancer diagnosis, and the unbreakable will to survive, proving that unexpected battles can be overcome.
NEWPORT BEACH, CA, UNITED STATES, June 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — At twenty-one, Greg Donahue had everything in front of him as a small-town kid on the verge of making it as a professional baseball player. Then came one word that changed everything: cancer. In I Can Do This: From a Childhood Dream to a Fight for Survival (Gatekeeper Press), Donahue recounts how a sudden lymphoma diagnosis stripped away the dream he’d spent his entire life chasing, and how the discipline, grit, and relentless will forged on the baseball field became the only weapons he had left.
I Can Do This bridges two worlds that rarely meet: the discipline and relentless determination of competitive sports and the raw, life-altering reality of a cancer diagnosis. Donahue’s story is a deeply human memoir about ambition and loss, fear and faith, and the people who show up when everything falls apart. For anyone who has ever had their life upended by something they didn’t see coming, it is the rare book that makes you feel less alone.
Nearly one in three people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, yet few accounts capture what it feels like to face that reality at twenty-one, with everything still ahead of you. As Donahue writes: “Although cancer can do many things, it cannot shatter love, kill friendships, erode faith, destroy hope, silence courage, or jeopardize eternal life.” For athletes, survivors, and anyone whose life has taken an unplanned turn, I Can Do This offers something most books in this space cannot: hope grounded in the hard truth of someone who lived it.
“I want to show that cancer is not a death sentence. It’s a word, not a sentence,” said Donahue. “Through determination, mindset, and relentless will, I am living proof that people can overcome it. My path is the path I had to discover on my own at twenty-one, and my hope is that by sharing it, I can spark belief in others and empower them to keep pursuing their own. WE ALL CANCERVIVE.”
About the Book
Title: I CAN DO THIS: FROM A CHILDHOOD DREAM TO A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
Published by: Gatekeeper Press
Format: Paperback & eBook | Adult Nonfiction / Memoir
ISBN (Paperback): 9781662967658
eISBN: 9781662967665
BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs | HEALTH & FITNESS / Diseases / Cancer | SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball
About the Author
Greg Donahue grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island, where he graduated with honors from Westerly High School in 1972, voted Most Athletic and Wittiest by his classmates, and named First Team All-South County in both baseball and basketball. He went on to play for the Fort Lauderdale Baseball School Phillies, competing in the National Baseball Congress Tournament and coming within a single phone call of signing with the New York Yankees. At twenty-one, a lymphoma diagnosis ended his playing career and forced him to fight a very different kind of battle. Drawing on the same discipline and refusal to quit that defined him as an athlete, Donahue survived, and spent decades building a life with renewed purpose before finally telling his story. I Can Do This is his debut memoir. He is based in Newport Beach, California.
Greg Donahue
gmd636@yahoo.com
Gatekeeper Press
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