Claim:   E-mail requests prayers for Cindy Hogman, a 32-year-old woman battling cervical cancer.

Status:   True.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2002]

My name is Gary "Nick" Hogman, Some of you receiving know me, some do not. My wife Cindy is 32 years old and has just been diagnosed 3 days ago with stage 4 cervical cancer and her chances for survival are very slim. She was pregnant with our second child and had miscarried at 5 months and now we know why. This is a request for you to forward this email to everyone you know asking for prayer. The more people that pray for her to be healed the better. Pray and forward. It only takes a second to hit forward. Please do it and don't delete this, your prayer will save her life. Please pray and ask everyone you know to pray for the HEALING of Cindy, removal of all cancer in her body so she may enjoy all that life has to offer, and to continue to be the wonderful mother to our 5 year old son Michael. The power of Prayer is unsurpassed. I want the whole world to have her in their prayers the next few weeks. God will hear our cry. Please do not be offended by my plea. This is only a request for your help. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and helping with our quest for healing, no words can express how much power we have when we do a little extra to come together. Regards, Cindy's in love husband. Gary

Origins:   Back in June 2001, Gary and Cindy Hogman of Bedford, Texas, had just endured the loss of the baby Cindy had been carrying when a pulmonary embolus took her back into the hospital. It was then they learned Cindy had cancer and that the outlook was not good.

Gary was moved to e-mail his plea for prayers to a handful of friends and to ask them to forward it to others. Such was the power of the Internet that it was only a matter of days before his heartfelt request had spread far and wide. Cindy Hogman was battling cancer and had a grim road ahead of her as she began chemo and radiation treatments. Gary said of his wife, "She has endured so much and is the strongest person I have ever met," and requested that people help her to be stronger by finding some time in their busy schedules to direct good thoughts her way.

According to a note from Cindy's husband, as of February 2002, Cindy's cancer was in remission. Although her oncologist warned that Cindy was at risk for reoccurrence of the cancer, as of this writing Mrs. Hogman remains free of the disease.

As so often happens in cyberspace, however, the oudated message lives on, circulating in countless versions with all sorts of permutations in the spelling of the Hogmans' surname and the location of their home town. Some examples gleaned from the introductory paragraphs of this message over the years:

• This is a prayer request from a young man that works at the First Union bank in Orlando, FL. Everyone please pray for his wife.
• My name is Gary Hogan, some of you receiving know me, some do not. I live in Eden, North Carolina and I attend the Osborne Baptist Church.
• My name is Gary Hogan, member of Christ the King parish in Topeka
• This is a request for prayer from a family at Riverpointe Church in Sugar Land, TX. My name is Gary Hogan, Some of you receiving this know me, some do not.
• This plea for prayer comes from a young man at the North Point Community Church of Atlanta, GA.
• This is a prayer request from a guy that works at First Union in Walton County, GA

One version, which hit the Internet in February 2004, also misspelled the couple's last name as 'Hogan' and, after it was forwarded by a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq, was erroneously assumed to refer to a husband serving overseas while his wife battled cancer at home:

Subject: Fw: Prayer Request

PLEASE read this. IT MUST BE TERRIBLY DIFFICULT TO BE IN IRAQ WITH A SICK WIFE AT HOME.

Bobby S. Briggs, MSgt, USAF
823 ESFS/SFOC
Flight Sergeant

BAGHDAD AB, IRAQ

Tough times don't last... Tough people do !!!

My name is Gary Hogan. Some of you receiving this know me, some do not.

My wife, Cindy, is 32 years old and has just been diagnosed 3 days ago with stage 4 cervical cancer and her chances for survival are very slim. She was pregnant with our second child and had miscarried recently at 3 months, and now we know why. This is a request for you to forward this e-mail to everyone you know asking for prayer. The more people that pray for her to be healed, the better. Pray and forward. It only takes a second to hit "forward".

Please do it and don't delete this, your prayer will save her life. Please pray and ask everyone you know to pray for the HEALING of Cindy, removal of all cancer in her body so she may enjoy all that life has to offer, and to continue to be the wonderful mother to our 5 year old son, Michael.

The power of Prayer is unsurpassed I want the whole world to have her in their prayers the next few weeks. God will hear our cry. Please do not be offended by my plea. This is only a request for your help.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and helping with our request for healing. No words can express the power we have when we each do a little to come together.

Regards, Cindy's in-love husband - Gary

Thank you, and please send it to the far reaches of our world.

Even into late 2006, versions of this prayer request were still circulating widely enough to cause difficulty for a Canadian man living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and sharing the name Gary Hogan:

The phone won't stop ringing at the home of a Fredericton man who shares his name with a soldier named in an e-mail that has been making its way across the country.

Gary Hogan and his partner Michelle Millen moved to Fredericton more than a year ago, and since then, their phone has been ringing at least five times a week with callers asking for a woman named Cindy.

Millen says at first, she believed the calls were just wrong numbers.

"I had noticed a lot of the calls were coming from different places like Ontario and stuff. They weren't coming from around here, so I also thought maybe this Cindy Hogan had just moved to the area as well," she said.

But Millen says the conversations began to get a bit stranger. Callers would tell her they were praying for Cindy.

Someone else called to say they had natural cures to offer.

Then she found out about the e-mail. The chain letter is supposed to be a plea from a soldier serving in Iraq named Gary Hogan. He asks readers to pray for his wife, Cindy Hogan, who has just been diagnosed with cancer.

The letter says the couple lives in Fredericton.

Millen says she's considered getting an unlisted phone number. "You know, I don't mind, but it does get you wondering, is this phone call for me or is this going to be for Cindy?"

Additional information:  

      Facts About Cervical Cancer

Last updated:   26 November 2006

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  Sources:

    CBC News.   "E-Mail Hoax Leads Callers to Wrong Number."

    24 November 2006.