NORFOLK, Va. - There were a lot of noteworthy moments during this year’s Super Bowl.
Alexandra Egress
One commercial in particular will be a part of Alexandra Egress’s life forever. A week before Super Bowl LII, Alexandra received an unexpected call.
She was asked to fly to Minneapolis to film a commercial with Hyundai called the ‘Hope Detector.'
The cause is close to Alexandra’s heart because she was diagnosed with cancer during her junior year at the College of William & Mary.
“I came home from Thanksgiving break and I was hanging out with some friends and I felt a lump on my neck and about two weeks later I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma,” Alexandra said.
Alexandra did not return to school the following semester. She underwent chemotherapy and lost all her hair.
Last year through their Hope on Wheels Foundation, Hyundai donated $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
During the commercial, Hyundai car owners attending the NFL experience were led to a back room after they beeped walking through the metal detectors.
“It turned out it was just a decoy basically to get them into this room to basically watch me and other cancer survivors be able to thank them,” Alexandra said.
The funny thing is, she had no idea she was going to be in the commercial.
Right before it aired, she got a text saying she made the cut.
“All of my friends had their cell phones out and were videotaping the screen and videotaping me and videotaping the screen so that was really cool to see that. We were all screaming so loud we couldn’t hear the words to the commercial,” Alexandra said.
She said being in a Super Bowl commercial was amazing, but thanking a family in person, who helped contribute to her survival was even better.
“It was so cool to be able to thank someone who was a total stranger but we had this connection,” Alexandra said.
This march, Alexandra will celebrate her third year in remission.
