In 1994, my dad began a nine-month battle with lung cancer. He was a career Coast Guardsmen, and as a search-and-rescue diver he had discipline and endurance that likely doubled his time fighting the disease. At the time, I had recently fallen in love with Marc, a great man who was fun loving, supportive, and kept me strong through Dad's illness.
Marc was all up for my suggestion to get married in the hospital chapel so Dad could see us wed before he passed. Dad died two weeks after the wedding.
I began my new life with my new husband Marc, in spite of the fact that I had just lost my dad, the one person who always had a look in his eyes that told me "I hung the moon." To Dad, I did no wrong and he made me feel as if I could achieve anything. My husband showed a lot of this same feeling for me and our love grew as did my desire to be a mom. So it annoyed me when Marc developed a nagging sore throat which lingered long enough to thwart my early attempts to become a mother.
After about six months of an HMO restricting us from seeing a specialist, I scheduled one on my own and ran the risk of the bills from skirting around our primary physicians authorization. I can remember the appointment with the ear, nose and throat specialist like it was yesterday; we were sitting in the doctor's office after he had examined Marc, and the doctor left the room to take some notes. As we awaited his return, we sat laughing at Marc's ridiculous jokes and antics; he was always the funny guy. We were relieved he had returned, as we were prepared to finally receive a prescription that would end what we only felt like was a nagging sore throat. I'll probably never recall his exact words … I just know distinctly that the world stopped turning on the disgusting phrase -- late stage carcinoma, possibly basaloid.
I won't bore you with details that are all too familiar to patients and survivors, but I will say that it's very odd to be going in between visits with fertility doctors just before undergoing chemotherapy. We were unwilling to let this stop our dream of having a family one day. Notice I say "we," because you don't get cancer alone -- the patient lives with the fear of death … while the caregiver gets a whole new fear of living … this uncertain future is often frightening and painful.
While Marc was in remission in 1996, after a successful insemination, I gave birth to our daughter Jessica Jade. It was nice to have cancer so far on the back burner that even I was astonished at how quickly you get back to living a normal life after treatment.
When Jessica was three months old, we went in for a routine update for Marc shortly following chest x-rays taken a day or two prior. We were told that Marc had bilateral lungs nodules and only about 6 months to live.
Marc died on February 20, 2000.
Between that time of final diagnosis and death, we fought for survival. I spent long days and late nights applying for clinical studies, I wrote appeals to doctors that were filled with emotion and conviction when they would recommend a course of chemotherapy that might eliminate us from a clinical trial I may have felt we were in the running for. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "Well yes there is another course we can take that is quite similar." Several could not believe I did not study oncology professionally, but there is a higher learning involved when you are on a mission to save one specific patient. I tell friends that if you ever want to see our tax dollars at work, experience health care at the National Cancer Institute at the Nat'l Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md.
And though we found some amazing and advanced clinical trials, they always seemed to fail us by phase three. Our success was that six months became almost three years -- precious days when a dying father is holding his baby.
Watch video of Marc and Jessica.
So how do you recover as a young widow who just lost the two most important and strongest men in her life … YOU RUN! I ran to vent. When I wasn't running, I volunteer coached cross-country at our local high school. And by the grace of God, somewhere in the midst of all this running, a friend invited me to a triathlon and I fell in love with the sport.
It quickly became my dream to host races of my own. Between 2004 and 2008, I launched 10 new multisport events in the Tampa Bay area. On May 10, 2008, we launched the Youth Triathlon Series for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We now are a county, with not one or even two triathlons, for our kids but over half a dozen every month of triathlon season. We have kids battling childhood obesity at every race, and as hundreds of kids race swim/bike/run in Tampa Bay and they are doing it in the LIVESTRONG name.
YTS 2007 Madeira Beach Triathlon
We all have a job to do in our effort to prevent and cure cancer. We can't count on getting treatment at the NCI to give us more time. We can't sit around and wait on earth shattering words to move us! Our vote, as with anyone who puts cancer on front burner of their life, must go to the candidate that will do the most with government funds to support research and prevention. But rather than count on anyone else, I am going to rely on me. And each of you needs to rely on yourselves. You need to be your own best oncologist. What can you do right now, today or tomorrow morning? You can support our effort through the YTS LIVESTRONG initiative. We want to keep our LIVESTRONG giving page active for as long as kids are racing in the Youth Triathlon Series. We will encourage the parents of our athletes to add their child's name to the scroll in celebration of their effort to race against cancer! We want to keep racing, swim, bike and run for cancer and never let down. Perhaps you will join us … you can put your name on scroll of supporters AND then we encourage you to go run! Keep your eye on triathlon where kids from every sport and every background can do what kids love to do: race! If you got up and you just did it … gave or ran in encouragement of us … you R.A.C.E.D – Ran Against Cancer Every Day.
Suzanne Henslee was a runner-up in our Dare to Share Your Story Contest. Watch her video.
You can contact Suzanne by visiting her LIVESTRONG Member Profile.
Also be sure to visit her website Races are Great: YTS.
