Cancer of the Heart

Cancer is a vicious disease that affects everyone, somehow. It doesn’t have to be in you to kill you. It eats away at your heart and your soul – and it questions every determined bone in your body. It will beat you down in ways you never expect, and challenge every emotion you can possibly feel. Every form of cancer, to the people around it, is cancer of the Heart.

A mere mention of the word takes your legs out from under you – and you spend the next how many years of your life trying to find them again. You read up to get informed of the latest procedures and medications, you run races that raise money for the fight, you even wear a plastic bracelet so you never forget for a breathing moment who you were before the disease entered your life and who you are now because of it. And you will never be the same.

I went for a run the other day – it was 45 degrees and raining. I get asked if I’m crazy or if running is worth being cold and wet. Crazy – maybe – worth getting cold and wet - absolutely. Running is my way of feeling alive, and for even a brief moment, in control. It has always been my escape, for better or worse. I get asked how I can put myself through the screaming pain in my knees, doesn’t it hurt? Every freakin’ step I take! But feeling pain is a hard way to know that you are in fact still alive.

When I lost my Mom to cancer this year – I lost my desire to do the one thing I loved more than anything - running. Yet another important part of my life this disease took from me. The passion, the desire, and the heart were all so distant from that point on. Mom was gone and running just seemed too sad for me. We had gotten into a routine that I looked forward to every day. Now there would be no more texts before a run and calls after to tell her how I did or how I felt. No more sending her cool pictures of me at the finish line of a race or running in a field of snow on a beautiful Winters day. No more hearing her say “Oh sweetie just be careful you don’t push yourself.” I was afraid that my mind would wander off and think about Mom and her pain and suffering over the years and how there was nothing I could do because I overwhelmed myself with hopelessness.

Hope is a cruel word – you can survive on it until the results you wanted don’t arise and then you dwell on being hopeless because it’s easier. I can’t cure disease and I can’t magically take away all the pain it causes. Therefore, all hope must be lost. But in the end, being hopeless actually takes more energy than having hope, and giving hope to others.

So with a heart, that has been damaged and kicked around by cancer, I am finding HOPE again. I have to – for Mom, for the husband she lost, for my aunt who is currently suffering, and for the mothers of some of my dearest friends – Mama Saslow, Mama Pastor, Mama Karp, Mama Feldman –  for all of them I will run; hot, cold, rain, or snow – I will do it because cancer doesn’t take a break when it’s raining or when it’s too cold out to feel your hands, it never stops…It never takes a break…

This Sunday I will run, the appropriately named, Race for HOPE in honor of Dorothy Feldman and anyone else fighting a brain tumor. It’s because of her strength that I will find my strength within again and run this race with pride. And I will do it with many loving thoughts of my Mom. I will find my passion for running again, because that is where my heart is happy, and my heart will not steer me wrong. Not after all it has been through.

Looking into the faces of the people in the crowd and all of the participants at these races, I see what HOPE looks like. And understand why we all need it and that we can never lose it.

We all need to push through the sadness and self pitying that cancer puts you through and find a race or a walk near you to participate in – donate online – wear a plastic bracelet – believe that one day cancer will not tear apart our hearts and continue to take away the ones we love.

By reading this, you have been affected by cancer.