Front Page Ynet Story

The popular Israeli (in Hebrew) on-line news website, Ynet, published an article about my dad and me and our journeys with cancer and our participation in the upcoming Jerusalem Marathon. Thank you Jeremy Wimpfheimer, head of international PR for the Jerusalem Marathon, for helping make this article happen.

Here's a Google Translate version.

Cool!

 

אב ובתו חולים בסרטן - ולא מוותרים על המרתון

אריקה לאנג נלחמת בסרטן השחלות. אביה, מרטי, נאבק בסרטן המעי הגס. על דבר אחד שניהם לא מוותרים לאורך חודשי הטיפולים: הריצה. בימים אלו הם מתכוננים לרוץ את מרתון ירושלים. "הריצה משכיחה מאיתנו את הסרטן", הם אומרים

מור אלזון

פורסם:  25.02.13, 08:46

"הייתי עוברת טיפול כימותרפי ביום ראשון וסופרת את הימים עד שארגיש קצת יותר טוב כדי שאוכל לצאת לריצה. לרוב זה היה בשבת בערב, שבוע אחרי קבלת הטיפול ויום לפני הטיפול הבא, הייתי נועלת את נעלי ההתעמלות, מפעילה את נגן המוזיקה בקולי-קולות ורצה. כשרצתי, שכחתי את הסרטן".

אבל לאנג לא ויתרה. כפיזיותרפיסטית היא מכירה את האנטומיה של הגוף ובכל פעם שמיששה את אזור הבטן התחתונה הרגישה שמשהו לא תקין. "אמרתי לבעלי שיש לי תחושה שאני חולה בסרטן השחלות. אפילו היו פעמים שהרגשתי שאני הולכת למות".
בגיל 37 חשה אריקה לאנג שמשהו לא בסדר, כאבי הבטן, הנפיחות ובעיקר העייפות הגדולה אותתו לה שהיא צריכה להיבדק, כמו גם ההיסטוריה הרפואית שלה שכללה גידול לא ממאיר בבלוטות הרוק, שהצריך ניתוח לפני כשנתיים. "ניגשתי לרופא המשפחה", היא מספרת, "ופירטתי בפניו על הכאבים, על העייפות שפשוט היתה בלתי נסבלת, אבל הוא אמר שסביר להניח שהעייפות קשורה בעובדה שיש לי חמישה ילדים קטנים".

אריקה לאנג ואביה, מרטין גרוגין - לא ויתרו על הריצה גם בזמן המחלה

Read the full story here.

Cancer is a Crab

Something phenomenal was revealed to us at the Friday night Sabbath table... It began as a discussion revolving around differences and similarities in Hebrew and English. My husband and our guest, Joules, and our five kids, and I were enjoying a festive Shabbat dinner. We were explaining, to our guest from America, that cancer, in Hebrew, is, "sartan", which is also the same word for the creepy-crawly creature we often see at the beach, otherwise known in English as a crab. Our friend, Joules, mentioned, Cancer the Crab, the Zodiac sign, and my 7-year old son, Zach, had a very profound and serious question.

With a pained and very concerned expression on his face, my son slowly got the words out, "Ema (Mommy), how did the crab get inside your body and make you so sick?"

With the remarkable discovery of a most serious idea, there was a longish pause of complete silence at the table. I had eye contact with the other two adults and we all had the same twinkle of tears in our eyes. In that silent pause, I wondered if my young son had been harboring that thought about an actual crab making me so sick for the past 7 months... and soon discovered that he had. It wasn't too far fetched a notion for his four siblings either. No one laughed. No one moved. Everyone patiently  awaited my answer.

Welcome to Erika's Party

I finished chemotherapy a month ago. Over a week ago, Thursday, I had a CT scan and thank G-d it was normal. I believe I can officially say that I'm in remission. Party time, right?  To quote the respectable website, cancer.org, "Cancer isn’t always a one-time event. It can be a chronic (ongoing) illness, much like diabetes or heart disease. Cancer can be closely watched and treated, but sometimes it never completely goes away. This is often the case with certain cancer types, such as ovarian cancer, chronic leukemias, and some lymphomas. Sometimes cancers that have spread or have come back in other parts of the body, like metastatic breast or prostate cancer, also become chronic cancers."  Not to be a party pooper or anything but I'm NOT taking this morsel of information lightly. I'm going to live like I'm cured from cancer and yet be on guard for the rest of my life. There are no reliable screening tests for ovarian cancer. Some oncologists rely on repeat CT scans and blood tests for the cancer marker, CA-125.  Based on studies like this one, apparently there isn't any benefit to treating ovarian cancer recurrence BEFORE symptoms occur which has some oncologists opting not to order CT scans and CA-125 marker testing. This is the boat I'm in. It's scary to be told that your future monitoring and treatment is based on your reporting (or lack of)  symptoms. If I feel symptoms, my doctors will order scans and blood tests... otherwise I'm free to go.

In most ways I feel like celebrating. I want to publicly thank G-d for the many miracles He gave me. I want to thank my husband, David, for never leaving my side, and my mother for practically moving in with us and caring for me and our children, and my dad, brothers and SILs for dropping everything in their lives to be here for me.  I want to thank my dear friend, Elana G., for her constant friendship and love and organizing our many friends and neighbors generous outpouring of meals throughout my surgery and chemotherapy. I'm thankful for my family in Israel and abroad for their constant love and support and prayers. I have such a warm and embracing community here, in Bet Shemesh, and scattered throughout the Holyland and all over the world! I've never once felt alone! I thank Gaby for bringing me onto the Moon and my Pink Moon Lovelies for welcoming me onto the Moon! I'm thankful for every single person in my "real" and "virtual" life who have taken it upon themselves to pray for me daily. Some of "those on-line strangers" have become my new best friends! I thank my surgeon, Professor B, for saving my life! I thank my oncologist, Professor C, for his constant care and patience that goes above and beyond my expectations. I thank G-d for giving me all of these gifts - the love and kindness that flows without end... and for the biggest gifts in my life, my five children, who I hope and pray I live to see grow up into their own independent people.

I feel like this journey is only beginning... Some people see cancer as a scary monstrosity that destroys and kills everything in its path. Not me. Like all things in life, cancer too is G-d's creation. Why was it sent my way? I don't know but at the very least, cancer is the biggest wake-up call to come into my life. I pray that I live "until 120" though I'm just as content to have THIS day, right now, and hopefully many returns of the day, and I'll leave it at that - for today....

Time will fly whether it's fun or not

"Sweet dreams, pleasant dreams, I love you, good night... I'm just going to close my eyes," I used to call out to my parents every single evening after they tucked me into bed for the night. I was very young when I started saying it - maybe 4 or 5. I was scared that something "big" would happen and they wouldn't want to wake me... so I pretended I wasn't going to sleep... just closing my eyes. The older you get, the quicker time flies. When I was little, my age in the single digits, each year was a lifetime. When a month was an entire "stage" of development, a birthday was always in Forever as was Chanukah and summer vacation. Despite the countless warnings from weathered adults who claimed, "Before you know it...", I quickly devoured 10 years at a time and grew up. Adult is a concept that I still struggle with.

In September and October, only mere months ago, I couldn't skip forward to the image of Future Me, here, now, in the "after". The passage of time should be the photo next to the definition of, cliche. Time flies. I'm excited to have arrived at THIS moment. I can muse again! It's a luxury to daydream and reflect without the cloud of chemotherapy hovering. Going through weekly treatments, you can easily forget what "normal" feels like and when it starts to come back it's exhilarating. My magic is coming back. I want to go go go and never stop. I want to black out the cancer part and just run with everything I've learned on this journey and never look back. Once you have cancer in your life it doesn't pack up and go away. It stays. So, I've learned. There's a chance that I'll never have to treat cancer ever again yet I'll need to think about it all the time. Being a survivor means keeping a constant surveillance and staying on guard, keeping your dukes up and ready. I will not live my life in fear AT ALL... but it's always there. Once cancer comes in, it's there for good and you don't get to turn your back on it. Ever. That's why they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That's how you win on your own terms.

Don't fear what the future might bring and risk wasting the Now. You know how many people have tried to lend me support with, "You never know... you could step of the curb and get hit by a bus...."??? Hmm. Despite being trite and completely the wrong thing to say to a person going through a life-threatening illness... it's pretty accurate! Nobody knows how long they have in this Life. That's the whole truth. Stop wasting time and get on with it! That's my pearl of wisdom at this fine moment. Live, love, learn, and be happy. It's all good... EVEN the bad so don't waste it because someday, in the not so distant future, it has to end. That's not sad... it just is.

Inspiration Documentary

Living sincerely with cancer & inspiring others...


Thanks to my wonder twin Joules for sharing this vid with me.