TCS New York City Marathon

I Am Making A Difference with My Miles!

This year, I registered for the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon event as a member of NOCC TEAM TEAL, because I want to raise awareness and funding for National Ovarian Cancer Coalition. Together, we will help raise early awareness and education and help improve the lives of women, families and communities touched by ovarian cancer. Together, we will end ovarian cancer!  Please consider making a tax-deductible donation today in support of my fundraising efforts. 

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My journey with Team Teal began in 2023 with the TD 5 Boro Bike tour. Together we biked 40 miles around NYC raising awareness for ovarian cancer. In November of 2023 I ran the Boston Half Marathon raising even more awareness. I've never felt more connected to such a wonderful community! 

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I decided  to join Team Teal in support of my mom. In July of 2020 she was diagnosed with advanced stage three ovarian cancer that had already spread to her abdomen. Being diagnosed during COVID made it harder for me to visit her frequently and care for her after treatments. After 6 rounds of chemo and major abdominal surgery, she went into remission for almost 2.5 years! Unfortunately, this past summer her cancer came back. We obviously were deeply upset by the news but couldn't be more grateful for the timing with me moving to Boston and being even closer to her to be able to take her of her when needed. Since being re-diagnosed, she has been able to join a grueling clinical trial in Boston. Watching how this year-long treatment has been taking such a toll on her body is incredibly challenging as her loved one and caregiver, but I will do anything to take of her and I would do anything to take the pain away. My mom is the strongest person I know. My whole life it's just been the two of us. She has supported me my entire life and I will do everything to support her. 

**3/16 Update** After six grueling rounds of her clinical trial in Boston, we have recognized that this treatment has been doing more harm to her than good. While her tumor is stable, the treatment alone is practically killing her so we have decided to stop this treatment and find an alternate plan. We're hopeful for this brief time of rest for her body to heal and looking forward to figuring out what the next plan is. 

My mom and I are pretty dark humored people and we have  laughed through the hardest times of her treatment just to help each other get by! Some things that have helped us include my mom naming her original chemo IV pole "Ivanka" and posing with it, sending her a lifetime supply of lotion and chaps tick because that's what google told me to do, joking about her colitis from treatment being a "shitty" situation, and cracking jokes during her infusion appointments.

 

Your donation to the NOCC will go towards early awareness and education, quality of life, community outreach, and research. Early diagnosis and proper medical education on the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer would probably have given my mom an earlier diagnosis. $25 could help provide ovarian cancer educational materials, $50 could help provide a Face of Hope tote bag with helpful resources and comfort items, $100 could help provide one week of freshly delivered meals to a survivor in treatment (a resource that has helped!), and $250 could help provide reduced financial barriers to those in active treatment (another resource that has really helped my mom!)

Know the unrecognized signs and symptoms, spread the word about it, and be your OWN advocate!! For years, my moms PCP in NYC kept telling her that her bloated belly was just excess "visceral" weight that she needed to lose when it was actually abdominal fluid building up from her tumors.  

 Will you support me and the NOCC cause by...

• Making a tax-deductible donation
• Asking for a company match if you are eligible
• SHARE my page and story 
• READ and POST about ovarian cancer awareness at http://ovarian.org/

Thank you so much for your support!!!